Word: hyland
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While many of his colleagues came into the world of espionage and policy as military intelligence officers, Hyland was a private and jazz trumpeter in the U.S. Army. He learned Russian in graduate school in Kansas City, MO. The CIA hired him in 1954 and put him to work studying Soviet military production. He rose to the directorship of the Soviet desk in the Office of National Estimates...
Shortly before the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, Hyland recalls, "I concluded the Soviets would not put long-range missiles into Cuba." That was one of his rare mistakes. In 1969 Kissinger Aide Helmut Sonnenfeldt recruited Hyland for the newly upgraded National Security Council, where Hyland worked primarily on arms control. "SALT succeeded better and more quickly than any of us expected," says Hyland. Nixon and Brezhnev signed a SALT I treaty as the capstone of their first summit in 1972. Kissinger celebrated his 49th birthday in a chandeliered Kremlin conference room, where he was presented a cake in which...
...Hyland's view, Nixon was a tough and able bargainer. He would discuss one or two issues, set the general guidelines of U.S. policy, then leave, letting subordinates handle the details. "Avoiding the fray was a good tactic," observes Hyland, as "it is extremely frustrating negotiating with the Soviets because they insist on winning every minor point. There is endless haggling and bitterness. The atmosphere gets very tense over the nitpicking. The Soviets sometimes win the small point but lose the significant one. Still, it's a hell of a problem to turn them around. You can only...
...Nixon returned to the U.S.S.R. just six weeks before he resigned because of the Watergate scandal. "The Soviets knew Nixon was in deep trouble and pulled back," says Hyland. "We left Moscow wondering what was going to happen. We knew a promising relationship was falling apart...
...Hyland gives Gerald Ford high marks for keeping détente-and SALT-alive at Vladivostok later that year: "Ford was good on SALT, and more willing to go into details than Nixon...