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Brezhnev, with whom I would hold three summit conferences as President, became the fourth absolute ruler of the Soviet Union. Born in 1906 in a working-class slum in the Ukraine, Brezhnev was an adolescent during the rule of Lenin, a rising Communist functionary during the purges of Stalin, and a trusted lieutenant during the ascendancy of Khrushchev. An organization man rather than a visionary and a technician rather than an ideologue, he is nonetheless a dedicated, ruthless Communist who has led the Soviet Union in its first sustained bid for world dominance.
Brezhnev and his blustery predecessor made an interesting study in contrasts. Khrushchev wore plain-cuffed shirts and ill-fitting suits, while Brezhnev wore French cuffs and gold cufflinks to go with his well-tailored silk suits. Khrushchev almost always rode in the front seat of his limousine with his chauffeur, while Brezhnev sank into the plush upholstery in the backseat without even a nod in the direction of his driver.
Even when the two men shared an interest, they differed greatly in the way they went about it. Both, for instance, enjoyed hunting. Khrushchev loved every facet of duck hunting, from the quiet sound of water lapping against the side of his boat to the anticipation of the sudden rush of birds’ wings. Brezhnev told me he prefers boar hunting, but he decidedly lacks his predecessor’s sportsmanship. Brezhnev simply sits on his country porch, waits for his prey to wander into a special area that has been baited with corn meal, and guns the animals down with the aid of a telescopic sight.
Hunting is not Brezhnev’s only indulgence. He has a fascination for technical gadgetry such as automatic doors and fancy telephone consoles. Illustrating his typically Russian combination of discipline and laxity, Brezhnev once showed me his fancy new cigarette case with a built-in timer that was designed to cut down on his chain-smoking. Every hour he would ceremoniously remove the allotted cigarette and close the box. Then, minutes later, he would reach into his jacket and take another cigarette from an ordinary pack he carried to tide him over until the timer permitted him another virtuous cigarette.
Brezhnev, the leader of the world’s first “workers’ state,” also collects the finest luxury cars the capitalist world has to offer. When we flew to Camp David during our summit in 1973, I presented him with the official gift commemorating his visit, a dark-blue Lincoln Continental. He insisted on trying it out immediately, jumping behind the wheel and motioning me into the passenger’s seat. He gunned the engine and we sped down one of the narrow roads that run around the perimeter of Camp David. Brezhnev was used to unobstructed driving in the lane reserved for VIPs in Moscow. I hated to think what would have happened if a Secret Service or Navy jeep had suddenly turned onto that one-lane road.
At one point on the road there was a very steep slope with a sign at the top reading Slow, Dangerous Curve. Even when driving a golf cart down this decline, I had found it necessary to use the brakes to avoid going off the road at the sharp turn at the bottom. Brezhnev was driving at more than fifty miles an hour as we approached the slope. I reached over and said, “Slow down, slow down,” but he paid no attention. When we reached the bottom, there was a squeal of rubber as he slammed on the brakes and made the turn.
After our drive he said to me, “This is a very fine automobile. It holds the road very well.” I replied, “You are an excellent driver. I would never have been able to make that turn at the speed at which we were traveling.” Diplomacy, I thought to myself, is not always an easy art.
Brezhnev believes in living the good life and enjoys yachting, thoroughbred racing, and the company of pretty girls. At Camp David during the summit in 1973, as I approached Brezhnev’s cottage for our first meeting, a very attractive, quite full-figured young woman was leaving. In introducing her to me, Brezhnev’s translator said that she was his boss’s masseuse. As we shook hands, I recognized the scent she was wearing. It was Arpège, one of the finest of French perfumes, which happens to be Mrs. Nixon’s favorite.
