Détente and human rights: American and West European perspectives on international changeJeremi Suri is a Professor of History and Director of the European Union Center of Excellence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of three major books: Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente (2003); The Global Revolutions of 1968 (2006), Henry Kissinger and the American Century (2007)

Jeremi Suri is a Professor of History and Director of the European Union Center of Excellence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of three major books: Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente (2003); The Global Revolutions of 1968 (2006), Henry Kissinger and the American Century (2007)

Abstract

Observers of international relations frequently assume that human rights challenge realpolitik. This article shows that in the context of negotiations about European security in the early 1970s, the two went hand-in-hand. Despite significant transatlantic differences, Americans and Europeans conceptualized human rights as products of the Cold War, and principles for assuming more order and stability in the international system. Human rights discussions and agreements were not designed to end the Cold War in the 1970s. This analysis challenges assumptions about the absence of human rights in détente, and the alleged connection between the Helsinki Final Act and the Revolutions of 1989. The anti-Cold War quality of human rights activism in the 1980s was not present a decade earlier.

Notes

Jeremi Suri is a Professor of History and Director of the European Union Center of Excellence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of three major books: Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente (2003); The Global Revolutions of 1968 (2006), Henry Kissinger and the American Century (2007)

 [1] Author's interview with Henry Kissinger, 26 October 2005.

 [2] For the strongest and most influential statement of this position, see Kagan, Of Paradise and Power. See also Kupchan, The End of the American Era; Reid, The United States of Europe.

 [3] Vortrag des Leiters des Presse- und Informationsamtes des Landes Berlin, Egon Bahr, 15. Juli 1963, in Dokumente zur Deutschlandpolitik, 9 (Frankfurt am Main: Alfred Metzner Verlag, 1967–87), 573; Bender, Neue Ostpolitik; Risse-Kappen, ‘Ideas Do Not Float Freely’, 195–202.

 [4] Henry Kissinger, ‘The Permanent Challenge of Peace: U.S. Policy Toward the Soviet Union’, speech delivered in San Francisco, California, 3 February 1976, reprinted in the Department of State Bulletin 74 (23 February 1976), 204.

 [5] On this point, see Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect, 260–90; Suri, Power and Protest, 226–58.

 [6] See Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 379–402; Gaddis, The Long Peace, 215–45.

 [7] See Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, esp. 138–248; Suri, Power and Protest, 7–43. Thomas Schwartz persuasively argues that President Lyndon Johnson deeply and consistently pursued a policy of détente in Europe. Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe.

 [8] On the connection between power politics and the humane treatment of citizens for Kissinger, see Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, 16–51.

 [9] Henry Kissinger, ‘The Moral Foundations of Foreign Policy’, speech delivered in Bloomington, Minnesota, 15 July 1975, reprinted in the Department of State Bulletin 73 (4 August 1975), 167.

[10] See Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, 197–248.

[11] In addition to their contributions to this forum, see Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe; Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect.

[12] See Wenger et al. , Origins of the European Security System; Thomas, The Helsinki Effect; Evangelista, Unarmed Forces; English, Russia and the Idea of the West. I made a similar criticism of American détente policies in Power and Protest, 260–63.

[13] Kissinger, Diplomacy, 757.

[14] This is a crucial point often missed in the literature on human rights. Writers presume continuity in the essential conceptualization of human rights after 1975. They also refuse to give Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher credit for supporting human rights in important ways. Two exceptions to this scholarly blindspot are Gaddis, The Cold War, 195–236; Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind, 338–450.

[15] See Morgan, ‘North America, Atlanticism, and the Helsinki Process’.

[16] Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 379–402; Wenger and Suri, ‘At the Crossroads of Diplomatic and Social History’, 1–42. Vojtech Mastny shows that the reconceptualization of security in 1963 did not extend into a serious acceptance of détente between the United States and the Soviet Union. See Mastny, ‘The 1963 Nuclear Test Ban’, 3–25.

[17] For a clear description of Ostpolitik in these terms, see Egon Bahr, draft article for Christ und Welt, February 1965, Box 9B, Egon Bahrs Nachlaß, Archiv der sozialen Demokratie, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Bonn. See also Suri, Power and Protest, 216–26.

[18] Kissinger, ‘NATO: Evolution or Decline’, 118.

[19] Kissinger, ‘NATO: Evolution or Decline’, 118

[20] Kissinger raises many of these issues, in particular the controversy over alliance burden-sharing, in his memoirs. See Kissinger, White House Years, 81–86, 147–150. Nixon and Kissinger also faced strong US domestic pressure for a reduction in American military deployments on the European continent. The Mansfield Amendment, proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield to enforce a fifty percent cut on American deployments through congressional legislation, brought these domestic pressures to a head in May 1971. See Oberdorfer, Senator Mansfield, 387–91.

[21] Memorandum of Conversation between Anatoly Dobrynin, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Malcolm Toon (Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs), White House, 17 February 1969, Folder: USSR, Memcons Dobrynin/President, 17 February 1969, Box 340, NSC File, Richard Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National Archives, College Park, Maryland [hereafter Nixon Papers].

