Word: brezhnevs
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Reflecting the duality of the national character and of his own personality, Brezhnev shifted suddenly from menace to sentimentality. He spoke of how his father had learned in World War I that peace was the noblest goal. Brezhnev agreed. He wanted to dedicate his tenure to making war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union unthinkable. Brezhnev reminisced about the human impact of World War II. He spoke gently, with none of the braggadocio so evident a few moments earlier...
Which was the real Brezhnev? The leader who spoke so threateningly of China or the old man who, with his slightly slurred and halting speech, recited his devotion to peace? Probably both were genuine. Was the peace of which he spoke only the stillness of Soviet hegemony, or an acceptance of coexistence? Again, almost surely both. The Bolshevik believed in the prevalence of material and military factors; the aged leader was exhausted by the exactions of a pitiless system. Doubtless, no more than any other Soviet leader would Brezhnev resist a chance to alter the power balance; nothing can relieve...
When I visited Moscow in March, Brezhnev seemed to accept the principle of "counterbalancing asymmetries": a Soviet edge in total delivery vehicles (reflecting the existing situation) counterbalanced by an American advantage in numbers of MIRVed missiles. He conceded us 1,100 MIRVed missiles over the extended term of the agreement, vs. 1,000 for the Soviets. We considered the 100-missile advantage inadequate because of the Soviet lead in other categories. I proposed a considerably wider gap in our favor. Brezhnev rejected it at first with the comment: "If I agree to this, this will be my last meeting with...
During my visit to Moscow in March, Brezhnev proposed banning underground tests of nuclear weapons above a certain yield (later set at 150 kilotons). This opened up discussions on verification that represented a major advance. If we were to verify that tests were below the threshold, the Soviets would have to reveal their test sites. This-surprisingly-they agreed to do. The question of "peaceful nuclear explosions" then arose. We asked for on-site inspection, and after prolonged wrangling the Soviets agreed. Never before had they done so. But by then detente had been engulfed in controversy in America...
SALT was the most difficult issue at the 1974 summit. It had become a whipping boy in a deeper struggle over the entire nature of U.S.-Soviet relations and even over Nixon's fitness to govern. Even so, after meetings near Yalta in the Crimea, where Brezhnev had taken our whole party for a few days, it was decided that I would not accompany Nixon on a visit to Minsk but would return to Moscow to see whether progress could be made...