Word: documental
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fact, as Washington officials took pains to point out, the document that Ford will be signing is not a treaty with the force of law; rather it is, in the words of one diplomat, a "declaration of good intentions." As such, it is a token of detente, which, with all its dangers, probably remains the world's best hope for avoiding nuclear war. The declaration also is a symbol of the fact that while strong enmity between Communist and Western systems remains, the cold war tensions that beset Europe for a generation have continued to abate...
...declaration that the leaders will sign this week took 22 months to produce. "I felt at times as if I were in a time warp," groans one of the 375 diplomats who participated in the negotiations in Geneva. The completed document has five parts: a preamble stating the conference's general goals (of "peace, security, justice and cooperation") and four major sections known for no discernible reason as "baskets." The area of greatest Soviet interest is Basket One, which covers the inviolability of frontiers, peaceful settlement of international disputes, nonintervention in internal affairs, the right of self-determination...
...journalists and cooperation in matters of culture and education. The fourth basket-by far the weakest-involves follow-up arrangements. It merely provides that senior officials of the signature nations will meet in 1977 to see how the agreements are being observed. The charter is regarded as a single document rather than as four linked but separate agreements (which the Soviets wanted, presumably to be able to play down the importance of Basket Three...
...participants have varying views about the importance of the document. The Soviets, who have been plumping for a European security agreement for more than 20 years, hailed the declaration as a triumph for their foreign policy. There is no doubt that Leonid Brezhnev was anxious to have the treaty signed and sealed before the convening of the 25th Soviet Party Congress in Moscow next February...
...deliberately, and at times even infuriatingly vague. The Soviets see it as a mirror of the past, a static definition of their zone of control and influence. But for Western Europe as well as such Communist nations as Rumania, Poland, Yugoslavia and Hungary, it is a dynamic document, a charter for continuing and expanding contacts between West and East. The provisions for a 1977 follow-up are, according to one Rumanian diplomat, "a lifeline...