A Thousand Days

by Arthur M. Schlesinger

  The President was prepared to pay this price to commit the nation to a treaty outlawing atmospheric tests. He had called the treaty a “step toward reason.” For all the concessions in the presentation to the Senate, his reliance on reason was now being broadly vindicated. For two and a half years he had quietly striven to free his countrymen from the clichés of the cold war. In speech after speech he had questioned the prejudices and platitudes of the fifties, cautioned against extreme solutions and defined the shape of terror in the nuclear age. The American University speech was the climax of a long campaign. If it had produced few letters to the White House, this might have been a measure of the extent to which people read it as sheer common sense. The absence of major criticism, whether in Congress or the press, showed the transformation which, despite Berlin and despite Cuba, the President had wrought in the mind of the nation. Public opinion polls indicated a marked swing in favor of the treaty—80 per cent by September. And on September 24 the Senate gave its consent to ratification by the vote of 80 to 19—fourteen more than the required two-thirds. The action, Kennedy said, was “a welcome culmination of this effort to lead the world once again to the path of peace.”

  6. FURTHER STEPS ON THE JOURNEY

  If the treaty were to have its full effect, it would have to include all present and potential nuclear powers. This gave Khrushchev the problem of signing up China, as it gave Kennedy the problem of signing up France. These were not easy assignments. Neither Peking nor Paris shared the Washington-London-Moscow view that the treaty was a noble and selfless act on behalf of humanity. After all, America, Britain and Russia had all the nuclear weapons they needed: now, in effect, they proposed to close down the store. To Mao Tse-tung and de Gaulle, the treaty sounded more like a hypocritical conspiracy by the nuclear monopolists to make their supremacy permanent lest new nations enter the club and challenge their control of world affairs.

  One does not know what effort, if any, Khrushchev made to get China to sign, or North Korea, North Vietnam and Albania, or even Cuba, where Castro, still smarting from the missile crisis, took the occasion to make clear that Moscow could not deliver him on the world scene. The rest of Khrushchev’s flock ambled in without delay. As for France, Kennedy made a determined attempt to persuade de Gaulle by offering him the technical data atmospheric testing would otherwise give him. He declared France a nuclear power in the terms of the Atomic Energy Act, thereby making it eligible for nuclear assistance without new legislation and, as soon as the treaty was initialed, sent Paris a formal proposal.

  The General made his first response four days later via a press conference. After expressing polite pleasure that “the Soviets and the Anglo-Saxons” were discontinuing atmospheric tests, he dismissed the treaty as “of limited practical importance.” So long as Russia and America retained their capacity to destroy the world, agreement between them would “not divert France from equipping herself with the same sources of strength.” Nor was he impressed by the adhesion of other nations because, as he put it a few days later, “hardly any of them are in a position to carry out tests. It is rather like asking people to promise not to swim the Channel.” On August 4 he formally rejected Kennedy’s offer, arguing that the treaty and even nuclear cooperation with the United States would violate the apparently infinitely violable sovereignty of France. As Kennedy told Macmillan, de Gaulle’s answer made it clear that he wished neither Anglo-American nuclear assistance nor even a serious discussion. But though the President was not surprised, he was nonetheless bitterly disappointed. The French declination, on top of the Chinese, meant that the treaty would fail as a means of stopping major proliferation. “Charles de Gaulle,” Kennedy told David Brinkley, “will be remembered for one thing only, his refusal to take that treaty.”

  Yet, if the test ban was not to stop national nuclear weapons development completely, it still denied at least its signatories—soon more than a hundred—the most convenient means of pursuing the nuclear dream. And it still offered the prospect of a détente between the two superpowers.

