1972: United States

Foreign Relations

Behind the movement, heralded in 1972, toward a new era in international affairs was Washington's increasing willingness to accept the consequences of the Soviet victory in World War II and Mao Tse-tung's triumph in China. Official American rhetoric no longer regarded the existence of two Communist-led giants as a serious threat to Western security. President Richard M. Nixon's trips to Peking in February and to Moscow in May symbolized new relationships between three states with the power to reshape world politics. Clearly, the erosion of cold war assumptions afforded new opportunities for international maneuvering.

President Nixon's decision to focus national attention on foreign affairs in 1972 resulted in the most extensive exercise of personal diplomacy conducted by any national leader in modern times. His summit talks started in December 1971 with Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau of Canada and continued into the summer of 1972 with Premier Kakuei Tanaka of Japan. Through a series of conversations with European and Asian leaders, conducted both at home and abroad, the president sought to reaffirm ties with allies and to establish new relations with the Communist powers.

Europe.

The Moscow summit.

What crowned the months of summitry was President Nixon's trip to Moscow in late May. Indeed, the Moscow summit dominated the year of U.S.-Soviet relations, for it reflected the conviction among both Soviet and American spokesmen that, despite differences over Indo-Pakistani relations and Vietnam, agreements could be reached that would permit both nations to live together with greater confidence and decency.

Nixon's welcome in Moscow was cordial but subdued. From his arrival, the American and Soviet negotiators proceeded to discuss every major world problem. Unable to come to agreement on Vietnam or the Middle East, they pledged to strive for a better relationship by binding the two countries together so tightly with joint committees and projects that only with difficulty could remote conflicts of interest disrupt their mutual determination to avoid direct confrontations.

Eventually they endorsed a series of agreements that had been carefully prepared in advance. These covered health research, pollution control, a future linkup of astronauts in space, and the avoidance of naval incidents at sea. To achieve a more stable balance of terror at existing nuclear levels, the negotiators at Moscow signed two nuclear arms pacts, one limiting the installation of antiballistic missiles to two locations in each country, the other freezing offensive weapons at current levels for five years, ensuring numerical superiority for Soviet missiles. In large measure, this nuclear formula had been reached at the strategic arms limitation talks in previous months. The Moscow agreements imposed no restraints on the qualitative improvement of existing weapons; thus, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird made it clear that expenditures for missile development would not be curtailed.

Back in Washington, the president assured Congress that the nuclear arms pacts would prevent the arms race from spreading but would not endanger U.S. security; the nation would remain the most powerful on earth. This assurance did not convince Senator Henry Jackson (D, Wash.), who offered a resolution requiring any future U.S. negotiator to demand the numerical equality of American and Soviet nuclear power. In early August the Senate approved the ABM agreement by a vote of 88-2, after only one day of debate. But the president's endorsement of the Jackson resolution, coupled with the subsequent retreat of administration officials from certain of Jackson's interpretations of his own amendment, clouded Senate debate on the five-year interim agreement. Not until September, after five weeks of bitter argument, did the Senate approve the second nuclear arms pact as amended.

At Moscow the questions of trade, credits, equal tariff treatment, and the settlement of the old World War II lend-lease debt proved too complicated to be resolved by high-level conversations and remained unsettled until October, when a comprehensive trade agreement covering these and other matters was concluded. Meanwhile, progress continued on other fronts. In July the two countries signed an agreement calling for the United States to sell at least $750 million in grain to the Soviet Union between 1972 and 1975; in fact, sales for 1972 alone exceeded $1 billion.

Berlin agreement.

In May, after much political wrangling, the West German Bundestag ratified nonaggression treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland. This reluctant endorsement of Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik opened the way for the June 3 signing of the Soviet-American-British-French agreement on Berlin. The brief ceremony, held in Berlin, capped a 26-month effort to remove that city from its formerly central position in the cold war. The agreement did not alter the legal status of West Berlin; it sought rather to help West Berlin's more than 2.1 million people escape much of the friction created by the city's division. The precise terms, announced by East and West German officials in December 1971, would enable people to travel back and forth under simplified procedures eliminating much of the previous delay and harassment.

