Cold War Realism and Détente

As Nixon maneuvered to end the Vietnam War, he embarked on a parallel effort to improve relations with his Cold War Communist enemies. Nixon had begun his political career as a fierce anti-Communist, but he also considered himself a realist in foreign affairs. He was concerned less about promoting abstract ideals of democracy than about fashioning a stable world order based on a balance of power. With this in mind, Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger worked to establish closer relations with both the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, hoping each power could be persuaded to pressure the North Vietnamese to accept an American peace settlement and end the war quickly. In addition, with the Soviet Union and China competing for influence in Asia, Nixon sought to exploit this conflict to keep these nuclear powers divided.

Nixon and Kissinger’s plans succeeded in many ways. Their efforts to use great-power diplomacy to pressure the North Vietnamese into concessions failed, but their greatest triumph came in easing tensions with the country’s Cold War adversaries. Through secret maneuvering, Kissinger prepared the way for Nixon to make the bold move of visiting mainland China in 1972, the first president to do so since the Cold War began. The meeting set in motion a new relationship between the capitalist and Communist nations. After blocking the People’s Republic of China’s admission to the United Nations for twenty-two years, the United States announced that it would no longer oppose China’s entry to the world organization. This cautious renewal of relations between the two countries benefited both. It opened up possibilities of American access to the huge China market, and for the Chinese it promised trade with the United States.

Shaken by the movement toward closer relations between China and the United States, Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev invited President Nixon to Moscow in May 1972, the first time an American president had visited the Soviet Union since 1945. The main topic of discussion concerned arms control, and with the Soviet Union eager to make a deal in the aftermath of Nixon’s trip to China, the two sides worked out the historic Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), the first to curtail nuclear arms production during the Cold War. The pact restricted the number of antiballistic missiles that each nation could deploy and froze the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-based missiles for five years, with each side agreeing to pursue nuclear “sufficiency” rather than “superiority.”

Nixon’s diplomatic initiatives, however, failed to resolve festering problems in the Middle East, an area of strategic concern to both the United States and the Soviet Union. Since its victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel had occupied territory once controlled by Egypt and Syria as well as the former Palestinian capital of East Jerusalem. On October 6, 1973, during the start of the Jewish High Holidays of Yom Kippur, Egyptian and Syrian troops, fortified with Soviet arms, caught the Israelis off guard and quickly managed to recapture territory lost in 1967. An Israeli counterattack, reinforced by a shipment of $2 billion of American weapons, repelled Arab forces, and the Israeli military stood ready to destroy the Egyptian army. To avoid a complete breakdown in the balance of power, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to broker a cease-fire that left the situation the same as before the war.

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Gas Shortages, 1973 A gas station owner in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, lets his customers know he is out of gas. OPEC’s 1973 oil embargo during the Yom Kippur War caused gas shortages and soaring prices in the United States. Motorists scrambling to find available supplies at gas stations created long lines. AP Photo

U.S. involvement in the struggle between Israel and its Arab enemies exacerbated economic troubles at home. On October 17, 1973, in the midst of the Yom Kippur War, the Arab-dominated Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an oil embargo on the United States as punishment for its support of Israel. As a result of the embargo, the price of oil skyrocketed, and reduced oil supplies produced long lines at the gas pumps. The effect of high oil prices rippled through the economy, leading to increased inflation and unemployment, which rose from 5 to 7 percent. The embargo also affected America’s allies in Western Europe, which imported 80 percent of its oil supply from Arab states, compared with 12 percent for the United States. The crisis lasted until May 1974, when OPEC lifted its embargo following six months of diplomacy by Kissinger.

The United States preferred to support stability over democracy when its strategic or economic interests were at stake. Under Nixon’s leadership, the United States supported repressive regimes in Nicaragua, South Africa, the Philippines, and Iran. In Chile, the United States overthrew the democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende, who was murdered in a CIA-backed operation in 1973. The coup brought nearly two decades of dictatorial rule to that country.