Legacies of détente: a three-way discussionThomas Alan Schwartz is a professor of history at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Along with Matthias Schulz, he is the editor of the forthcoming, The Strained AllianceConflict and Cooperation in U.S.–European Relations from Nixon to Carter (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and is currently working on a biography of Henry Kissinger.

Thomas Alan Schwartz is a professor of history at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Along with Matthias Schulz, he is the editor of the forthcoming, The Strained AllianceConflict and Cooperation in U.S.–European Relations from Nixon to Carter (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and is currently working on a biography of Henry Kissinger.

Abstract

Participating in this discussion about détente with two respected friends and scholars, both of whom have authored significant books about the subject of my current research, Henry Kissinger, compels me to confess that I have been strongly influenced by their work, and that this discussion threatens to be repetitious and even dangerously in agreement! Nevertheless, having been invited by Noam Kochavi to comment upon and discuss some of the big issues in the historical assessment of détente, I will let fly with the hope that what I have to say does not seem too commonplace or predictable. If nothing else, I promise to take a position on the issues that Kochavi has encouraged us to confront.

Notes

Thomas Alan Schwartz is a professor of history at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Along with Matthias Schulz, he is the editor of the forthcoming, The Strained Alliance Conflict and Cooperation in U.S.–European Relations from Nixon to Carter (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and is currently working on a biography of Henry Kissinger.

 [1] Suri, Power and Protest.

 [2] Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe.

 [3] This does not mean that American liberals suddenly saw the Soviet Union differently, or lost their abhorrence for the methods of a Communist police state. In the recently published journals of Arthur Schlesinger, a man whose viewpoint epitomized Cold War liberalism, Schlesinger records a generally pleasant evening in December 1969 with Soviet Ambassador Yakov Malik. That is, until the Ambassador asked him whether ‘the future of the United States was fascism’. Schlesinger responded, ‘Well, we haven't yet reached the point of sending our best writers to labor camps.’ He wryly added, ‘[Malik] did not pursue the subject further.’ Schlesinger, Journals 1952–2000, 318.

 [4] Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 138–9.

 [5] FRUS 1969 –1976, Vol. 1, 3.

 [6] FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 1, 50.

 [7] Radio Address, 13 October 1968 quoted in Kaplan, Long Entanglement, 151.

 [8] Kissinger, Troubled Partnership, 4.

 [9] Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, 223–37.

[10] FRUS 1969–1976, Vol. I, 60.

[11] Kissinger, White House Years, 110.

[12] FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 1, 62–3.

[13] Memorandum of Conversation, Dobrynin and Kissinger, 12 June 1969, in Soviet–American Relations: The Détente Years, 1969 –1972, 64–5.

[14] FRUS 1969–1976, Vol. I, 137.

[15] Hook and Spanier, American Foreign Policy Since World War II, 154–5.

[16] National Archives, (NA)Nixon Presidential Materials Project (NPMP), National Security Council Files, Box 489, Dobrynin/Kissinger 1969 (Part II), Memo of Conversation, Kissinger to Nixon, 20 October 1969.

[17] Memo, Kissinger to Nixon, 16 February 1970, quoted in FRUS 1969–1976, Vol. I, 153.

[18] Kissinger, White House Years, 530.

[19] NA, NPMS, NSCF, Box 684, Germany Vol. VII, Meeting with Egon Bahr, Memorandum, Kissinger to Nixon, 20 August 1970.

[20] Van Dijk, ‘Ostpolitik and Détente’.

[21] Brandt, A Peace Policy for Europe. I am relying here on the evidence and arguments in Lippert, ‘Richard Nixon's Détente’.

[22] Kissinger's Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 19 September 1974, reprinted in Kissinger, American Foreign Policy, 158–9.

[23] Lippert, ‘Richard Nixon's Détente’, 173.

[24] Kochavi, ‘Insights Abandoned, Flexibility Lost’.

[25] Gaddis, Cold War: A New History, 195–7.

[26] Henry Kissinger interview, Transcript, 13 October 1974, Department of State Bulletin, Bureau of Public Affairs.

[27] Selvage, ‘Recognizing the Soviet Sphere of Influence?’

[28] Stoessinger, Henry Kissinger, 8

[29] Noble, ‘Kissinger's “Year of Europe”’.

[30] Hilfrich, ‘West Germany's Long “Year of Europe”’.

[31] Noble, ‘Kissinger's “Year of Europe”’.

[32] Noble, ‘Kissinger's “Year of Europe”’

[33] Monroe and Farrar-Hockley, The Arab–Israeli War, October 1973.

[34] Kissinger, Crisis, 66.

[35] Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 713.

[36] Hilfrich, ‘West Germany's Long “Year of Europe”’.

[37] Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 720.

[38] Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 726.

[39] Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 733.

[40] NA, NPMS, NSCF, Box 322, Memo, Sonnenfeldt to Kissinger, ‘US–EC Declaration: Next Steps’, 26 October 1973.

[41] Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 718.

[42] Möckli, ‘Accepting Europe's Identity’.

[43] Kissinger, Years of Renewal, 605.

[44] Noble, ‘Kissinger's “Year of Europe”’.

[45] Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 746.

[46] Oxford University, Bodleian Library, Papers of Isaiah Berlin, Letter, Peter Ramsbottom to Isaiah Berlin, 14 April 1976. I owe my copy of the letter to Dr. Rajesh Roy, who kindly drew my attention to it.

[47] Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Brent Scowcroft Papers, Box 11, Memorandum of Conversation, Kissinger and Ford, May 1, 1975.