European security.

Bonn's action on the nonaggression treaties encouraged negotiations on two related questions—European security and troop reductions across Central Europe. Late in May, the NATO foreign ministers, at their spring meeting, anticipated the signing of the Berlin agreement by announcing that preparatory talks would begin with Soviet-bloc nations on a European security conference, to begin at Helsinki in the fall. These talks were expected to lead to an all-European conference, including Canada and the United States, sometime in 1973.

Agreement on troop withdrawals remained elusive. Europe's NATO partners, especially West Germany, still opposed the reduction of U.S. force levels on the continent, fearing that any limitation of the American military presence in Europe would result in the eventual subordination of European politics to Soviet interests. To many European officials, only an East-West agreement on mutual force reductions would render any U.S. troop withdrawal acceptable. Washington insisted only that talks on troop reductions be limited to those countries whose forces actually confronted one another in Central Europe.

The Far East.

Vietnam.

Having failed in three years to terminate the American involvement in the Vietnam war, President Nixon entered the new year emphasizing his past and continuing efforts at peace. On January 25 he revealed that his adviser Henry Kissinger had, since August 4, 1969, conducted 12 secret negotiating sessions with top North Vietnamese envoys in Paris. At the same time he unveiled an eight-point peace offer—not entirely new—which included a cease-fire; the withdrawal of American forces within six months after a peace agreement, in exchange for the release of American prisoners of war; a pledge that the Vietnamese would be permitted to determine their own political future, with the United States abiding by the outcome; and the promise that South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu would step down one month before an election. Hanoi rejected the proposal outright, while Thieu denied that he had agreed to resign and made clear that Saigon would accept no territorial concessions, no neutrality, and no coalition government. Meanwhile the president announced his plan to reduce United States forces in Vietnam to a residual force of between 25,000 and 35,000 men by November. Simultaneously he reminded Hanoi that the United States still maintained effective power in Asia by sustaining the heaviest air war against North Vietnam since 1968.

During March the Paris peace talks collapsed, compelling the president again to entrust the success of his policies to Vietnamization. But Vietnamization, which still required a high level of U.S. logistical support, could not prevent the massive North Vietnamese offensive which opened late in March. Nixon struck back with massive bombing runs of B-52's and other aircraft over Hanoi, Haiphong, and other key targets. The bombing, said the administration, would protect American troops, sustain the withdrawal program, and protect South Vietnam from the invasion. Even as the destruction mounted, U.S. officials expressed doubt about its effectiveness. Battlefield reports were not encouraging.

Humiliated and frustrated by the North Vietnamese success, the president reached for another 'contingency plan' to end the fighting. Early in May he informed the nation that he had ordered the mining of Haiphong harbor and other ports to stop the flow of weapons and supplies to the North Vietnamese Army. Simultaneously he unleashed air and naval bombardments to cut the rail lines from China. Ultimately the bombing and the mining did buy time on the battlefield; the destruction stalled the North Vietnamese, helping Saigon's forces recapture some lost ground.

