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Cover: Detail from `Britannia Pacificatrix' (1919), one of a series of murals by Sigismund Goetze decorating the Grand Staircase of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. From a photograph by kind permission of Mrs

Maria Rainey

The publication last year of Detente in Europe, 1972-1976 in the series Documents on British Policy Overseas has inspired the present collection of Occasional Papers produced by the FCO Historians.

Detente in Europe charts Britain's role in the talks on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions in central Europe 1972-6; follows British reactions to changes in East/West relations in the aftermath of the Helsinki summit of 1975; and illuminates aspects of bilateral relations between Britain and the Soviet Union in the period.

The formal launch of this volume in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office last July was enlivened by the personal recollections of guest speaker, Sir Clive Rose, the first Head of the UK Delegation to the MBFR talks. Sir Clive has kindly expanded his remarks then into the first of the papers here published. These give some unique insights into the significance of the MBFR talks for multilateral detente diplomacy across the board in the first half of the 1970s. Sir Clive's paper is complemented by the historian's view given by Keith Hamilton, FCO Historian and Editor of the Detente volume. This considers more particularly the significance of MBFR for British policy towards the Soviet Union. To round the collection off, we have included by kind permission of the author, the epic verse `Parity Lost' penned by Francis Richards, when a member of the UK Delegation, as a parody to capture both the highs and lows of epic talks.

I should like to thank all the contributors to this edition not least the production manager, Eamonn Clifford, who has overseen changes in format and design.

Heather Yasamee Records and Historical Department March 2002

cla

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

HISTORIANS

Occasional Papers

No. 17

CONTENTS

April 2002

Page

Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions: The first three years 1-12 Sir Clive Rose

The Touchstone of Detente: British diplomacy and the talks on 13-35 NIBFR Keith Hamilton

Parity Lost 36-41 Francis Richards

Note on Contributors 42

Copies of this pamphlet will be deposited with the National Libraries

FCO Historians, Library & Records Department,

Old Admiralty Building London SW1A 2PA

Crown Copyright

ISBN 0 903359 84 7

MUTUAL AND BALANCED FORCE REDUCTIONS The first three years

Sir Clive Rose

Introduction The enterprise known to the West as the talks on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) was unique. It was the first and only direct negotiation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact to take place wholly during the Cold War. The fact that it lasted 16 years, from 1973 to 1989, without leading to an agreement does not detract from its importance, as will be shown below. Its

successor, different in scope and concept, the negotiations for an agreement limiting Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), was launched in the dying

months of the Cold War and resulted in an agreement signed in November 1990 by all 22 members of the two Alliances, not long before the demise of the Warsaw Pact itself. Experience gained by both sides in the MBFR talks

made a valuable contribution to the conduct of the CFE negotiations, which took place in a totally changed international climate and were concluded in little more than 18 months.

The MBFR talks took place contemporaneously with the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE); the two negotiations are sometimes referred to, despite their different paternity, as `siblings'. But MBFR concerned the vital security, political and military interests of the two Alliances in the geographical area of direct confrontation between them, whereas the CSCE, with 35 participants, was an attempt to find a basis for a diplomatic modus vivendi on a wide range of human relations, economic, cultural, scientific, and environmental issues affecting all countries in Europe (plus the United States and Canada, as the two non-European members of NATO). Because the nature of the CSCE allowed room for diplomatic

compromise agreements were reached which have been developed over the

years to form the basis for an institution (now of 54 members) able to play a

major and continuing role in European affairs. On the other hand the MBFR

talks, and even the CFE agreement, both limited in their objectives and their

participation, served a crucial purpose during a dangerous period in East/West relations which is now a part of history.

History and Origins From the start, the twin pillars of NATO policy were defence and deterrence. In the early years of the Alliance's life, disarmament and arms control did not feature as substantive subjects on its agenda, for the very obvious reason that its main purpose was to build up and maintain the pillars rather than to look for means of reducing them. Disarmament was a subject pursued, conscientiously but hardly productively, through the United Nations, and

mainly centred in Geneva. NATO's interest in the 1960 Western proposals for

`General and Complete Disarmament' by stages was confined to ensuring that they would not prejudice Alliance security. Soviet `peace' initiatives, in