  The Soviet Union obviously had tactical reasons of its own to seek a lull in world tensions. The agreement gave the Kremlin its international breathing spell at very small cost. It held out the hope of keeping Soviet defense spending down and enabling Khrushchev to reorganize his domestic economy, invest in his chemical fertilizers and deal with his restless intellectuals. It might encourage a reduction of western military budgets and political pressures. It would give the quarrels within the west a chance to grow and flourish. It could possibly stabilize the communist position in East Germany and Eastern Europe. Above all, perhaps, it provided Khrushchev’s coexistence policy a visible success with which he could move to isolate the Chinese in the communist civil war.

  Washington was well aware of these tactical purposes. Yet there were other considerations also. America and Russia appeared now to have developed comparable interests in the preservation both of their own societies and of an international order under their own control: history had made these two once revolutionary nations champions of the status quo in a world where revolution had spun beyond them. And, as Marshall Shulman of the Fletcher School emphasized in the test ban hearings, the new Soviet course might have “unintended effects” broader than the conscious aims of the leadership. “Indeed, the most striking characteristic of recent Soviet foreign policy,” Shulman observed, “has been the way in which policies undertaken for short-term, expediential purposes have tended to elongate in time, and become imbedded in doctrine and political strategy.” This development could be under stood as a process of adaptation to a new “terrain of international politics.” The question whether it could lead to “a long-term modification of Soviet policies and the Soviet system in a benign direction,” he concluded, depended “upon the effectiveness of our own process of adaptation to this environment.”

  Khrushchev himself appeared ready for next steps. In statements on July 19 and July 26, he laid out a series of possibilities: the non-aggression pact between the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries; the freezing or “still better” the cutting of defense budgets; measures to prevent surprise attack, including reciprocal observation teams and inspection posts in East and West Germany; and the reduction of foreign forces in both German states. Of all these, the non-aggression pact seemed closest to his heart. Harriman and Kaysen had the impression that it might almost be a precondition to further progress.

  They had rigorously kept the non-aggression pact out of the test ban negotiations. But both Harriman and Kaysen returned from Moscow convinced that the idea should be seriously considered. They did not suppose that negotiating a non-aggression pact would be easy. But, if we decided in advance that nothing could be done, negotiations would obviously fail. On the other hand, if we approached the problem with an open mind, some mutually desirable arrangement could be worked out. In any case, we had told the Russians that we would explore it in good faith.

  The Russians plainly wanted the pact in order to achieve their old-time goal of consolidating the communist position in East Germany and Eastern Europe. But was this now so self-evidently against our interest? Judging by past experience, stability would lead to a better life with somewhat more independence for the peoples of Eastern Europe. It would reduce the threat of war. In the case of East Germany, it would promote greater intercourse with West Germany not only in trade and cultural exchanges but in personal and family contacts; it might even lead in time to the settlement of the Berlin problem and the replacement of the Ulbricht regime by a government more on the Polish model. As for Eastern Europe, stability would diminish the excuse for Soviet occupation and control, encourage a relaxation of ties to Moscow and allow the satellite countries to look increasingly to the west. This had already happened in Hungary and to some degree in Poland. A non-aggression pact might make it happen elsewhere.

  For a moment the treaty seemed to be opening up a whole new range of possibilities. This prospect was deeply disturbing to those accustomed
to the familiar simplifications of the cold war. They did not like the idea of swimming in uncharted waters; one felt an almost panicky desire in some parts of the government to return things to pre-test ban normal as speedily as possible. The critical question was whether it was to our advantage to maintain or decrease tension in Europe. The emphasis on the perils of euphoria in the Senate debate strengthened those who took the traditional view that a reduction of tension was a bad thing—bad, if only because Moscow liked it and Bonn didn’t. Adenauer, whom the treaty had caught off guard, was now sending out signals of vast discontent; and this too troubled the traditionalists. Since the days of Acheson the relationship with West Germany had been a pivot of our European policy; under Dulles it had often appeared the pivot. Outsiders might feel that in the fifties we had permitted the West Germans to use us for their own interests and might wish now to distinguish what was good for America from what was good for Adenauer; but those reared in the pure school doubted whether there was such a distinction and thought the first order of business was to repair relations with Bonn. As for Adenauer, his view was simple and understandable: he did not want any change in east-west relations which did not involve progress toward the reunification of Germany. He particularly did not want a nonaggression pact which might confer status on East Germany as one of the Warsaw Treaty countries.