Meanwhile, the president searched for a negotiated settlement. Late in April he announced that the United States would resume negotiations in Paris, but the revived talks remained hopelessly deadlocked. During the summer months, Kissinger's well-publicized trips to Paris, Moscow, Peking, and Saigon sparked rumors of an impending settlement. Washington and Hanoi seemed to agree on the need for political change in Saigon, but they disagreed on the means to achieve it; Thieu's role in Saigon's future remained the key to a settlement in 1972, just as it had been four years earlier. However, on October 26 Hanoi disclosed that there had been a breakthrough in the Paris negotiations between Kissinger and Le Duc Tho on October 8, and both sides appeared to have reached a general agreement on a ninepoint plan for ending the war and establishing a new political order in South Vietnam. The agreement, which the United States was to have signed by October 31, according to Hanoi, provided for a cease-fire in South Vietnam and the withdrawal of American troops within 60 days, during which time all captured military personnel and foreign civilians would be repatriated, with North Vietnam accounting for all American prisoners and men reported as missing in action throughout Indochina. Although the agreement was not signed by the October 31 deadline, U.S. officials remained confident that peace was near. But as Election Day passed, both the rhetoric and the fighting continued to escalate. Hanoi renewed its insistence on Thieu's ouster, and the Saigon government denounced what it considered certain crucially vague passages about its future. Even as Henry Kissinger prepared for yet more talks with Le Duc Tho, U.S. bombers struck throughout Indochina. It seemed increasingly likely that even the signing of an agreement would bring no quick end to the war.

The Peking summit.

Behind the president's carefully planned trip to Peking in February 1972 was not only the Sino-Soviet rivalry but also China's emergence as a major factor in the burgeoning Asian balance of power. Critics who feared that the Peking trip would astonish and antagonize the country's Asian allies still agreed generally that U.S. interests demanded better communications with Peking. A reconciliation with China, moreover, would remove from Vietnam the specter of Chinese expansionism that long served as the rationale for American containment policy in Southeast Asia.

Nixon's welcome in Peking was modest but correct. Despite the subsequent cordiality the U.S.-Chinese reconciliation was far from complete. For the president the visit was a historic event, 'a week that changed the world.' Peking gave up its official hostility but gained an occasion for warning the Soviets, isolating Japan, and threatening Taiwan. In fact, the Peking summit proved to be less an exercise in diplomacy than a television spectacular for the benefit of American viewers.

The final communiqué dwelt on disagreements, especially that over Taiwan. The president acknowledged that Taiwan's future was a question to be resolved by the Chinese people. The United States would reduce its forces on Taiwan as tension in the area diminished, but it would not cut its ties with the Nationalists. On the Vietnam issue the two nations again agreed to differ. Elsewhere the communiqué was more positive. The two countries agreed to respect 'the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states.' Neither would seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, and both would oppose the efforts of any other country to do so. They agreed on the importance of broadened contacts, increased trade, and further diplomatic consultation. For the moment, Peking refused to accept a permanent diplomatic representation, but the two nations maintained constant diplomatic association through their ambassadors.

To reassure Washington's Asian allies that this new relationship with China had not cast them adrift, the president sent Assistant Secretary of State Marshall Green to visit their capitals. Green's reception in Taipei was cool, for the Nationalists felt especially threatened by Nixon's tacit recognition of Peking's legitimacy. The destruction of the 20-year illusion that the Chiang Kai-shek regime was indeed the government of all China exposed Taipei to increased opposition at home and increased isolation abroad. In Manila, Green insisted that U.S. policy toward the SEATO allies had not changed. In Bangkok he assured Thai officials, 'We will faithfully honor all of our treaty commitments. Our close bonds with our friends are vital to the success of our foreign policy.' Still, the new lines of conflict suggested by the changing American perception of China and the growing Sino-Soviet confrontation across Asia undermined the validity of alliances which had assumed a Kremlin-based Communist monolith threatening Asia's independence. Now, many agreed, U.S. interests favored a true neutrality for Asian states that Washington once viewed as strategic partners.

Japan.

Nowhere was the impact of the Peking summit more pronounced than in Japan. Having followed the U.S. lead in Asia, Tokyo was especially vulnerable to any change in American-Chinese relations. With its industrial and commercial vitality, Japan had emerged as a major influence in Asian affairs; yet as long as Japan eschewed military power it could guarantee its security only by sustaining a mutuality of interest with the United States, which itself demanded a high level of cooperation with the United States on military and diplomatic questions. Far Eastern experts warned Washington that cordial U.S.-Japanese relations, the key to Pacific stability, could no longer be taken for granted.

