Abstract
While the term détente has been popularised over the past several years by the media, few people actually understand what it means.
Détente is an amorphous, not to say cloudy, subject and, like all clouds, susceptible to a variety of interpretations. Hearing experts argue about détente, one is reminded of the famous colloquy between Hamlet and Polonius. As you will remember, Hamlet seizing Polonius by the arm, says, ‘Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?’ ‘By the mass, and ‘tis like a camel indeed’, agreed Polonius. ‘Me thinks’, says Hamlet, ‘it is like a weasel’. ‘It is backed like a weasel’, agrees Polonius. ‘Or like a whale?’ ‘Very like a whale’.1
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
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Notes
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ‘Détente: an American Perspective’, in Détente in Historical Perspective, edited by G. Schwab and H. Friedlander (NY: Ciro Press, 1975) p. 125. From Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2.
Gustav Pollak Lecture at Harvard, 14 April 1976; reprinted in James Schlesinger, ‘The Evolution of American Policy Towards the Soviet Union’, International Security, Summer 1976, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 46–7.
Theodore Draper, ‘Appeasement and Détente’, Commentary, Feb. 1976, vol. 61, no. 8, p. 32.
Coral Bell, in her book, The Diplomacy of Détente (London: Martin Robertson, 1977), has written an extensive analysis of the triangular relationship but points out that, as of yet, no third side to the triangle — the détente between China and the USSR — exists, p. 5.
Seyom Brown, ‘A Cooling-Ofi Period for U.S.-Soviet Relations’, Foreign Policy, Fall 1977, no. 28, p. 12.
See also I. Aleksandrov, ‘Peking: a Course Aimed at Disrupting International Détente Under Cover of Anti-Sovietism’, Pravda, 14 May 1977 — translated in Current Digest of Soviet Press. Hereafter, only the Soviet publication will be named.
Vladimir Petrov, U.S.—Soviet Détente: Past and Future (Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1975) p. 2.
N. Kapcheko, ‘Socialist Foreign Policy and the Reconstruction of International Relations’, International Affairs (Moscow), no. 4, Apr. 1975, p. 8.
L. Brezhnev, Report of the Twenty-Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 24 Feb. 1976.
Marshall Shulman, ‘Toward a Western Philosophy of Coexistence’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 52, Oct. 1973, p. 36; and Walter Laqueur, ‘Détente: Western and Soviet Interpretations’, Survey, vol. 19, Summer 1973, p. 74.
See Marshal Sergei Biryuzov (Soviet Chief of Staff), Izvestia, 11 Dec. 1963.
Quoted from Raymond Garthoff, ‘Mutual Deterrence, Parity and Strategic Arms Limitation in Soviet Policy’, in Derek Leebaert Soviet Military Thinking (London: Allen & Unwin, 1981) pp. 92–4.
This American inclination is described in George Kennan, American Diplomacy 1900–1950 (London: Seeker & Warburg, 1952) pp. 95–6.
Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace (London: Andre Deutsch, 1978) p. 9.
Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1979) p. 915.
Douglas Scrivner, ‘The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe: Implications for Soviet-American Détente’, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, Spring 1976, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 140–50.
Robert McGeehan, ‘American Policies and the U.S.-Soviet Relationship’, World Today, Sept. 1978, vol. 34, no. 9, p. 349.
James Schlesinger in Defending America (N.Y.: Basic Books Inc. Publishers, 1977) p. xii.
Edward Kennedy, ‘Beyond Détente’, Foreign Policy, Fall 1974, no. 16, p. 3.
Harold Nicolson, Diplomacy (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1939) p. 242.
Josef Korbel, ‘Détente and World Order’, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, Spring 1976, vol. 6, no. 1, p. 13.
Walter C. Clemens Jr., ‘The Impact of Détente on Chinese and Soviet Communism’, Journal of International Affairs, 1974, vol. 28, no. 2, p. 134.
American-Soviet Détente, Peace and National Security, edited by Fred Warner Neal (Santa Barbara, California: Fund for the Republic, Inc., 1976) p. 26.
Anatoly A. Gromyko, ‘The Future of Soviet-American Diplomacy’, Annals, July 1974, vol. 414, pp. 27–40.
Hedley Bull, ‘The Scope for Super-Power Agreements’, Arms Control and National Security, vol. 1, 1969, p. 2.
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© 1985 Richard W. Stevenson
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Stevenson, R.W. (1985). The Meaning of Détente. In: The Rise and Fall of Détente. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07024-4_1
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