Detente in Europe: The Soviet Union & The West Since 1953

497 Pages·1991·9.984 MB·English

by  John Van Oudenaren

Détente in Europe
Détente in Europe
The Soviet Union and
the West since 1953
JOHN VAN OUDENAREN
Duke University Press DurhamandLondon 1991
C 1991 Duke University Pre8s
All rights rescrved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper oo
Library of Congrcss Cataloging·in· Publication Data
Van Oudcnaren, John.
Detente in Europe : the Soviet Union and the West since 19 53 I
John Van Oudenaren.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 1a nd index.
ISBN 0-8U3·1133-X-ISBN 0-8123·1141-0 (pbk.)
1. Europe-Foreign rclations-Soviet Union. l . Soviet Union
Foreign rclations-Europe. 3. Detente. 4. World politics-1945-
I. Title.
01o65.s65v35 1991
327.4704-dc20 90-25033
CIP
Contents
Preface vii
Abbreviations ix
1 lntroduction 1
2 From Stalin to Khrushchev 5
3 Geneva and the Four· Power Process 24
4 Diplomacy 64
5 Parliaments, Political Parties, and Trade Unions 116
6 Arms Control 164
7 Economics 255
8 Culture, Churches, and the Peace Movement 283
9 cscE and the All-European Process 319
10 Conclusion 348
Appendix: Summits, 1955-90 367
Notes 375
Bibliography 4 57
Index 477
Preface
This study was begun at the Kennan lnstitute for Advanced Russian
Studies, Washington, D.C., in October 1987. My original intention
was to write a book about détente in Europe, focusing on the network
of political contacts, arms control forums, economic ties, and cul
tural exchanges that flourished in the 197os and that more or less
survived the deterioration in East-West relations of the early 198os.
At the time it was clear that Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to preserve
and expand this network, which he saw as the basis for a future
"common European home." In his early speeches he not only en
dorsed what had been achieved in the 197os, but called for effons to
move "beyond détente." Just how far beyond and in what direction
he eventually would go was unknown at the time-to outsiders and
no doubt to Gorbachev himself.
As the research progressed it became clear that little of what we
associated with the détente of the 197os was really new. Effons to
trace regular summits, political consultations, bilateral economic in
stitutions, and contacts between Soviet and West European nongov
ernmental organizations to their origins invariably led not to the
197os or even the 196os, but to the first two or three years after Sta
lin's death. Thus 1953 became a logical starting point for the study.
Subsequently, 1989 emerged as a logical endpoint. While it was
generally recognized that the cold war ended in that year, in a sense
détente, at least as we had known it, ended as well. Détente had al
ways been a means of managing and mitigating the cold war in the
absence of a solution to its fundamental causes; it was the relaxation
of tensions rather than their elimination. As conflict in Europe faded,
the continent indeed began to move beyond détente and into a new
era. In this era a new order is being built, chiefly on the basis of in
stitutions and pattems of cooperation established after 1953. Dé
tente thus remains imponant for Europe's future, as well as a
fascinating aspect of its past.
1 wish to thank the Kennan lnstitute and the Rand Corporation
for their generous suppon during the writing of this book, as well as
for the stimulating environments they provided. Peter Reddaway,
the secretary of the Kennan lnstitute during my stay there, and the
entire staff were always helpful. 1 wish to thank especially my re-
viii Preface
search assistants, Paul Midford and Jon Slusher, for their many trips
to the Library of Congress and for their help in organizing a mass of
data. At Rand, 1 would like to thank Jim Thomson, Jonathan Pollack,
Karen Lee, Yogi Ianiero, Jim Small, Josephine Bonan, Maureen Jack
son, Barbara Neff, Kathy Foyt, Melvin Fujikawa, Marjorie Behrens,
Lilita Dzirkals, Steven Berry, and my secretaries, Linda Tanner, Val
erie Bemstein, and Carol Richards, for their help on various aspects
of the book. Professors William E. Griffith and James McAdams read
early drafts and made numerous helpful suggestions. My sister,
Claire Van Oudenaren, helped with the notes and bibliography. 1
would also like to thank Richard C. Rowson, director of Duke Uni
versity Press, for seeing the book through to completion, and Enid
Hickingbotham for her care and patience in editing the manuscript.
1 alone am responsible for the content of the book.
Finally, 1w ould like to express my special thanks to my wife Carol
and to my children, John, Daniel, and Laura, who were patient and
supportive throughout.
1 dedícate this book to the memory of my father.
Abbreviations
ACDA Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
AFL-CIO American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
AUCCTU All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions
CBM confidence-building measure
coE Conference on Disarmament in Europe
cou Christian Democratic Union
CEC Conference of European Churches
CFE Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
CF M Council of Foreign Ministers
CMEA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
cocoM Coordinating Committee
COMISCO Committee of lntemational Socialist Conferences
CPC Christian Peace Conference
CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union
CSBM confidence- and security-building measure
cscE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
csu Christian Social Union
oc (uN) Disarmament Commission
