From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (125 page)

At home, the reaction exceeded Nixon's worst expectations—also in tragic ways. The Cambodian incursion revived an anti-war movement rendered moribund by Nixon's late 1969 moves. The unexpected expansion of a war the president had promised to wind down enraged his critics; his intemperate defense of his actions, including a statement indiscriminately branding protestors as "bums," added to the furor. Demonstrations erupted on campuses across the nation. The protest assumed new fury when four students at Kent State University in Ohio were killed in angry confrontations with the National Guard. More than a hundred thousand demonstrators gathered in Washington the first week of May to protest Cambodia and Kent State. Students at 350 colleges and universities went on strike; as many as five hundred schools were closed to avert further violence. Cambodia also provoked the most serious congressional challenge to presidential authority since the beginning of the war. Nixon had consulted with only a few hawkish legislators. Others were outraged at being kept in the dark and furious with the widening of the war. In a symbolic act of defiance, the Senate in June terminated the 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution. An amendment to cut off funds for operations in Cambodia after June 30 sponsored by Kentucky Republican John Sherman Cooper and Idaho Democrat Frank Church was approved by the Senate, although later rejected by the House.
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A thoroughly rattled president responded vindictively. There would be no more "screwing around" with congressional foes, he ordered his staff. "Having drawn the sword, don't take it out—stick it in hard."
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He accused his critics of prolonging the war and warned that if "Congress undertakes to restrict me, Congress will have to assume the consequences."
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He
ordered the military to do in secret whatever was necessary in Cambodia, regardless of Congress and the public. "Publicly, we say one thing," he indicated. "Actually, we do another."
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He approved one of the most blatant assaults on individual freedom and privacy in U.S. history, the so-called Huston Plan, which authorized the intelligence services to open mail, use electronic surveillance, and even burglarize to spy on Americans. Although the agencies balked at the specific plan and Nixon later withdrew his approval, some of its methods were used in a futile effort to verify suspected links between American radicals and foreign governments. White House operatives also used part of the plan to stifle domestic dissent. The president's counterattack led straight to the abuses of power that produced the Watergate scandal and his downfall.
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Nixon's Cambodian incursion perpetuated the stalemate in Vietnam. Hanoi seemed content to wait until the president's position at home crumbled beneath him. Its negotiating position hardened. The military situation in Vietnam remained stable, but additional troop withdrawals to appease domestic critics left South Vietnam increasingly vulnerable. A second incursion into Laos in early 1971 without U.S. ground forces put on embarrassing display the South Vietnamese army's dependence on American support. At home, the trial of Lt. William Calley for the murder of more than five hundred Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in 1968 opened a short but bitter debate on U.S. war crimes. The leak by Daniel Ellsberg, a former Defense Department official, in June 1971 of a top-secret internal history of the war ordered by Robert McNamara, the so-called Pentagon Papers, appeared to confirm what antiwar critics had long been saying—that the government had repeatedly misled the public about what it was doing in Vietnam and the success attained. Public disillusion over the war reached an all-time high in the summer of 1971, a whopping 71 percent agreeing that the United States had erred sending troops to Vietnam, 58 percent viewing the war as "immoral." Kissinger worried that the administration might not be able to get through the year without "Congress giving the farm away."
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While struggling to end the Vietnam War, Nixon and Kissinger pushed ahead with their Grand Design—detente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with the People's Republic of China. Detente did not, of course, originate with Nixon. Johnson had pursued negotiations with
Moscow on such issues as arms control, attempted to "build bridges" to Eastern Europe, and even spoke boldly of ending the Cold War. His administration had accepted nuclear parity with the USSR and built its deterrence policy on the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD), the surreal Cold War doctrine that sought to avert nuclear war by ensuring that each side had a second strike capability sufficiently terrifying to deter a first strike. Even earlier, France's Charles de Gaulle had pursued his own peculiarly European version of detente. And in 1963, West Berlin mayor Willy Brandt (later chancellor of West Germany) urged that Germany "break through the frozen front between East and West" through direct approaches to the USSR and Eastern Europe. Indeed, with their own countries in turmoil in 1968, leaders worldwide found compelling reasons to promote order in the international system.