the context of the myth of `peaceful co-existence', were propaganda-inspired. Such genuine arms control negotiations as took place in the 1960's were concerned with nuclear weapons and other `Weapons of Mass Destruction', initially between the United States and Soviet Union and with participation by the United Kingdom. The first agreement reached was the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1962. The first half of the 1960's, the period of the Berlin and Cuba Crises, was not otherwise productive, though negotiations on non- proliferation and on biological weapons began later in the decade. However in 1966, responding to a growing sense that the Alliance needed to take a fresh look at its role with regard to East/West relations, NATO governments launched a study of means `to strengthen the Alliance as a factor for a durable peace'. The resultant `Report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance', known as the `Harmel Report' after the Belgian Foreign Minister who initiated the study, was approved by the North Atlantic Council in 1967. While reaffirming the importance of defence and deterrence, the report declared that `the ultimate political purpose of the Alliance is to achieve a just and lasting peaceful order in Europe accompanied by appropriate security guarantees' and that this purpose should be pursued by `realistic measures designed to further detente in East- West relations'. Henceforth detente was adopted as the third pillar of NATO policy. This seminal report was the true genesis of the `Declaration on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions' adopted by the North Atlantic Council in June 1968. The Declaration established principles on which preparations were to be made by the Alliance for talks on MBFR and the Soviet Union and its allies were invited to join in discussions on the subject.

This invitation evoked no reply from the Soviet Union, which just two months later invaded Czechoslovakia. With a good deal of ground to make up on the `peace' front, the Soviet government published early in 1969 a vague and unspecific proposal for `Conference on European Security'. This was regarded initially by the Alliance with grave suspicions as a typical Soviet

propaganda ploy. It was certainly not seen as a response to NATO's MBFR invitation. But it was eventually developed, as a result of substantial elaborations by potential NATO participants, into the 35-nation negotiations which opened in Helsinki in 1973 as the CSCE, when it became clear that its

acceptance was the essential quid pro quo for Soviet agreement to talks on force reductions. The entry into force in March 1970 of the Nuclear Non-

Proliferation Treaty and the opening of the United States-Soviet negotiations on Strategic Arms Limitations (SALT) a month later inspired hope for a more positive Soviet reaction on MBFR. So in May 1970, NATO issued a

2

further specific invitation to the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies which the Secretary-General was instructed to deliver. This invitation spelled out the considerations which would govern the Alliance's approach to MBFR talks, namely:

(a) Mutual force reductions should be compatible with the vital security interests of the Alliance and should not operate to the military disadvantage of either side having regard for the differences arising from geographical and other considerations.

(b) Reduction should be on a basis of reciprocity, and phased and balanced as to their scope and timing.

(c) Reductions should include stationed and indigenous forces and their weapons systems in the area concerned.

(d) There must be adequate verification and controls to ensure the observance of agreements on mutual and balanced force

reduction.

As regards (c), the area was defined as `Europe, with special reference to the Central Region'.

Thereafter events moved slowly towards agreement by the two sides on the opening of preparatory talks. NATO agreed in May 1972 to embark on preparatory talks for a CSCE provided that preparatory talks on MBFR should take place in parallel. In the end, those on CSCE opened in November 1972 and, with some hesitation, the Soviet Union agreed in January 1973 to take part in exploratory talks on mutual force reductions starting on 31 January. The CSCE proper began in July and the MBFR talks in Vienna on 31 October.

Preparation The motivation behind NATO's MBFR proposal was mainly political. The general considerations spelled out in the 1970 invitation were designed to ensure that the negotiations would enhance, or at any rate not prejudice, the Alliance's military posture. But detailed preparatory studies revealed some of the potential risks and difficulties: from a military point of view there was little scope for any major reductions by NATO, whereas those required of the Warsaw Pact would be very much larger, so that any proposals acceptable to NATO would have to be highly asymmetrical. How could such proposals be negotiable?

3

While the Alliance's original Declaration in 1969 was made in the interests of furthering detente, the degree of enthusiasm for MBFR varied according to the national interests of individual members. The United States Administration, faced with Congressional pressures for a reduction in American forces in Europe, was strongly in favour of engaging in

negotiations as a means of resisting pressures for unilateral cuts. The Germans supported the proposal for negotiations, in line with the Federal Government's Ostpolitik. Some other European allies saw MBFR as offering the possibility of reducing defence expenditure within an agreed multilateral framework. We and the French were sceptical, reckoning that the risks outweighed any potential advantages. The French opted out from the start. We participated fully in all the preparatory work, partly because we wished to support the Americans but also to enable us to use all available opportunities for damage limitation. Following the election of the Labour Government

early in 1974, the new British Ministers saw the existence of the MBFR talks as a useful argument against those in the Labour Party who were advocating unilateral defence cuts.