Brezhnev is not alone among the world’s leaders in his love of luxury and comfort, but is the first Soviet leader to indulge his rich tastes so shamelessly. In a long conversation I had during my trip to China in 1976, the Vice Chairman of the Congress kept reiterating to me that the Soviets, unlike the Chinese, were revisionists because the members of the political and cultural elites lived privileged lives. He said, “Just consider this: The leaders of the government and the party, artists, scientists, et cetera, have become millionaires and are acting like million-aires—that is the trouble with the Soviet Union today!” Though he understated the stratification of Chinese society, he was right on target about the Soviets.
Brezhnev and his colleagues have formed nothing less than a “new class”—separate and remote from the average Soviet citizen and totally oblivious of his concerns. In fact, during all my trips to the Soviet Union, I could not help but think that the Communist elite more closely resembles Marx’s definition of a ruling class than any group of capitalists ever did.
A joke I once heard about Brezhnev illustrates the contradiction perfectly. One day he took his mother on a tour of his elegant dacha. After he led her proudly through the opulent gardens, gilded hallways, and posh bedrooms, she turned to him in wonderment and said, “Leonid, it is all very beautiful, but what will you do if the Communists come back?”
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Brezhnev may be a “new czar” in his private life, but his foreign policy is a throwback to the expansionism of the old czars. If he had been a leader under the Old Regime, he would be called “Leonid the Great,” earning the laudatory appellation for his success in expanding Russian influence throughout the world. Under his leadership, the Soviet Union and its Communist allies have seized control of South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Ethiopia, South Yemen, Angola, Mozambique, and most recently Afghanistan, the “turnstile of Asia’s fate.” In addition Moscow is ominously expanding its Communist bridgehead in the Caribbean and Central America.
When Khrushchev fell from power, the players may have changed, but the game remained the same. Brezhnev’s goals are identical to Khrushchev’s: to increase Soviet power, to extend Soviet control, and to export communism at every opportunity. Khrushchev was a master of bluff and bluster because he had to be. He held few trump cards in his hand. Brezhnev can afford to be cordial because he has dealt himself some aces through his massive buildup of armed might.
In their personal diplomacy Khrushchev and Brezhnev were similar to Lyndon Johnson. They felt compelled to reinforce their words with some sort of physical contact. Khrushchev’s tactile diplomacy was almost always menacing, whether he was trying to intimidate me through proximity or attempting to harass me with sharp pokes in the ribs. When Brezhnev reached out to touch or grab my arm, he sought to implore, not to bully. But should these gentler means fail to persuade me, Brezhnev could also apply sheer muscle.
What struck me most about Brezhnev was his emotional versatility. At one moment he would speak with what seemed to be perfect sincerity about his deep desire to leave a legacy of peace for his grandchildren. In the next he would assert with unequivocal determination his right to control the destinies of other nations all around the world.
The ease with which Brezhnev would shift from friendliness to ruthlessness was remarkable. During our summit in 1972 he enthusiastically took the members of our party for a boat ride on the Moscow River. As we cruised along, Brezhnev kept nudging me playfully as he pointed proudly at the speedometer, which showed we were moving at ninety kilometers an hour.
After this pleasant excursion Brezhnev sat us down for a meeting before dinner. I momentarily thought of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when Brezhnev, who had been jocularly slapping me on the back moments before, started angrily denouncing my efforts to end the Vietnam War and accusing me of trying to pressure him through our new relationship with China. His sally was only the first in a prolonged attack. For three hours Brezhnev, Aleksei Kosygin, and Nikolai Podgorny took turns launching blistering verbal assaults, spelling each other li
ke KGB interrogators working over a difficult suspect.
Yet a few moments after this session ended, we went upstairs and had a perfectly cordial conversation over dinner. I made my usual joke about not giving Kissinger too many drinks because he had to negotiate with Gromyko later. The quip amused the Soviet leaders greatly, and they proceeded to pretend to ply Kissinger with vodka. It was as if the acrimonious session downstairs had never happened.
Brezhnev, like many Soviet leaders of his generation, became especially emotional when speaking of the suffering of war. In World War II the Soviet Union lost over twenty million people, and the memory of those catastrophic days is as fresh as if they had ended only yesterday.