Issues other than defense troubled U.S.-Japanese relations in 1972. Japan's huge dollar accumulation had long created pressures in Washington to curb Japanese imports. President Nixon's measures of August 1971, to overcome deficits in the United States balance of payments, shocked and angered the Japanese. Nevertheless, with U.S. trade as their lifeline, the Japanese had no desire to imperil their markets by encouraging commercial reprisals. Thus, early in 1972, Tokyo adopted measures to promote imports, curtail exports, and encourage the movement of Japanese capital abroad. Thereafter, the United States pressed the Japanese to take positive action to pare their country's trade surplus with the United States.

Quite understandably, the Japanese were ruffled when President Nixon planned the Peking summit without consulting them. In January, Premier Eisaku Sato urged Nixon at the Western White House in San Clemente to avoid any agreements which might affect Japan adversely. To ease Japanese apprehensions, Secretary Green briefed the Tokyo government in March on Nixon's Peking trip, which Japan had followed with cynicism and alarm. In June, after an embarrassing postponement, Kissinger traveled to Tokyo to reassure the Japanese that Washington would continue to regard Japan as its permanent ally in the Pacific. What eased the tension somewhat was Okinawa's formal reversion to Japanese control in May (the United States retained the right to nonnuclear facilities on the island).

Kakuei Tanaka's accession to the Japanese premiership in July opened a new era in Japan's external relations, for Tanaka shared few of the convictions of his predecessor. He favored close ties with the United States but was equally determined to normalize Japanese relations with China. He promised American trade officials in late July that he would work toward cutting the trade imbalance. At his summit conference with Nixon at Honolulu in late summer, Tanaka agreed to a $1.1 billion reduction in the trade imbalance (considerably less than the Nixon administration desired), but it was clear that the old 'special relationship' between Tokyo and Washington was gone. Japan had left its postwar client status to become a friendly rival for power and influence in the Pacific.

The Middle East.

For the United States the perennial Arab-Israeli conflict remained an issue less of immediate than of long-range concern. The U.S. compromise plan, which Secretary of State William P. Rogers had placed before the UN in October 1971, carried the burden of Washington's peace efforts. But Israeli premier Golda Meir regarded the Rogers formula, which supported Egypt's demand for an interim agreement to reopen the Suez Canal, as an abandonment of Israel's negotiating position. Israel, she complained, would never agree to a political settlement which jeopardized its security and would withdraw no troops from the eastern bank of the Suez unless the United States agreed to support the Israelis in case of an Egyptian violation of any territorial arrangement. Israel, moreover, demanded a long-term commitment of U.S. military assistance in exchange for a withdrawal from Arab lands. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, convinced that peace was impossible, called on the Egyptian Army to prepare for trouble. The Middle East entered 1972 hovering between peace and war.

Suddenly, during July, events in Egypt offered some promise of a turnabout. Having failed to come to terms with the Kremlin over additional Soviet arms for Egypt, Sadat announced the termination of the Soviet military mission in Egypt and ordered the expulsion of Soviet advisers. Even the return of some advisers in October left the Soviet presence at its lowest level since 1955.

Nevertheless, continued Arab terrorism, especially along Israel's borders with Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, convinced the Israelis that the Arab states were unwilling, perhaps unable, to make peace and that Israeli interests lay in military reprisals rather than diplomatic maneuvering. Siding with Israel in the UN, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution which condemned Israel for its reprisals against Syria and Lebanon but refused to condemn the terrorist acts of the Arabs, only the second veto in U.S. history. On September 28, President Sadat again rejected an interim peace settlement and refused direct negotiations with Israel. Peace remained as elusive as ever.

Latin America.

As the major powers moved toward the creation of a new world order, they increasingly consigned the Third World to the periphery of international affairs. U.S.-Latin American relations reflected the growing tension between rich and poor nations, for Latin Americans continued to condemn Washington for its lack of concern about their economic plight.