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Nixon moved detente to the top of his foreign policy agenda. By the time he took office, the one-time ardent Cold Warrior viewed the Soviet Union as a "normal" world power more intent on maintaining its position than upsetting the international status quo and therefore a nation that could be negotiated with. He recognized that the relative decline in U.S. power required major adjustments in its relations with other nations and that Soviet needs and especially the Sino-Soviet conflict provided openings a skillful diplomatist might exploit. He perceived that his reputation as a hard-liner enabled him to do things other U.S. politicians could not—indeed, by making him appear statesmanlike they might even win him points at home. In pursuing detente, Nixon and Kissinger did not abandon containment. Rather, they hoped through negotiations on key issues to create linkages that would enable them to influence Soviet behavior in other areas. Through what Kissinger called the "subtle triangle of relations between Washington, Beijing, and Moscow," they sought to "improve the possibilities of accommodations with each as we increase our options with both."
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They viewed detente not as an end in itself but rather, in Nixon's words, a means to "minimize confrontation in marginal areas and provide, at least, alternative possibilities in the major ones."
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They hoped it would enable them to manage Soviet power and thus get the USSR to accept the emerging world order.
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There were powerful specific incentives for improving relations with the Soviet Union. As chancellor of West Germany, Brandt was vigorously pursing what he called
Ostpolitik
by making independent overtures to East Germany and the Soviet Union. Nixon and Kissinger shared Brandt's goals but feared the threat to NATO and America's world leadership and saw negotiations with Moscow as a way to maintain U.S. control. They regarded trade agreements with the USSR as a partial solution to America's economic problems. They hoped that expanded economic ties might give them leverage with Moscow on other issues and nudge the Soviet economy away from military spending toward the production of consumer goods. The nuclear arms race provided perhaps the most compelling inducement. Nixon and Kissinger feared that the Soviet Union having attained parity might seek superiority. Technology refused to stand still, and the development of primitive anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems that could shoot down approaching enemy missiles and of multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles (MIRVs) that could spew forth numerous warheads toward different targets threatened to undermine MAD and set off an even more expensive and potentially more destructive phase of the competition.

For the Soviet Union, the move toward detente reflected rising confidence and growing anxiety, shared interests with the United States, and mutual misperceptions. Reducing the costs of the arms race and minimizing the risks of nuclear war were also among Moscow's most urgent priorities. The attainment of strategic parity gave Soviet leaders the self-confidence to begin negotiations. They were painfully aware by the late 1960s that their economy was sputtering, and they decided to address problems such as food shortages and technological backwardness through trade with the West rather than systemic reforms. They also hoped that expanded commerce would give the West a vested interest in friendly relations with the Soviet Union.
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For the Soviets, detente might also help ease tensions in Europe, freeing them to focus on their increasingly dangerous eastern flank. Since 1917, the Soviet leadership while proclaiming a revolutionary ideology had craved acceptance as a world power, and detente seemed to offer such recognition. From their perspective (as well as the American), detente contained the seeds of future misunderstanding. They flatly rejected the concept of linkage, insisting that each issue must be considered on its own terms. They saw detente as a way to manage the United States in a world where it no longer had strategic superiority. For them,
detente and peaceful coexistence did not mean "forgoing the objective processes of historical development." Indeed, by matching U.S. nuclear power, they hoped to deny it the means to thwart revolutionary change.
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Nixon's inaugural address, hailing an "era of negotiation," sent powerful verbal signals to Moscow. In his first press conference, he accepted nuclear parity, a huge step, by committing to "sufficiency, not superiority."
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Operating in the manner that would become their trademark, he and Kissinger worked outside regular bureaucratic channels. As with Vietnam, to be sure, experts negotiated on key issues through established mechanisms. In October 1969, the United States agreed to arms control talks in Helsinki and Vienna. But the real work was done through Kissinger's backchannel with Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin. Beginning in early 1969, the two men met regularly, often daily and without note takers or interpreters. In 1972 alone, they spoke 130 times. They established a direct phone line between the White House and the Soviet embassy.