When I addressed the Soviet people on radio and television in 1972, I told the story of Tanya, a twelve-year-old girl whose diary chronicled the loss, one by one, of the members of her family during the Siege of Leningrad. I concluded by saying, “Let us do all that we can to ensure that no other children will have to endure what Tanya did.” Brezhnev told me later that my conclusion had brought tears to his eyes. When I included the same message in a toast to him at a private dinner in my home at San Clemente the following year, Brezhnev’s eyes welled up with tears. He rose from his chair, walked around the table, and embraced me.
Brezhnev once leaned over to me and said, “I am an emotional man, particularly about death in war.” But no one should mistake that emotionalism for mush. He had a strong, deep voice that radiated a great deal of animal magnetism and personal drive. He gestured emphatically and often rose from his chair and paced about the room. He once joked about this habit by telling me, “Everytime I get up, I make another concession.” He sometimes talked too much and too imprecisely, but was adept at subtly directing a conversation away from points on which he was vulnerable. And he could be every bit as forceful, shrewd, and devious as Khrushchev.
In 1973, during our second summit, we had retired early one evening because Brezhnev said he was feeling the effects of the three-hour time change from Washington. A few hours later, however, a Secret Service agent came to my room with a message from Kissinger: Brezhnev wanted to talk. I arranged for us to meet in my upstairs study. “I could not sleep, Mr. President,” Brezhnev said with a broad smile as he filed in with Gromyko and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. I replied that this was a good opportunity to talk without interruptions or distractions.
For the next three hours Brezhnev pummeled me on the Middle East. He adamantly insisted that together we had to impose a settlement on the Israelis and the Arabs. At the very least, he said, we had to agree on a set of “principles” that would govern a settlement, citing as examples the withdrawal of Israeli troops from all the occupied territories, the recognition of national boundaries, and international guarantees of the settlement.
I responded that neither side in the dispute would or should accept a dictated settlement and that we should instead try to get talks between the two parties started. I pointed out that I would be prejudicing Israel’s rights if I agreed to any of his “principles.” And if we were to lay down controversial principles beforehand, I insisted, both parties would refuse to talk—in which case the principles would have defeated their purpose.
At one point Brezhnev made a show of looking at his watch and furrowing his brow. “Perhaps I am tiring you out,” he said. “But we must reach an understanding.” He left no doubt that our agreement must heavily favor the Arabs. He loudly insisted that without such a settlement he would be leaving the summit empty-handed and then ominously implied that he could not guarantee that war would not resume. “If there is no clarity about the principles,” he said, “we will have difficulty keeping the military situation from flaring up.”
The emotional intensity of this midnight session almost rivaled that of the dacha meeting on Vietnam during our first summit. I continued to reject his proposals for superpower condominium, reiterating that a lasting settlement could come only through direct talks between the Israelis and the Arabs. After an hour and a half of near-monologue by Brezhnev, I brought the discussion to a conclusion, saying that we should concentrate on the peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute this year because “the Middle East is a most urgent place.”
Throughout this discussion I remained determinedly unemotional in responding to Brezhnev’s outbursts. Unlike Khrushchev, Brezhnev was far more impressed by a facade of stoic control than by bombast. We were unable to come to any agreements because we were working toward different ends. Put bluntly, the U.S. wanted peace, and the Soviets wanted the Middle East. But as our meeting broke up, I sensed that I had strongly impressed upon Brezhnev my commitment to Israel and to a just, negotiated settlement.
Four months later, on October 6, I received word from Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that Syria and Egypt were in the final countdown to war. I immediately thought back to the summit meeting in which Brezhnev alluded to the possibility of war resuming in the Middle East and wondered whether even then he had committed himself to supporting an Arab attack.
Both the American and Israeli intelligence services had failed to detect Arab military preparations until the attack was imminent. As a result, Israel was highly vulnerable, particularly because the invasion came on Yom Kippur, the holiest Jewish holiday, and many of its soldiers were on leave. The Israelis suffered grim reversals in the first days of the war, losing more men by the third day than they had in the entire war in 1967.