  The President hoped to maintain the momentum generated by the Moscow negotiations; but his primary concern was to get the treaty through the Senate. He did not want new diplomatic steps to be taken before ratification, and he was skeptical whether there was much in the non-aggression pact for the United States. The Secretary of State was certain there was not. Such a pact might induce the euphoria so feared by the Joint Chiefs; in any case, Rusk was well aware of a concern, not confined to Bonn, that Russia and America were trying to settle the questions of Europe in the absence of Europeans. As for next steps, he had told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during the test ban hearings, “I cannot report that there is another question which is highly promising as this—as of today.” He saw his first obligation, as one understood his view, as not to press forward with Moscow but to reassure NATO.

  When Rusk went to Moscow early in August to sign the test ban treaty, Khrushchev tried to explain to him that the non-aggression pact was like mineral water—refreshing, involving no gains or losses and invigorating in its effect. The Secretary evidently replied that it was more like the Kellogg Pact. In any case, he told Khrushchev, it was something to come at the end of the road rather than at the beginning. Rusk then went on to Bonn where Adenauer complained bitterly that the test ban treaty had contributed to the prestige of the East German government. The Secretary patiently answered the legal points until Adenauer finally agreed that West Germany would sign the treaty. But the Chancellor achieved what may have been his essential objective by leaving the vivid impression that a non-aggression pact on top of the treaty would be just too much.

  In these weeks foreign offices everywhere, eager to regain their control over foreign affairs, appeared to be moving to seal up the uncertainties, whether risks or possibilities, which the test ban had momentarily opened up. When Rusk and Gromyko held long talks at the UN in New York in the fall, it was a meeting of two professionals with a common interest in tidying up the mess created by amateurs. And in due course the professionals brought things back to normal. The non-aggression pact fell by the wayside. The inspection issue blocked the extension of the ban to underground tests. The Americans, returning to the familiar ground of the multilateral force, set up the MLF working group in October; this enabled the Russians to resume their familiar complaint that the United States was planning to give nuclear weapons to West Germany. Everyone felt more secure in the old rubrics, and foreign policy slipped back from men to institutions.

  7. DÉTENTE: POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITS

  One cannot know what might have happened in these months if Kennedy and Khrushchev, both of whom had urgent preoccupations of their own—the civil rights crisis in the United States, the agricultural crisis in the Soviet Union, as well as respective troubles with de Gaulle and Mao—had been free to deal with their foreign affairs bureaucracies. But, if opportunities were lost, they were probably not decisive ones. Both sides needed time to digest the test ban before they would be ready for a next large step. What was lost rather was a shaping of the atmosphere, a continuation of the momentum, which might have made the next steps quicker and easier.

  This was much on Kennedy’s mind, especially as he watched the progress of the test ban debate, and it confirmed his decision to speak for a second time before the UN General Assembly. “The treaty is being so chewed up in the Senate,” he said on September 9, two weeks before ratification, “and we’ve had to make so many concessions to make sure it passes, that we’ve got to do something to prove to the world we still mean it. If we have to go to all this trouble over one small treaty, people are likely to think we can’t function at all—unless I can dispel some doubts in New York.”

  We had the usual series of meetings to recommend to the President what he might say. The Secretary of State proposed what he called an Alliance for Man designed to show how America, Russia and the rest of the UN could work together on issues beyond politics—health, nutrition, agricultural productivity, resources development. It seemed a promising idea; but, when Richard Gardner of the State Department and I canvassed the scientific and technical agencies of the government, we discovered that specific proposals of American-Soviet collaboration seemed trivial compared to the enormities of the space age. As we began casting about for more dramatic forms of cooperation, there swam into our minds the thought of merging the Russian and American expeditions to the moon.

