Abstract
In October 1974 Cees van den Heuvel went to Moscow. It was to be the first of several trips to capitals in Eastern Europe, each time involving visits to institutes of international affairs, foreign policy think tanks, and foreign ministries. Through the decade he established strong links in Poland and the Soviet Union in particular. He travelled alone and arranged all the details himself. These were fact-finding missions, to learn more about communist perceptions of the West in a period when the diplomatic and security negotiations of détente were in full swing. East and West were jousting for position at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Helsinki, the Mutual Balanced Force Reductions negotiations in Vienna, and the Washington-Moscow Strategic Arms Limitations Talks. Having spent the previous decade or more warning and instructing others via SOEV, the OWI, and Interdoc on the intricacies of East-West contacts, Van den Heuvel now wanted to see for himself. Geyer would no doubt have approved. The Dutchman’s trips east lay at the centre of an Interdoc that was changing with the times — but equally determined to fulfil its mission. “What is the use of our military and diplomatic assumptions if we don’t understand the Soviet perception of strategic and political reality?” he had written in 1967: “This is first of all a psychological question.”2 Recent research has begun to focus more on the role of private groups in the détente process, particularly the way they pursued a human rights agenda before Western governments officially took up this cause.3
Hostility which is met with hostility can never create anything positive, but only hate, and relations based on hate easily lead to aggression. It may be too much to expect that we can turn an adversary into a friend as that will take a very long time. What we can try however is to change him to such an extent that he gradually loses his hostility. He must realize that through the better relations he will gain rather than lose. If the West proceeds along these lines it will make a substantial contribution to peace.
Cees van den Heuvel, 19671
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Notes
C.C. van den Heuvel, East-West Confrontation: A Psychological Strategy (The Hague: Interdoc, 1967), p. 8.
For the American side of this story see Sarah Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
On van Eeghen see Willem Oltmans, Zaken Doen: notities van een ooggetuige (Baarn: In den Toren, 1986).
The Voorhees reference then follows this. On Dartmouth see James Voorhees, Dialogue Sustained: The Multilevel Peace Process and the Dartmouth Conference (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002).
On the formation of the ATA see Valérie Aubourg, ‘Creating the Texture of the Atlantic Community: The NATO Information Service, private Atlantic networks and the Atlantic Community in the 1950s’, in V. Aubourg, G. Bossuat, and G. Scott-Smith (eds), European Community, Atlantic Community? (Paris: Soleb, 2008), pp. 404–405.
Remco van Diepen, ‘Beschaafd ageren voor de NAVO’: 50 Jaar Atlantische Commissie (The Hague: Atlantische Commissie, 2002), pp. 62–69.
Neither, interestingly enough, had Leonid Brezhnev. See William Bundy, A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency (New York: Hill & Wang, 1998), pp. 255–259.
Henk Hergarden, interview with the author, Berlicum, 30 July 2005; Henk Hergarden, ‘Met beide benen op de grond’, in Strijdbaar toen en nu: Vriendenbundel bij de 80ste verjaardag van Kees van den Heuvel, p. 38; Pieter Koerts, interviews with the author, Leiden, 24 June 2009 and 29 June 2011.
Alphonse Max, Tupamaros: A Pattern for Urban Guerrilla Warfare in Latin America (The Hague: Interdoc, 1970), and Guerrillas in Latin America (The Hague: Interdoc, 1971).
See for instance B. Häggman, Sweden’s Maoist Subversives: A Case Study (London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1975).
Bertil Häggman, For Freedom against Totalitarianism: The Great Triumph, self-published memoir, 2000; Häggman to Mennes, 3 January 1966, File: 79 Algemeen 1962–1966, Zweden (1958–1978), CC NAH; Bertil Häggman, telephone interview with the author, 4 December 2008; ‘How to improve America’s Image in Sweden’, n.d. [1966], personal papers of Bertil Häggman; Bertil Häggman, interview with the author, Copenhagen, 30 September 2011.
Rolf Geyer, ‘Some Thoughts on Communist Policy’, Hans Lades, ‘Reform as a form of revolution’, and C.C. van den Heuvel, ‘Suggestions for a Western Response’, in Communist Reassessment of Capitalism, its Resultant Strategy and the Western Response (The Hague: Interdoc, 1968).
Rolf Geyer, ‘Neutralism and East-West Détente: Wishful Thinking or Reality?’ in Neutralism and East-West Détente: Wishful Thinking or Reality? (The Hague: Interdoc, 1969), pp. 16, 19.
Rolf Geyer, ‘Summary’, in National Views on Neutralism and East-West Détente (The Hague: Interdoc, 1970), pp. 108, 109. The conference booklet included contributions from Gerald Steibel (US), Alan Lee Williams (UK), Nicolas Lang (France), Hans Lades (West Germany), A. Camponeschi (Italy), Eric Waldman (Canada), P.A. Heegaard-Poulsen (Scandinavia), F.C. Spits (Netherlands), Hans Graf (Switzerland), Etsuo Kohtani (Japan/Asia), and Uwe Holl (Interdoc Youth).