[22] Henry Kissinger to Richard Nixon, 15 February 1969, Folder: USSR, Memcons Dobrynin/President, 17 February 1969, Box 340, NSC File, Nixon Papers.

[23] Notes from Conversation between Michael Palliser and Henry Kissinger, 19 December 1968, PREM 13/2097, Public Records Office, Kew, London [hereafter PRO]. Kissinger returned to his long-standing belief that the major European states should develop a larger and more effective independent nuclear force. Most of the American documents on this topic remain classified. See the extensive British documentation on this subject, PREM 15/1357, PRO.

[24] Transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with Anatoly Dobrynin 28 July 1970, Henry A. Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcripts, Nixon Papers [hereafter HAK telcons].

[25] ‘Basic Principles of Relations Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’, 29 May 1972, reprinted in The U.S. Department of State of Bulletin 66 (26 June 1972), 898–99.

[26] Henry Kissinger, News Conference, Kiev, 29 May 1972, reprinted in The U.S. Department of State of Bulletin 66 (26 June 1972), 890–97, quotations on 892, 894.

[27] ‘Basic Principles of Relations Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’, 29 May 1972.

[28] Henry Kissinger, News Conference, Kiev, 29 May 1972, reprinted in The U.S. Department of State of Bulletin 66 (26 June 1972), 890–97.

[29] Memorandum of Conversation between Leonid Brezhnev, Anatoly Dobrynin, Henry Kissinger et al., Moscow, 24 October 1974, 11:00am–2:00pm; Memorandum of Conversation between Leonid Brezhnev, Anatoly Dobrynin, Henry Kissinger et al., Moscow, 26 October 1974, 7:10pm–10:20pm, Folder: 11/74, Japan, Korea, USSR, Box A6, Kissinger-Scowcroft Files, Gerald Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. These two documents are also reprinted in Burr, ed., The Kissinger Transcripts, 327–55. On this general point, see also Maresca, To Helsinki, 8–12.

[30] Transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with Jerrold Schecter 22 March 1974, HAK telcons.

[31] See Thomas, The Helsinki Effect, 39–42; Dinan, Encyclopedia of the European Union, 117.

[32] La rapport de Luxembourg (rapport Davignon), available at http://www.ellopos.net/politics/davignon.htm (accessed 8 July 2005). With one exception, I have used the English translation of the Davignon Report found in de Giustino, A Reader in European Integration, 196–199. The text of the Davignon Report in de Guistino's volume translates ‘les droits de l'homme’ literally as ‘the rights of man’. I have translated this phrase as the more recognized and accurate English term, ‘human rights’.

[33] See, for one of many examples, the transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with Walter Stoessel 19 November 1973, HAK telcons.

[34] See Urwin, The Community of Europe, 147–9.

[35] See Dinan, Ever Closer Union, 63–4.

[36] See Kagan, Of Paradise and Power.

[37] For the seminal European work on the nature of international society, see Bull, The Anarchical Society; Bull and Watson, The Expansion of International Society.

[38] Final Communiqué from the North Atlantic Council Meeting in Rome, 26–27 May 1970, available at http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c700526a.htm (accessed 7 July 2005).

[39] Final Communiqué from the North Atlantic Council Meeting in Rome, 26–27 May 1970, available at http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c700526a.htm (accessed 7 July 2005)

[40] Kissinger, Years of Renewal, 640. See also Kissinger, Diplomacy, 757–61; Morgan, ‘North America, Atlanticism, and the Helsinki Process’.

[41] Transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with Anatoly Dobrynin, 22 August 1972, HAK telcons.

[42] Transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with Stephen Graubard, 18 March 1974, HAK telcons.

[43] Transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with Joseph Sisco, 29 March 1975, HAK telcons.

[44] Transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with Stephen Graubard, 18 March 1974, HAK telcons.

[45] See Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, 92–137. On the Bilderberg group see Aubourg, ‘Organizing Atlanticism’, 92–105; Pomian, Joseph Retinger, 250–60; Gijswijt, ‘An Atlantic Partnership?’ On the Pugwash movement see Evangelista, Unarmed Forces.

[46] Transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with Alexander Haig, 16 March 1974, HAK telcons. One should note that in this and other conversations Kissinger's criticisms of the Europeans are connected to a number of issues, including European security, the aftermath of the 1973 war in the Middle East, and personal relations.

[47] Transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with Stephen Graubard, 18 March 1974, HAK telcons.

[48] Transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with William F. Buckley, 21 July 1975, HAK telcons.

[49] Transcript of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversation with Senator Frank Church, 7 August 1975, HAK telcons.

[50] Kissinger admits to this in his memoirs. See Kissinger, Years of Renewal, 635–636. See also Maresca, To Helsinki, 64–9.

[51] All of these quotations come from the text of the Helsinki Final Act, see http://www.hri.org/docs/Helsinki75.html#H4.5 (accessed 12 July 2005).

[52] This is the position adopted most critically by Bundy, A Tangled Web, esp. 526–8.

[53] See Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, esp. 52–91, 138–96.