  The proposal of a joint moonshot would be a tangible and impressive offer of cooperation; it would mean a substantial budgetary saving for both countries; and it would be an effective political gesture at home and abroad. Gardner warned me, however, that it would cause trouble in the bureaucracy. Only recently someone in the National Aeronautics and Space Adiminstration had asked for a letter from the State Department requesting a study of the problems and possibilities of a joint moonshot; NASA, it developed, feared to proceed on its own without political clearance. Then State declined to send the letter lest it in turn be held accountable for so subversive an inquiry. One thought, what the hell; and on speculation I wrote the idea into an early draft of the President’s UN address. I had forgotten that the President had himself suggested this to Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961, or I would have been better prepared for his quick approval. He discussed it with James Webb, the head of NASA; and, when we went over the draft a few days later with representatives from State, Defense and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, no one voiced objection. Then at the UN in New York on September 20, he said: “Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries—indeed of all the world—cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending some day in this decade to the moon not the representatives of a single nation but the representatives of all of our countries.”

  The speech was a sober and effective plea for new steps toward peaceful cooperation. “If this pause in the cold war merely leads to its renewal and not to its end,” he said, “—then the indictment of posterity will rightly point its finger at us all.” Other moves were meanwhile carrying forward the hope of détente in one way or another. Least heralded but perhaps most important was the tacit acceptance of reciprocal aerial reconnaissance from space satellites—the American Samos and the Soviet Cosmos. By supplying a partial substitute for organized international inspection, the satellites provided mutual reassurance and thus strengthened the system of stable nuclear deterrence. The Russians further displayed their new sophistication in the higher strategy when Gromyko at the UN in September modified the Soviet program for general and complete disarmament by abandoning the demand for the elimination of all nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles in the first stage and suggesting ins
tead, in the best arms control manner, that America and Russia retain a limited number of missiles and warheads on their own territory until the end of the disarmament process.

  In the meantime, the so-called hot line—an emergency communications link between the White House and the Kremlin—had been installed over the summer. Then, early in October, Kennedy authorized the sale of surplus wheat to the Soviet Union as “one more hopeful sign that a more peaceful world is both possible and beneficial to us all”—a project which, though the Vice-President considered it for a moment as “the worst political mistake we have made in foreign policy in this administration,” did not turn out too tragically. Later in the month the UN, with enthusiastic American and Russian support and much mutual self-congratulation, passed a resolution calling on all states to refrain from “placing in orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” and from “installing such weapons on celestial bodies.” This resolution, along with the Moscow treaty’s abolition of testing in outer space and the adoption by the General Assembly in December of a Declaration of Legal Principles for Outer Space, represented the bold attempt of the earthlings to keep the nuclear race out of the firmament.

  All these things were helpful; but much remained on the agenda: the completion of the nuclear test ban; new measures to restrain nuclear proliferation, to which Robert Kennedy gave special attention in later years; further possibilities in reciprocal/unilateral arms reduction and control, as suggested by Roswell Gilpatric and Jerome Wiesner; the cut-off of production of fissionable materials for weapons use, undertaken by both superpowers in 1964; and the old dream of general and complete disarmament.

  Yet, had all these measures and others like them been accomplished, they still would not have produced a true détente. For in the end a philosophical gap could not be bridged by technical agreements. The ‘mirror image’ of American and Soviet societies was valid only up to a point; the mirror reflected common anxieties, not common values. The Soviet Union remained a system consecrated to the infallibility of a single body of dogma, a single analysis of history and a single political party. Khrushchev seized many occasions in 1963 to make it clear that lull abroad did not mean liberty at home. As he admonished a group of Soviet artists and intellectuals on March 8, 1963, “We are against peaceful coexistence in the ideological field.”