C.C. van den Heuvel, R.D. Praaning, and F.Z.R. Wijchers, Implementation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Part I (The Hague: East-West Institute, 1976), pp. 3–4.
See Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).
Van den Heuvel to Ellis, 30 October 1973, File: 98 C.H. (Dick) Ellis 1969, Groot-Britannië (1959–1985), CC NAH; C.C. van den Heuvel (ed.), Development of East-West Relations through Freer Movement of People, Ideas and Information (The Hague: Interdoc, 1973), pp. 7, 11, 14, 18, 31, 54. The line-up in the publication was Berkhouwer, Kuznetsov, J. van der Valk (Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Meissner, and Reverend Michael Bordeaux (Director, Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism, UK). Berkhouwer had actually been third choice behind Foreign Minister Max van der Stoel and NATO Secretary General Joseph Luns, neither of whom could make it. Kuznetsov’s contribution was also written up in the Economist’s Foreign Report (26 September 1973) via Noordwijk participant Kenneth Mackenzie.
The closest he came to doing so is in the recent publication F.A.H. Alting von Geusau, Cultural Diplomacy: Waging War by other Means? (Nijmegen: Wolf, 2009).
There is a letter from Van den Heuvel to Damman declining the invitation for himself and Mennes to attend an Académie conference in Antibes in September 1972. With the US conference only two months away and money in short supply in 1972, Van den Heuvel had plenty of reasons to turn it down, but it also fits his caution against becoming too embroiled in the networks of right-wing anti-communism — unless, as with the WACL, he could tap into their networks for his own purposes. Van den Heuvel to Damman, 25 August 1972, ‘For a True and Lasting Peace’, Pinay Circle Declaration, January 1973, ‘Un Appel de l’Académie Européenne de Sciences Politiques sur la Sécurité Européenne’, Le Monde, 21 June 1973, File: 146 Académie Européenne de Sciences Politiques 1972–1977, België (1961–1977), CC NAH; Johannes Grossman, ‘Ein Europa der “Hintergründigen”: Antikommunistische christliche Organisationen, konservative Elitenzirkel und private Außenpolitik in Westeuropa nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Johannes Wienand and Christianne Wienand (eds), Die kulturelle Integration Europas (Springer: VS Verlag, 2010), pp. 335–336.
Brian Crozier, Max Beloff, and Robert Conquest, European Security and the Soviet Problem (London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1970), pp. 14, 39;
Brian Crozier, Free Agent: The Unseen War 1941–1991 (London: HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 82, 96.
Boris Meissner, The Soviet Conception of Coexistence and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (The Hague: East-West Institute, 1974), p. 14;
Zacharias Anthonisse, Communistische Vreedzame Coëxistentie (The Hague: SOEV, 1963).
C.C. van den Heuvel, R.D. Praaning, & F.Z.R. Wijchers, Implementation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Part I (The Hague: OWI, 1976);
C.C. van den Heuvel, R.D. Praaning, P. Vaillant, & F.Z.R. Wijchers, Part II (1977);
F.Z.R. Wijchers, Part III (1977).
J.W. van der Meulen, ‘Commentaar: Het Oost-West Instituut als spreekbuis van het Kremlin’, Internationale Spectator, 30 (December 1976), pp. 748–750.
See the subsequent sharp exchange between Van den Heuvel and Van der Meulen in ‘Commentaar: Een merkwaardige insinuatie’, Internationale Spectator, 31 (February 1977), pp. 122–125.
Gerrit Pietersen, Afghanistan is Our World (The Hague: Interdoc, 1981), pp. 7–8. It was intended to be a direct riposte to The Truth about Afghanistan (Moscow: Novosty Press Agency, 1980).
Weitzel recalled later that Van der Stoel was probably to blame for the final collapse of CEVS: “we had a problem with him”. C.C. van den Heuvel to board, 23 December 1982, File: CEVS Bestuursvergaderingen 1979–82, CC NAH; Noel to Van den Heuvel, 17 December 1982, and Van den Heuvel to C. Trajan (EC Commission), 14 February 1983, File: Algemene Correspondentie 1983, CC NAH; Robert Weitzel, interview with the author, Amsterdam, 11 July 2006. See also Arie Bloed and P. van Dijk (eds), Essays on Human Rights in the Helsinki Process (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985).
The IKV was actually supported via Dutch government subsidies for development cooperation. On Soviet and GDR efforts to influence the Dutch debate on nuclear weapons see ‘Nederland geliefd doelwit van communistische infiltratie’, Reformatorisch Dagblad, Part I 15 July 1981, Part II 16 July 1981; Beatrice de Graaf, Over de Muur: De DDR de Nederlandse Kerken en de Vredesbeweging (Amsterdam: Boom, 2004).
The other members of the committee were Willem Ch.J.M. van Lanschot, E. Roest, and H.J. Teengs Gerritsen (a close friend of Prince Bernhard). Gedenkboek Verzetsherdenkingskruis (The Hague, Samson, 1985), pp. 15–20, 25–33;
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© 2012 Giles Scott-Smith
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Scott-Smith, G. (2012). Interdoc Reconfigures: The 1970s and Détente. In: Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network. Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137284273_9
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