In November 1971, 21 Latin American countries, led by Brazil, submitted the proposition to the industrialized countries at the UN that political security could not exist without economic stability. They condemned especially the United States, Japan, the Soviet Union, and the members of the European Economic Community. Even Mexico sought to curb its economic ties with the United States because of the special restrictions imposed on Mexican trade. During April, President Nixon informed Latin American leaders at the White House that the United States recognized the diversity of views in Latin America and would attempt to deal realistically with governments as they existed. During June, former treasury secretary John Connally toured Latin America, visiting Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru. In each country he discussed trade but warned his listeners that the United States would probably limit its foreign aid and investments, especially to countries which had expropriated American firms.

President Nixon, addressing the annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in September, declared that self-interest, not benevolence, would determine this country's future international economic policy. The administration made its attitudes even clearer when it unsuccessfully attempted to deny a third term to Pierre-Paul Schweitzer as managing director of IMF because he had urged then-secretary Connally to devalue the dollar against gold at a time when the United States had refused to do so. The U.S. government also put former defense secretary Robert S. McNamara on probation for reappointment to the presidency of the World Bank because McNamara had permitted loans to Bolivia, Peru, and Chile, all of which had nationalized American private investments. When its loans were suspended late in September, Chile denounced the World Bank as a tool of the United States. Observers believed that Washington's relations with Latin America had deteriorated to the lowest level in memory.

National Defense

If 1972 had not been a presidential election year, the achievement of the first strategic nuclear arms limitation agreement in history would stand alone as the most dramatic story of the year in the area of national defense policy. However, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, Senator George McGovern (S.D.), sparked great political controversy by proposing a large cut in the defense budget.

The McGovern-Nixon debate.

McGovern argued that a cut of $30 billion, or almost 40 percent of the present defense budget, would not jeopardize national security and would allow a reallocation of national resources to meet the demands of the wars against poverty, pollution, unemployment, and urban decay. President Richard M. Nixon, on the other hand, contended that a defense budget reduction of any amount would make the United States a 'second-rate power,' would seriously undermine U.S. interests in the world, and would increase unemployment at home because such a large segment of the American economy is dependent on military expenditures.

The presidential campaign of George McGovern served to focus the criticism of American defense spending that had been increasing in Congress and within large segments of the general public since the outbreak of the Vietnam war. The defense budget for 1972-1973 was $85 billion, with the Vietnam war responsible for much of the recent rapid increase. Public and congressional pressures had resulted in some small reduction in the Nixon administration's budget requests, as well as in terminations of several controversial weapons systems and restrictions on the purchase of other systems experiencing serious cost overruns. Affected items included the controversial F-111 fighterbomber, the very expensive C-5A giant transport plane, and the new F-14 fighter plane. However, it was not until McGovern became a presidential candidate that anyone of political prominence proposed a major, across-the-board reduction in total defense spending.

The McGovern position on defense expenditures not only was in sharp contrast to that of the Nixon administration but also was a significant departure from past Democratic Party policies. In 1968 the Democratic party platform had endorsed President Lyndon B. Johnson's handling of the Vietnam war, had rejected proposals for unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam, and had urged a 'substantially larger' U.S. commitment to NATO. The platform contained no specific language on defense programs and not even broad directives on how much should be spent for national defense. In contrast, the McGovern platform called for an immediate end to American involvement in Vietnam, a total U.S. withdrawal from all of Southeast Asia, a partial withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Europe, and a $30 billion cut in the defense budget.

McGovern's proposed military budget envisioned a phased reduction of defense spending over a three-year period ending with fiscal year 1975. In that year (beginning July 1, 1974) the defense budget would be $55 billion as compared to $85 billion. The military programs that would be most affected included virtually all of the Nixon administration's proposed new strategic nuclear weapons systems, as well as the total amount of military manpower.

Bombers.