The exploratory talks between representatives of the 19 countries which were to participate in the negotiations -12 NATO and 7 Warsaw Pact- were concluded on 28 June after 5 months of difficult and contentious discussions. The seven NATO `direct' participants (Belgium, Canada, the Federal Republic, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States)

plus five `flank' countries (Denmark, Greece, Italy, Norway and Turkey) formed an Ad Hoc Group to co-ordinate their position. This in itself did not prove easy, due to lack of agreement on many substantive issues. The Warsaw Pact countries laboured under no such disadvantage under the firm control of the Soviet representative. The most serious point of dissension (and of disarray on the NATO side) was the status of Hungary, which NATO claimed was part of central Europe and should therefore be a `direct' participant whose forces would be included in the negotiations (together with the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia) but which the Warsaw Pact insisted was a `flank' country (with Romania and Bulgaria). An American-driven compromise, accepted reluctantly by the Alliance, left the status of Hungary to be determined in the negotiations. Little common ground was established between the two sides on procedural matters and the Warsaw Pact, predictably, objected to the word `balanced' in the title which they interpreted as a codeword for `asymmetrical'. NATO was however

successful in including a reference to `Associated Measures', intended to

cover such matters as verification and non-circumvention. The agreed title for the negotiations in communiques issued at the end of the Preparatory talks

was: `Mutual Reduction of Armed Forces and Armaments and Associated Measures in Central Europe'.

4

Objectives Alliance objectives were based on the four considerations set down in the May 1970 invitation to the Soviet Union and its allies. NATO had agreed on a framework of proposals to be presented to the Warsaw Pact in stages. In

terms of reductions, the end-result was to be a Common Ceiling for ground force manpower in central Europe of 700,000 on each side. This came to be described as the `Iron Pole' of the NATO position. While strategic decisions

were reserved for the North Atlantic Council, the tactical handling of the negotiations was the responsibility of the Delegations in Vienna.

The principal objectives set for the United Kingdom Delegation, of which I

was the Head, were:

To be seen by Parliament and public opinion to be working seriously for a lowering of the level of armed forces and armaments in Central Europe while maintaining undiminished security for all.

To help the Americans through MBFR negotiations to maintain an adequate level of American troops in Europe.

To limit the military damage as far as possible.

To maintain unity within the Alliance.

To avoid any MBFR agreement which might limit the Western Europeans' freedom to devise common European defence

arrangements.

These objectives remained constant throughout. From time to time differences arose between the Delegation and the FCO as to the relative priority to be given to them. I attached the highest importance to

maintaining unity in the Alliance, that is to say, the NATO Ad Hoc Group, so long as this did not prejudice the other objectives. This was not disputed by

the FCO but there were occasions when extraneous considerations led the latter to override my views on what best suited the tactical situation in Vienna.

This is not the place to make a detailed analysis of Soviet objectives. Assessments of what the Russians hoped or wanted from MBFR varied throughout the first three years. But there was very little confidence that they would agree to the degree of asymmetrical reductions demanded by NATO;

or indeed to any agreement which NATO might find acceptable without the injection of some major inducement into the negotiations, or, more

5

probably, as a result of circumstances or pressures outside the context of MBFR. The Russians would see advantage in an agreement which gave them a droit de regard over Western European (especially German) forces and might be prepared to pay for this. In any case it suited their political purpose to be seen to be engaged in negotiations and they no doubt hoped that, if these were protracted, they would be able to count on cracks appearing in the unity of the NATO side and unilateral reductions by some West European

participants.

The Negotiations Four months after the conclusion of the exploratory talks the 19 Delegations assembled in Vienna for the opening of the negotiations. For the Alliance representatives, our brief comprised the objectives referred to above and (presumably) each delegation had its national instructions. But we had no rules of procedure, no secretariat either for the negotiations or for the NATO Ad Hoc Group and no precedents to guide us. This had certain advantages in that it meant we had to work out our own arrangements, both

within the Alliance and in co-operation with the Warsaw Pact side. The lot fell

on me to take the chair at the opening Plenary Sessions on 31 October. My American and German colleagues had no suggestions about how to conduct this; the most helpful advice came from the head of the Soviet Delegation, Khlestov (who also remained Head of the Treaty Department in the Foreign Ministry). Agreement was reached to set up a Working Group to work out procedures, with Khlestov and myself as joint chairmen. At the first meeting Khlestov summarily rejected the proposals I put forward on behalf of the Ad Hoc Group, only to table virtually identical proposals at the start of the second meeting. The Alliance representatives accepted these without amendment, thus allowing Khlestov to report to his authorities the success of his initiative, a gambit which cost NATO nothing and paid a small dividend in personal relations.

