Word: nixonization
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Soviet leaders and Nixon faced each other across the oval table. The discussion started harmlessly enough but finally Nixon decided to put Viet Nam squarely on the table. If he had not, the Soviet leaders surely would have; they were loaded for bear...
...Nixon began by arguing that the "collateral issue" of Viet Nam should not interrupt the basic progress in our relations which was being achieved. He was aware that the Soviet Union had an ideological affinity with Hanoi. But we did not choose this moment for the "flare-up" in Viet Nam [he was referring to Hanoi's 1972 Easter offensive]. We could not reconsider our policy unless Hanoi indicated new flexibility in its negotiating stance. Moscow, he needled, should use the influence it acquired through supplying military equipment to make Hanoi think again...
...that the subject was Viet Nam, the atmosphere clouded suddenly. Each of the three Soviet leaders in turn unleashed a diatribe against Nixon, who, except for two one-sentence interruptions, endured it in dignified silence. Not only was the substance tough but the tone was crudely hectoring. Brezhnev complained not only about our "cruel" bombing but about the whole history of our involvement in Viet Nam. He denied that military actions were needed to end the war. Hanoi was eager to negotiate; all we had to do was to get rid of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu and accept...
Where Brezhnev had been emotional, Kosygin was analytical; where Brezhnev had pounded the table, he was glacially correct, though in substance the most aggressive of the troika. He recalled his conversations with Lyndon Johnson, who had first predicted victory and failed. He implied the same fate for Nixon. He hinted that Hanoi might reconsider its previous refusal to permit forces of other countries to fight on its side-prompting Nixon to retort that we were not frightened by that threat...
...seemed to be inherent in Nixon's life-it was his tragedy -that he was unable to find acceptance with any new departure. Every step he took was immediately subsumed again in the controversies and distrust he had accumulated over a lifetime. He soon found himself in the paradoxical position of a former cold warrior accused of being too committed to easing relations with the Soviet Union. What was the reality...