Détente as realism
After eight years in the shadow of Eisenhower and eight more years out of office, Richard Nixon brought to the presidency in 1969 rich experience as an observer of foreign affairs and shrewd notions about how to prevent the American retreat from global commitments from turning into a rout. In broad outlines, the Nixon strategy included a phased withdrawal of ground forces from Vietnam, a negotiated settlement saving the Saigon regime, détente with the U.S.S.R., resumption of relations with mainland China, and military support for selected regional powers that permitted them to take over as local “policemen” in lieu of direct American involvement. In a period of just four years, 1969–72, the United States abandoned once-unshakable Cold War attitudes toward the Communist nations, while scaling back its own exposure in response to the Sino-Soviet split, imminent Soviet strategic parity, and the economic and psychological constraints on U.S. action stemming from the new American imperative of “no more Vietnams.” Nixon believed that his own record as an anti-Communist and tough negotiator would quiet conservative opposition to détente, while liberals would find themselves outflanked on their own peace issue. In both ends and means American foreign policy evinced a new realism in stark contrast to the “pay any price, bear any burden” mentality of the Kennedy–Johnson years. In his inaugural address Nixon spoke instead of an “era of negotiation.”
Détente, however, was not meant to replace the abiding postwar American strategy of containment. Rather, it was meant to be a less confrontational method of containing Communist power through diplomatic accords and a flexible system of rewards and punishments by which Washington might moderate Soviet behaviour. Journalists dubbed this tactic “linkage” insofar as the United States would link positive inducements (e.g., arms control, technology transfers, grain sales) to expected Soviet reciprocity in other areas (e.g., restraint in promoting revolutionary movements). Nixon had no illusions that U.S.–Soviet competition would disappear, but he expected that this carrot-and-stick approach would establish rules of the game and recognized spheres of influence. Pulling the Soviets into a network of agreements, and thus giving them a stake in the status quo, would create a stable structure of peace. Finally, expanding economic and cultural ties might even serve to open up Soviet society.
By 1971, Leonid Brezhnev, now established as the new Soviet leader, was ready to welcome American overtures for a variety of reasons. In 1968 relations with the eastern European satellites had flared up again when leaders of the Czechoslovakian Communist party under Alexander Dubček initiated reforms promoting democratization and free speech. A wave of popular demonstrations added momentum to liberalization during this “Prague Spring” until, on August 20, the U.S.S.R. led neighboring Warsaw Pact armies in a military invasion of Czechoslovakia. Dubček was ousted and the reforms undone. The ostensible justification for this latest Soviet repression of freedom in its empire came to be known as the Brezhnev Doctrine: “Each of our parties is responsible not only to its working class and its people, but also to the international working class, the world Communist movement.” The U.S.S.R. asserted its right to intervene in any Communist state to prevent the success of “counterrevolutionary” elements. Needless to say, the Chinese were fearful that the Brezhnev Doctrine might be applied to them. In 1969 they accused the U.S.S.R. of “social imperialism” and provoked hundreds of armed clashes on the borders of Sinkiang and Manchuria. Soviet forces arrayed against China, already raised from 12 weak divisions in 1961 to 25 full ones, now grew to 55 divisions backed by 120 SS-11 nuclear missiles. In August 1969 a Soviet diplomat had carefully inquired about the likely American reaction to a Soviet nuclear strike against China. In sum, the need to repair the Soviet image in the wake of the Prague Spring and the fear of dangerous relations with Peking and Washington at the same time, as well as the chronic Soviet need for agricultural imports and access to superior Western technology, were all powerful incentives for seeking détente.
From a longer perspective, however, détente had been the strategy of the U.S.S.R. ever since 1956 under the rubric “peaceful coexistence.” Brezhnev repeated Khrushchev’s assertion that Soviet nuclear parity took the military leverage from the hands of the bourgeois world, forcing it to accept the legitimate interests of other states, to treat the U.S.S.R. as an equal, and to acquiesce in the success of “progressive” and revolutionary struggle. Détente was thus for the Soviets a natural expression of the new correlation of forces, a means of guiding the weakened Americans through the transition to a new phase of history—and was certainly not meant to preserve the status quo or liberalize the U.S.S.R. One Western proponent of détente described the Soviet conception of it as a way “to make the world safe for historical change” and pointed out the implicit double standard—i.e., that it was admissible for the U.S.S.R. to continue the struggle against the capitalist world during détente but a contradiction for the Western powers to struggle against Communism. From the Marxist point of view, however, this was merely another reflection of objective reality: Now that nuclear balance was a fact, greater weight accrued to conventional military strength and popular political action, each of which strongly favored the Socialist bloc.
The contrasting U.S. and Soviet conceptions of détente would eventually scotch the hopes placed in it on both sides. From 1969 to 1972, however, those differences were not yet apparent, while the immediate incentives for a relaxation of tensions were irresistible.