DFU German Peace Union
DGB Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund (Trade Union Organization)
DKP German Communist Party
EC European Community
ECE 1U N) Economic Commission for Europe
Ecosoc Economic and Social Council
EDC European Defense Community
EEC European Economic Community
EFTA European Free Trade Association
EKD Protestant Church in Germany
ENDC Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee
ENI Ente Nazionali Idrocarburi
x Abbreviations
ESRO European Space Research Organization
ETUC European Trade Union Confederation
PAO (uN) Food and Agricultura! Organization
FBS forward based systems
FCMA Friendship, Corporation, and Mutual Assistance
FDP Free Democratic Party (West Germany)
FMVJ Fédération Mondiale des Villes Jumelées Cités Unies
FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany, 1949-90)
FSU Friends of the Soviet Union
GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany, 1949-90)
GLCM ground-launched cruise missile
GPO U.S. Govemment Printing Office
HMSO Her(His) Majesty's Stationery Office
IAEA Intemational Atomic Energy Agency
ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile
ICFTU Intemational Confederation of Free Trade Unions
IFTU lntemational Federation of Trade Unions
1c Metall (German) Metalworkers' Union
ILO Intemational Labor Organization
IMEMO lnstitute of World Economy and Intemational Relations
INF intermediate-range nuclear forces
IPPNW lnternational Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear
War
IPU lnter-Parliamentary Union
LRINF longer-range intermediate-range nuclear forces
L TB Limited Test Ban
MBPR Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Talks
MFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs
MFN most favored nation
MLF multilateral nuclear force
NNA neutral and nonaligned
NPT (Nuclear) Nonproliferation Treaty
NST Nuclear and Space Talks
OTV Public Services and Transport Workers' Union (Germany)
Pee Political Consultative Committee
PCF French Communist Party
PCI Italian Communist Party
PNG persona non grata
PS French Socialist Party
PSI Italian Socialist Party
PSOE Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
Abbreviations xi
RFE Radio Free Europe
RIIA Royal lnstitute of lntemational Affairs
SAK Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions
SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
SED Socialist Unity Party
SFIO Section Fran~aise de l'lntemationale Ouvriere
s10Ac Socialist lntemational Disarmament Advisory Council
SMOT Free Interprofessional Workers Association (Russian)
SNF short-range nuclear forces
SPD Social Democratic Party of Germany
SRINF shorter-range intermediate-range nuclear forces
SSBN strategic missile submarine
ssoo (uN) Special Session on Disarrnament
START Strategic Arms (Limitation and) Reduction Talks
TUC Trades Union Congress
UNEsco UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
UNGA UN General Assembly
VOKS All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign
Countries
wcc World Council of Churches
WEU Western European Union
wFsw World Federation of Scientific Workers
WFTU World Federation of Trade Unions
WHO World Health Organization
WPC World Peace Council
WTO Warsaw Treaty Organization
1
Introduction
Soviet and Western scholars generally agree that the most intense
phase of the cold war began in the late 194os and lasted until Stalin's
death in early 1953. This period was followed by a change in East
West relations that has been described as a thaw, relaxation of ten
sions, or détente. 1 It did not elimina te the fundamental causes of
hostility between East and West, and was in any case partly reversed
by the Hungarian and Suez crises in the fall of 1956. Nonetheless, it
set in motion a process leading to increased political, security, eco
nomic, and cultural contacts between the two parts of divided Eu
rope. This book is about that process.
The dramatic developments of recent years-the collapse of com
munism in Eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany, and the
accelerating pace of change in the ussR itself-were both a culmi
nation and a negation of the process that began in the mid·195os.
The contacts that developed between East and West after 1953 no
doubt helped to generate the pressures for change that led to the rev
olutions of 1989. Indeed, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's most
reform-minded adviser, former Presidential Council and Politburo
member Aleksandr Iakovlev, was himself a participant in one of the
earliest Soviet exchange programs with the West.
At the same time, however, the upheavals of 1989 marked a sharp
break with the pattern of East-West relations after 1953 and the be
ginning, as was generally recognized, of a new era in European his
tory. Before 1989 few Western leaders expected the collapse of
communism or the rapid reunification of Germany. Western coun·
tries pursued policies of détente precisely because they assumed that
cataclysmic change was either unlikely or undesirable, and that the
only realistic alternative was to seek gradual improvements in East
West relations and in conditions in the East, chiefly through dialogue
and negotiation with the Communist authorities. Groups such as
the West German Social Democratic Party (sPo) were in fact em
barrassed when, after they had spent years developing cordial con
tacts with the Communists on the assumption that they alone could
change the system, power passed overnight to a group of virtually
unknown dissidents.
Whatever miscalculations there were on the Western side (and