President Kennedy drew the line when the Soviets tried to put missiles into Cuba in 1962. I drew the line when they tried to put a nuclear submarine base on Cuba in 1970. President Reagan has drawn the line in El Salvador. He is right to do so. We should make it clear to the Soviets that we will do whatever is necessary to prevent the establishment of another Soviet base in the Americas.
All discussions should proceed on the principle of strict reciprocity. We give them something they want only if they give us something we want. By not capitalizing on our economic power, we have been giving away enormous assets for free. And the Soviets, who are experts at the hoarding and exploiting of power, must certainly view our failure to use our assets as a sign of both stupidity and weakness.
Our primary goal should be to build a new relationship with the Soviets in which we will be able to prevail upon them to cease their aggression. This can only happen when the bilateral relationship with us becomes more important to them than their adventurism.
We must develop a process for annual summits between theleaders of the United States and the Soviet Union. These meetings can both reduce the chances of war and help restrain Soviet behavior.
Regularly scheduled summits allow each leader to take the measure of the other and thus can reduce the possibility of miscalculation during a confrontation. In 1973, on the last night of my second summit with Brezhnev, we had a midnight meeting in San Clemente about the Middle East situation. He tried to push me into agreeing on a settlement that the superpowers would impose on Israel and the other nations of the region. I categorically and firmly resisted this pressure. We went at it toe-to-toe for three hours. After that confrontation, he had to know that we were not bluffing during the Yom Kippur War four months later, when we called an alert of our military forces in response to his threat to send Soviet combat troops into the Middle East.
If the leaders of the superpowers get to know each other, it does not mean they will like each other. But each controls such enormous power that it is vital that they take every possible step to reduce the possibility that either might underestimate the will of the other to defend his nationâs interests.
Regular summits will tend to restrain Soviet behavior. As a meeting approaches the Kremlin leaders will be reluctant to do anything that might âpoisonâ the atmosphere and therefore make it more difficult to reach the agreements they want. Brezhnev had an eye on the calendar when he agreed to join us in bringing about a ceasefire in the war between India and Pakistan in 1971. He would have preferred to embarrass the Chinese by allowing his client, India, to gobble up Chinaâs client, Pakistan. But he knew the cost would include the cancellation of a summit meeting he wanted. We had made that risk categorically clear to him.
Regular summits that produce concrete results will help the United States and our allies mobilize public support for necessary defense programs. While we should not have a summit simply because our allies and friends favor it, the fact that we will go to the summit when it is properly prepared reassuresthem. Hope for real peace is essential if the people of the United States as well as Europe are to continue to support the military strength necessary to maintain the foundation of deterrence on which detente rests. There may be occasional spurts of spending when the threat of Soviet aggression seems acute, but over the long haul the absence of hope for peace fuels the forces of appeasement.
Good or bad personal relations at a summit will not have a decisive effect on state relations. But the two cannot be separated. We should not assume that better personal relations will automatically improve bad state relations. Still, poor personal relations will make it more difficult to improve bad state relations, and could even
All discussions should proceed on the principle of strict reciprocity. We give them something they want only if they give us something we want. By not capitalizing on our economic power, we have been giving away enormous assets for free. And the Soviets, who are experts at the hoarding and exploiting of power, must certainly view our failure to use our assets as a sign of both stupidity and weakness.
Our primary goal should be to build a new relationship with the Soviets in which we will be able to prevail upon them to cease their aggression. This can only happen when the bilateral relationship with us becomes more important to them than their adventurism.
We must develop a process for annual summits between theleaders of the United States and the Soviet Union. These meetings can both reduce the chances of war and help restrain Soviet behavior.
Regularly scheduled summits allow each leader to take the measure of the other and thus can reduce the possibility of miscalculation during a confrontation. In 1973, on the last night of my second summit with Brezhnev, we had a midnight meeting in San Clemente about the Middle East situation. He tried to push me into agreeing on a settlement that the superpowers would impose on Israel and the other nations of the region. I categorically and firmly resisted this pressure. We went at it toe-to-toe for three hours. After that confrontation, he had to know that we were not bluffing during the Yom Kippur War four months later, when we called an alert of our military forces in response to his threat to send Soviet combat troops into the Middle East.
If the leaders of the superpowers get to know each other, it does not mean they will like each other. But each controls such enormous power that it is vital that they take every possible step to reduce the possibility that either might underestimate the will of the other to defend his nationâs interests.
Regular summits will tend to restrain Soviet behavior. As a meeting approaches the Kremlin leaders will be reluctant to do anything that might âpoisonâ the atmosphere and therefore make it more difficult to reach the agreements they want. Brezhnev had an eye on the calendar when he agreed to join us in bringing about a ceasefire in the war between India and Pakistan in 1971. He would have preferred to embarrass the Chinese by allowing his client, India, to gobble up Chinaâs client, Pakistan. But he knew the cost would include the cancellation of a summit meeting he wanted. We had made that risk categorically clear to him.
Regular summits that produce concrete results will help the United States and our allies mobilize public support for necessary defense programs. While we should not have a summit simply because our allies and friends favor it, the fact that we will go to the summit when it is properly prepared reassuresthem. Hope for real peace is essential if the people of the United States as well as Europe are to continue to support the military strength necessary to maintain the foundation of deterrence on which detente rests. There may be occasional spurts of spending when the threat of Soviet aggression seems acute, but over the long haul the absence of hope for peace fuels the forces of appeasement.
Good or bad personal relations at a summit will not have a decisive effect on state relations. But the two cannot be separated. We should not assume that better personal relations will automatically improve bad state relations. Still, poor personal relations will make it more difficult to improve bad state relations, and could even
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