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Progress did not come easily. The United States expressed repeated disappointment at the lack of Soviet assistance in the Vietnam peace negotiations. As the administration simultaneously moved toward China, the Soviets voiced strong displeasure, on occasion threatening to break off negotiations. U-2 spy flights revealed in September 1970 construction of what appeared a submarine base at Cienfuegos on Cuba's southwest coast, threatening a mini-replay of the 1962 missile crisis. Kissinger and his aides viewed the project as a violation of Moscow's post-missile-crisis pledge not to put offensive forces in Cuba. The key proof, in the national security adviser's mind, was the appearance of a soccer field, presumably being built for Russian sailors. "These soccer fields could mean war," he ominously informed White House chief of staff Bob Haldeman. "Cubans play baseball. Russians play soccer."
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Kissinger's excitable aide Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr. spoke of a "reckless Soviet adventure."
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Rather than go public, Nixon and Kissinger sensibly worked behind the scenes to head off a crisis. Soviet intentions remain unclear. In any event, they pulled down the suspected base before it was completed. The United States re-pledged not to invade Cuba. The flap made clear the extent to which lingering mutual suspicions could block progress on detente.

The major roadblocks included the sheer complexity of the issues, the difficulty for each side to make concessions, and the enormity of the stakes. The USSR had already constructed ABM systems to protect Moscow. Johnson had committed the United States to a primitive system to defend against Chinese missiles. Based on expert advice, Nixon questioned the feasibility of ABMs and recognized that the cost would be astronomical. He was under great pressure from Congress not to proceed. But he saw an expanded ABM system as a potentially useful bargaining chip with Moscow and refused to be dictated to by increasingly contentious legislators. In a move part bluff, he endorsed a more advanced ABM system. Aware that MIRVs represented another major escalation of an already dangerous arms race, he ignored pleas from Congress to ban them and announced U.S. deployment. The key issues thus included a possible ban on MIRVs, how many ABMs should be allowed, and whether they should protect cities or missiles. In terms of offensive weapons, the United States in 1969 led the Soviet Union in long-range bombers and submarines capable of firing missiles while the USSR had more and larger intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Each side naturally put forward proposals in its own favor. The issues were complex to the point of bafflement and impossible for non-experts to decipher—Nixon's eyes would regularly glaze over during detailed discussions. Leaders on both sides had powerful domestic constituencies to coerce or appease. Within the U.S. government, Kissinger conceded, there was a "babble of discordant voices."
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The Nixon-Kissinger modus operandi created additional problems for the United States—and sometimes for the USSR. Among U.S. negotiators, the left hand rarely knew what the right was doing. Confusion among American diplomats caused awkward moments with—and sometimes created splendid openings for—their Soviet counterparts. Kissinger's backchannel discussions undermined the morale of those involved in the regular negotiations and denied him much-needed technical advice, sometimes causing major blunders. Denouncing Kissinger's "duplicitous diplomacy," chief U.S. arms control negotiator Gerard Smith lamented that "at least in the USSR, the whole politburo was consulted."
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A Soviet proposal in the formal sessions in early 1971 of terms close to those already discussed in "the channel" provoked a furor in the White House, Nixon fretting that the arms control negotiators rather than he might get credit for an agreement.

In the spring of 1971, after more than a year of wrangling, the two sides finally attained a "conceptual breakthrough." In the formal negotiations and "the channel," they had fought over whether to deal with ABMs and offensive weapons together or separately, and if the latter, which should come first. In May, they agreed to negotiate a separate ABM treaty and simultaneously to set vague and unspecified limits on offensive weapons, all to be consummated at a summit a year hence. Nixon was elated that an arms control agreement might be achieved on the eve of the presidential election. For Kissinger, the breakthrough was especially significant in confirming White House control of foreign policy.
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The stage was set for a flurry of negotiations that would culminate in the ABM and SALT I agreements of 1972, the foundation stones of detente.