Within a few days weapons and supplies on both sides were beginning to run low. We had begun making arrangements to resupply Israel when we received reports that the Soviets had undertaken a massive airlift of material to Syria and Egypt. They were sending their clients seven hundred tons of equipment and supplies daily. Meanwhile, our airlift was having trouble getting off the ground. It was stalled in the Pentagon, where critical hours were lost trying to decide such matters as how many and what kind of aircraft should be used. Kissinger told me that the Pentagon wanted to send only three C-5A military transports in order to cause fewer political difficulties with Syria, Egypt, and the Soviets. I asked him how many airplanes were available, and he answered about thirty. Then I told him, “I’ll make the political decisions. We’ll take just as much heat for sending three planes as for sending thirty.” Later, after still more bureaucratic delays, I told Kissinger to tell the Pentagon to send “everything that can fly.” The next day thirty C-130 transports were bound for Israel, and within a week the operation had become bigger than the Berlin airlift of 1948-49.
By the end of the first week of fighting, the Israelis had moved on to the offensive. With Soviet hopes for a quick Arab victory squelched, Brezhnev sent me a letter asking that I have Kissinger go to Moscow for direct talks. They drew up a set of proposed terms for a cease-fire, which Israel, Egypt, and Syria agreed to put into effect on October 21. It broke down quickly, but the belligerents agreed to another cease-fire three days later.
Brezhnev had not thrown in the towel, however. On October 24 our intelligence services picked up some startling information: Seven Soviet airborne divisions, numbering fifty thousand men, had been put on alert; and eighty-five Soviet ships, including landing craft and ships carrying troop helicopters, were now in the Mediterranean. Shortly thereafter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat publicly requested that Brezhnev and I send a joint peace-keeping force to the Middle East, an idea Brezhnev would obviously back because it would give him an opportunity to reestablish a Soviet military presence in Egypt. We soon picked up rumors that the Soviets were maneuvering in the U.N. for non-aligned nations to sponsor a resolution calling for a joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. force in the Middle East.
I sent Sadat a message warning him of the dangers of inviting a great-power rivalry in this volatile region. A few hours later, a message from Brezhnev arrived. He asserted that Israel was still violating the cease-fire and therefore urged us to join him in sending military contingents to the region. He called for an immediate reply and added, “I will say it straight that if you fin
d it impossible to act jointly with us in this matter, we should be faced with the necessity urgently to consider the question of taking appropriate steps unilaterally. We cannot allow arbitrariness on the part of Israel.” This message represented perhaps the most serious threat to U.S.-Soviet relations since the Cuban Missile Crisis eleven years before.
I had my White House chief of staff, General Haig, and Kissinger gather together our key national security officials to formulate a firm reaction to this scarcely veiled threat. Words were not making our point—we needed action. My national security advisers unanimously recommended that we put all American conventional and nuclear forces on military alert, and we did so in the early morning hours of October 25.
When we were sure the Soviets had picked up the first signs of the alert, I sent a message to Brezhnev, in which I stated that I had studied his message the night before but found his proposals for sending Soviet and American military forces to the Middle East unacceptable. I denied that there were any significant violations of the cease-fire taking place and stated that in this light we viewed his “suggestion of unilateral action as a matter of the gravest concern involving incalculable consequences.” I said that I would be prepared to agree that some American and Soviet personnel go to the area, but not as combat forces. Instead, they might be included in an augmented U.N. force. I then put our point in unequivocal language: “You must know, however, that we could in no event accept unilateral action.”
Later that morning, a message arrived from Sadat that stated he understood our position and that he would ask the U.N. to provide an international peace-keeping force. Then a message from Brezhnev came in. Now he just wanted to send seventy individual “observers” to the Middle East. Though this was a far cry from the military contingent he described in his earlier letter, I again expressed firm opposition, suggesting that the Secretary-General of the U.N. should decide the composition of the cease-fire observers.
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