0465012756_FM.qxd:reynolds 2/6/09 1:47 PM Page a PRAISE FOR DAVID REYNOLDS’S SUMMITS “Most historians agree that summits played a central role in 20th- century international relations, but explaining how or why these meetings mattered so much has often proved frustrating. David Reynolds—a Cambridge historian—has now filled the gap with a book that is as penetrating in its overarching analysis as it is rich in detail about individual encounters at the summit: the result is a study in international history at its very finest.” —Irish Times “Behind the narrative lies a muscular analytic mind.” —Sunday Times “Lucid, authoritative account of big-power diplomatic parleys from Munich to Camp David.” —Kirkus “Reynolds had the intriguing idea of examining the conflicts of the 20th century through the lens of its pivotal summit meetings. Given his Cambridge professorship and eight books on WWII and the Cold War (Command of History), the author’s thorough mastery of his subject is reflected in the fluency and assurance of the writing.” —Publishers Weekly “Author David Reynolds takes us on a virtual trek to the summit and back in a book that is as entertaining and eye-opening as it is instructive.” —Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 0465012756_FM.qxd:reynolds 2/6/09 1:47 PM Page b “This is an essential book for a deeper understanding and apprecia- tion of the difficulties and the possibilities of international summitry.” —Lincoln Journal Star “A fascinating look at historical events through this particular lens. ” —Library Journal “Masterly . required reading.” —Spectator “David Reynolds writes with pace and verve . he has given us a fine book.” —Literary Review “Compellingly written . a work of great originality . an impor- tant book, which should change the way we think about the inter- national history of the twentieth century.” —Times Literary Supplement reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page i SUMMITS reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page ii also by david reynolds The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance: A Study in Competitive Cooperation, 1937–1941 An Ocean Apart:The Relationship between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (with David Dimbleby) Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century The Origins of the Cold War in Europe (editor) Allies at War:The Soviet,American and British Experience, 1939–1945 (co-edited with Warren F.Kimball and A.O. Chubarian) Rich Relations:The American Occupation of Britain, 1942–1945 One World Divisible:A Global History since 1945 From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt’s America and the Origins of the Second World War In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt and the International History of the 1940s reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page iii SUMMITS Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century DAVID REYNOLDS A Member of the Perseus Books Group New York 0465012756_FM.qxd:reynolds 2/5/09 5:45 PM Page iv Copyright © 2007 by David Reynolds Hardcover edition first published in 2007 by Basic Books A Member of the Perseus Books Group Paperback edition first published in 2009 by Basic Books All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, extension. 5000, or email [email protected]. design by jane raese Text set in 12.5-point Bembo Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. hardcover isbn: 978-0-465-06904-0 paperback isbn: 978-0-465-01275-6 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page v For my mother reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page vi This page intentionally left blank reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page vii CONTENTS List of Maps ix List of Illustrations xi Introduction 1 1 Toward the Summit: From Babylon to Versailles 11 2 Munich 1938: Chamberlain and Hitler 37 3 Yalta 1945: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin 103 4 Vienna 1961: Kennedy and Khrushchev 163 5 Moscow 1972: Brezhnev and Nixon 223 6 Camp David 1978: Begin, Carter and Sadat 283 7 Geneva 1985: Gorbachev and Reagan 343 8 Summitry as a Way of Life: From the G7 to Bush and Blair 401 Sources and Acknowledgments 437 Abbreviations 441 Notes 445 Index 521 reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page viii This page intentionally left blank reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page ix MAPS 2-1 Germany and its neighbors, 1919-38 39 3-1 Map of Germany and Poland drawn by the State Department for the Yalta conference, 1945 135 4-1 Cold War Europe, 1949 165 4-2 U.S. Information Agency map of Vienna for the 1961 summit 192 6-1 Israel before and after the 1967 war 285 6-2 Camp David in 1978 311 7-1 Villa Fleur d’Eau, venue for day one of the Geneva summit, 1985 369 7-2 The Soviet Mission in Geneva, venue for day two of the 1985 summit 377 ix reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page x This page intentionally left blank reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page xi ILLUSTRATIONS I-1 The final summit 3 2-1 The new diplomacy and the old 53 2-2 Getting the people of Munich onto the streets 91 2-3 The notorious “piece of paper” 95 3-1 The flying statesmen 105 5-1 The perils of chopstick diplomacy 245 5-2 Welcome to Moscow 259 6-1 Carter’s final appeal at Camp David 328 7-1 Fatal attraction? 355 xi reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page xii This page intentionally left blank reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page xiii It is not easy to see how things could be worsened by a parley at the summit. —Winston Churchill, Feb. 14, 1950 It is far better that we meet at the summit than at the brink. —John F.Kennedy, Oct. 1, 1959 It’s always the same with these conferences . The Great Men don’t know what they’re talking about and have to be educated. —Sir Alexander Cadogan,Yalta, Feb. 6, 1945 If great princes have a desire to continue friends, in my judgment they ought never to meet. —Philippe de Commines, c. 1490 reynolds_FM.qxd 8/31/07 10:31 AM Page xiv This page intentionally left blank reynolds_01.qxd 8/31/07 10:30 AM Page 1 INTRODUCTION he term “summit” was coined by Winston Churchill. TSpeaking in Edinburgh on February 14, 1950, in the dark days of the Cold War, he called for “another talk with the Soviet Union at the highest level,”adding that it was “not easy to see how matters could be worsened by a parley at the summit.”What prompted Churchill to apply “summit” to diplomacy is not clear, but the word was popping up in British newspapers because expeditions to scale Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, had resumed in the late 1940s. Repeating his call for “a conference on the highest level” on May 11, 1953, Churchill appealed for a will to peace “at the summit of the nations.” He delivered this speech to the House of Commons while the eighth attempt on Everest was in progress: the summit was finally conquered at the end of that month. 1 The Everest obsession helps explain why Churchill’s metaphor rooted itself in popular consciousness. A conference of the Ameri- can, Soviet, British and French leaders in Geneva in July 1955 was billed as a “Parley at the Summit” by Time magazine, and “summit” was picked up as an official term by the U.S. State Department. Cartoonists portrayed world leaders eyeing a peak or perched un- comfortably on its top (figure I-1). By 1958 the term “summit”had become a heading in the New York Times annual index—a useful barometer of usage—and today it is a routine part of our political vocabulary,with equivalents in many languages.2 Yet familiarity breeds insensitivity. It is worth reflecting for a moment on Churchill’s arresting phrase “a parley at the summit.” The archaic “parley,”much used by Shakespeare, evokes a hazardous encounter between enemies to broker terms. In Titus Andronicus, 1 reynolds_01.qxd 8/31/07 10:30 AM Page 2 summits for instance, the scheming Empress Tamora tells the Roman noble, Aemilius: Go thou before, be our ambassador: Say that the emperor requests a parley Of warlike Lucius3 And “summit” conjures up the heritage of European Romanti- cism—the mountain peak as both perilous and sublime—cele- brated, for example, by the poet William Wordsworth, the novelist Thomas Mann or the painter Caspar David Friedrich.The moun- tain is a place of danger, its “conquest” a moment of personal tri- umph and liberation. In the lines of Lord Byron: All that expands the spirit, yet appals, Gathers around these summits, as to show How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.4 From the top one sees the world in a new and different way, for good or ill, because a mountain is a magical place.