Scaling back U.S. commitments
The first indications of a new American sense of limits in foreign policy were in the economic sphere. Since World War II the global market economy had rested on the Bretton Woods monetary system, based on a strong American dollar tied to gold. Beginning in 1958 the United States began to run annual foreign-exchange deficits, resulting partly from the costs of maintaining U.S. forces overseas. For this reason, and because their own exports benefitted from an artificially strong dollar, the Europeans and Japanese tolerated the U.S. gold drain and used their growing fund of “Eurodollars” to back loans and commerce. By the mid-1960s de Gaulle began to criticize the United States for exploiting its leadership role to “export its inflation” to foreign holders of dollars. The Johnson administration’s Vietnam deficits then added the prospect of internal American inflation. By 1971 the American economic situation warranted emergency measures. Nixon imposed wage and price controls to stem inflation, and Secretary of the Treasury John Connally abruptly suspended the convertibility of dollars to gold. The dollar was allowed to float against undervalued currencies like the deutsche mark and yen, in consequence of which foreign holders of dollars took sharp losses and foreign exporters faced stiffer competition from American goods. New agreements in December 1971 stabilized the dollar at a rate 12 percent below Bretton Woods, but the United States had sorely tried allied loyalty.
The American retreat from an overextended financial position and insistence that its allies share the burden of stabilizing the U.S. balance of payments was the economic analog to the Nixon Doctrine in military affairs. The new president enunciated this doctrine in an impromptu news conference on Guam during his July 1969 trip to welcome home the Apollo 11 astronauts from the Moon. Nixon announced that the United States would no longer send Americans to fight for Asian nations but would confine itself to logistical and economic support: “Asian hands must shape the Asian future.” In accord with this effort to shift more of the burden of containment to threatened peoples themselves, Nixon planned to assist regional pro-Western powers like Iran in becoming bulwarks of stability by providing them with sophisticated American weapons.
Before the Nixon Doctrine could be credible, however, the President had to extricate the United States from Vietnam. In March 1969 he outlined a policy of Vietnamization, comprising a phased withdrawal of American ground troops and additional material and advisory support to make the ARVN self-sufficient. Nixon also hoped to enlist the Soviets in the cause of peace, but Moscow had less influence over Hanoi than he imagined and could not afford to be seen as appeasing the United States. Nixon then shifted to a subtler approach—long-term pressure on Hanoi combined with better relations with both Communist giants. Late in 1969 secret talks began in Paris between Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s adviser for national security, and the North Vietnamese Politburo member Le Duc Tho. At the same time, however, Nixon stepped up pressure on the North. When the anti-Communist general Lon Nol overthrew Prince Sihanouk in Cambodia in March 1970, Nixon acceded to the U.S. army’s long-standing desire to destroy Communist sanctuaries inside that country. The U.S.-ARVN operation fell short of its promise and provoked protests at home and abroad. Despite public disfavor and congressional attempts to limit such actions, Nixon ordered continued secret American bombing inside Cambodia and also supported an ARVN operation into Laos to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
The opening to China and Ostpolitik
The linchpin of Nixon’s strategy for a settlement in Vietnam was détente with Moscow and Peking. He was known as a firm supporter of the Nationalist regime on Taiwan, but he had softened his stance against mainland China before taking office. In 1969 he moved to signal Peking through the good offices of de Gaulle and Yahya Khan of Pakistan. Direct contacts, conducted through the Chinese embassy in Warsaw, were broken off after the 1970 U.S.-ARVN attacks on Cambodia, but Nixon and Kissinger remained hopeful. The Cultural Revolution ended in a serious power struggle in the Chinese leadership. Army commander Lin Biao opposed relations with the United States but died when his plane crashed in unclear circumstances. Zhou Enlai and Mao (presumably) contemplated the value of an American counterweight to the Soviets, concessions on the status of Taiwan, and technology transfers. The Nixon Doctrine also promised to remove the obnoxious U.S. military presence in Asia.
The Pakistani channel bore fruit in December 1970, when Yahya Khan returned from Peking with an invitation for an American envoy to discuss Taiwan. The following April the Chinese made the surprising public gesture of inviting an American table tennis team to the championship tournament in Peking. This episode of “Ping-Pong diplomacy” was followed by a secret trip to Peking by Kissinger. Kissinger’s talks with Zhou and Mao yielded an American promise to remove U.S. forces from Taiwan in return for Chinese support of a negotiated settlement in Vietnam. The Chinese also agreed to a presidential visit in February 1972. The American people’s long-latent fascination with China immediately revived, and Nixon’s trip was a sensation.
The Soviets watched with palpable discomfort as Nixon and Mao embraced and saluted each other’s flags, and they quickly raised the premium on improving relations with Washington. Efforts to this end had been frustrated by a series of crises: a buildup of Soviet jets in Egypt and Jordan, the discovery of a Soviet submarine base under construction in Cuba in 1970, and Nixon’s escalations of the war in Southeast Asia. Substantial moves toward East–West détente had already been made in Europe, however. Following de Gaulle’s lead, the West German foreign minister, Willy Brandt, a Socialist and former mayor of West Berlin, had made overtures toward Moscow. After becoming chancellor in 1969 he pursued a thorough Ostpolitik (“eastern policy”) that culminated in treaties with the U.S.S.R. (August 1970), renouncing the use of force in their relations, and with Poland (December 1970), recognizing Germany’s 1945 losses east of the Oder–Neisse Line. Brandt also recognized the East German government (December 1972) and expanded commercial relations with other eastern European regimes. Both German states were admitted to the UN in 1973. Support for Ostpolitik among West Germans reflected the growing belief that German reunification would more likely be achieved through détente, rather than confrontation, with the Soviet bloc.
The United States, Britain, and France seconded Brandt’s efforts by concluding a new Four Power accord with the U.S.S.R. on Berlin in September 1971. The Soviets made what they considered a major concession by agreeing to retain their responsibility under the Potsdam Accords for access to West Berlin and achieved in return Western recognition of the status quo in eastern Europe and access to West German technology and credits.
