aggravate them.
In negotiating with the Kremlin leaders, an American President should be cordial in personal matters but unyielding in policy matters. As Franklin Roosevelt learned, with tragic consequences for the people of Poland and the other nations behind the Iron Curtain, any President who believes he can get the men of the Kremlin to change their policies by charming them or simply through personal persuasiveness is due for a rude awakening. But while mushy sentimentality should be avoided, a President achieves nothingâby bluster and belligerence. The Russians are masters of the bluff and can usually detect that tactic when it is used against them. Bluster and bad manners may intimidate the weak but never the strong. Talking softly while carrying a big stick is the most effective way to deal with the Soviets.
While not decisive, personal relationships can be marginally important when dealing with the leaders of the Soviet Union. Before my meeting with Khrushchev in 1959, British Prime Minister Macmillan told me that the Soviet leaders desperately wanted to be âadmitted to the clubââaccepted and respected as major world figures in their own right and not simply because they control the great military power of the Soviet Union. The Russian people are a great people, and the Soviet Union is a great power. We should agree to admit the Soviet leadersinto the âclub,â but only if they agree to abide by the rules. It is a cheap price to pay if it helps restrain Soviet conduct.
We must make the Soviets understand that there is no way that we would or should admit them to the club if they continue to act as the moral outlaws of the world. When they shot down the Korean jetliner, they also shot down the prospects for quickly improving our relations in mutually beneficial ways.
Our initial response was to express our outrage in the strongest moral terms. We should not mince words in venting our anger because it clarifies the moral issue that is at the heart of the East-West struggle. But we must not delude ourselves by thinking that our statements about morality will have any effect behind the Kremlin walls. Condemning the Soviet leaders with statements based on Western ideals about the sanctity of human life is like making faces at the Sphinx.
Some have understandably urged us to make a stronger response. They advocate that we break off our diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, halt all our bilateral negotiations, and impose an array of trade sanctions. But they are overlooking one of the important lessons of this tragedy. As a vivid example of the danger of accidental war, it points out the fact that in the nuclear age there should be more communication between the superpowers rather than less.
While this is not the first atrocity committed by the Soviets, the West should seek to make it their last by seizing the moment to implement a strategy for dealing with them. We must develop a policy of hard-headed detente that will convince the Kremlin leaders that they stand to lose far more than they could possibly gain by threatening our interests. We can succeed only if we use the unity the world has found in its moral outrage to forge a strategy for real peace.
â¢Â â¢Â â¢
A major communist head of state in Eastern Europe recently remarked to me that the last 60 years have seen a curious reversal in the rhetoric of East and West. The communists usedto say that capitalism was collapsing, and now the capitalists are saying that communism is collapsing. He then observed, âPerhaps both are wrong.â
He was right. We have differences with the Soviets that we will never overcome. We will never condone their conquests and will always oppose their expansionist policies. But we cannot wish them away. They are there, so we have to deal with them. How we deal with them will determine whether we achieve real peace.
We should avoid hot rhetoric, but we should not mince words. If
In negotiating with the Kremlin leaders, an American President should be cordial in personal matters but unyielding in policy matters. As Franklin Roosevelt learned, with tragic consequences for the people of Poland and the other nations behind the Iron Curtain, any President who believes he can get the men of the Kremlin to change their policies by charming them or simply through personal persuasiveness is due for a rude awakening. But while mushy sentimentality should be avoided, a President achieves nothingâby bluster and belligerence. The Russians are masters of the bluff and can usually detect that tactic when it is used against them. Bluster and bad manners may intimidate the weak but never the strong. Talking softly while carrying a big stick is the most effective way to deal with the Soviets.
While not decisive, personal relationships can be marginally important when dealing with the leaders of the Soviet Union. Before my meeting with Khrushchev in 1959, British Prime Minister Macmillan told me that the Soviet leaders desperately wanted to be âadmitted to the clubââaccepted and respected as major world figures in their own right and not simply because they control the great military power of the Soviet Union. The Russian people are a great people, and the Soviet Union is a great power. We should agree to admit the Soviet leadersinto the âclub,â but only if they agree to abide by the rules. It is a cheap price to pay if it helps restrain Soviet conduct.
We must make the Soviets understand that there is no way that we would or should admit them to the club if they continue to act as the moral outlaws of the world. When they shot down the Korean jetliner, they also shot down the prospects for quickly improving our relations in mutually beneficial ways.
Our initial response was to express our outrage in the strongest moral terms. We should not mince words in venting our anger because it clarifies the moral issue that is at the heart of the East-West struggle. But we must not delude ourselves by thinking that our statements about morality will have any effect behind the Kremlin walls. Condemning the Soviet leaders with statements based on Western ideals about the sanctity of human life is like making faces at the Sphinx.
Some have understandably urged us to make a stronger response. They advocate that we break off our diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, halt all our bilateral negotiations, and impose an array of trade sanctions. But they are overlooking one of the important lessons of this tragedy. As a vivid example of the danger of accidental war, it points out the fact that in the nuclear age there should be more communication between the superpowers rather than less.
While this is not the first atrocity committed by the Soviets, the West should seek to make it their last by seizing the moment to implement a strategy for dealing with them. We must develop a policy of hard-headed detente that will convince the Kremlin leaders that they stand to lose far more than they could possibly gain by threatening our interests. We can succeed only if we use the unity the world has found in its moral outrage to forge a strategy for real peace.
â¢Â â¢Â â¢
A major communist head of state in Eastern Europe recently remarked to me that the last 60 years have seen a curious reversal in the rhetoric of East and West. The communists usedto say that capitalism was collapsing, and now the capitalists are saying that communism is collapsing. He then observed, âPerhaps both are wrong.â
He was right. We have differences with the Soviets that we will never overcome. We will never condone their conquests and will always oppose their expansionist policies. But we cannot wish them away. They are there, so we have to deal with them. How we deal with them will determine whether we achieve real peace.
We should avoid hot rhetoric, but we should not mince words. If
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