The essence of the procedural agreement was to hold two plenary meetings a week at which statements would be made, one each, on behalf of the West

and the East; the official languages would be English and Russian (we were perhaps fortunate in this respect that the French were not involved), which would be the only ones interpreted; only the Heads of Delegation would sit at the table at Plenaries (plus the American and Russian Deputies) in

alphabetical order (English), other Delegation members sitting behind; Chairmanship would alternate between East and West; and each side would be responsible for its own secretarial arrangements. The negotiations were conducted in `Rounds' of approximately three months each, with a recess between each for consultation and preparation. After a few meetings in a

6

cramped conference room we moved into the magnificent Redoutensaal in the Hofburg Palace (the scene of the 1815 Congress of Vienna) which the Austrian Government generously put at our disposal.

The NATO framework proposals involved the reduction of the overall ground force manpower in Central Europe to a Common Ceiling of 700,000

on each side. The ceiling was to be reached in two phases: in the first, the Soviet Union would withdraw a tank army comprising 68,000 men and 1,700

tanks and the US would withdraw 29,000 soldiers, either as individuals or in

units, these figures representing about 15% of each country's ground force

manpower in the area; in the second, further reductions would be made to complete movement to the Common Ceiling. The reductions would be

accompanied by `Associated Measures' governing troop movements, verification and non-circumvention. The NATO gameplan was to make presentations on the reasoning behind individual elements of the proposals, leading to the tabling of the complete framework in 1974. In the event, the Warsaw Pact forced our hand and the framework was tabled on 22 November,

at the same time as comparative manpower figures to support the case for

asymmetrical reductions.

As early as 8 November, the Russians achieved considerable tactical surprise by tabling a Draft agreement providing for reduction in 3 stages of all armed forces (including air and nuclear) in Central Europe: in the first `symbolic'

stage each side would reduce its forces by 20,000 men; in the second and third each side would make further reductions of 5% and 10% respectively. Reductions would be carried out by whole units of approximately similar type and would apply to the forces of each individual direct participant in proportion to its contribution to its side's total forces in the area. These proposals were immediately released to the Western media, where, despite the superficial appeal of their deceptively simple approach, they received relatively little publicity.

The fundamental differences between the two sides were epitomised in these opening proposals. NATO aimed to reduce the imbalance whereas the Warsaw Pact planned to preserve it; NATO wished to avoid sub-ceilings on national forces, so as to retain flexibility for future Alliance and European defence arrangements, whereas the Warsaw Pact wished to enforce such national ceilings, especially for the Federal Republic; NATO wished to negotiate two clearly distinct and successive phases, whereas the Warsaw Pact proposed a single negotiation with agreement that all forces should be reduced from the outset; and so on. From the end of the first Round onwards the negotiations took two forms: each side extolled, to the extent of tedious

7

repetition, the merits and reasonableness of its own proposals; and each side

attempted to chip away at the proposals of the other with the object of

moving them in its own direction. The West went toi great lengths to explain

why the East's proposals were inadequate, and anyway needed detailed

clarification, and would merely serve to perpetuate an existing unstable situation; the East argued strongly against the West's 'unequal' demands

while at the same time offering the occasional cosmetic variations to their

own proposals. It would serve no useful purpose to give here a blow-by-blow

account of the course of the negotiations. In substantive terms only two

major modifications to the initial proposals were made (luring the first three years: the first, by the West, was the offer made in Ueccinhe"r 1975 to withdraw certain American short-range and tactical nuclear armaments and to include

air force manpower in the Collective Common ceiling, which would be increased to 900,000, all as an inducement to the East to accept NATO's 1973

proposals in full; the second, by the East, was the tabling in June 1976 of data

on Warsaw Pact manpower in Central Europe. The West's nuclear offer was originally devised by the Americans as a trump card, but by the time it came to be played confidence in its effectiveness was not high among Western

negotiators, and it failed to take the trick. The East's data, for which the West had been pressing from the start, purported to show, not surprisingly, approximate parity with the figures given by the West for NATO forces. When

the West came to table up-dated figures for Alliance forces, France threw a spanner in the works by refusing to allow her forces to be included. In the confusion caused by this, the fact that Hungary was omitted from the East's figures passed without comment, a gain for the East which the Russians

quietly pocketed.

By the end of 1973 it was apparent that the process of bi-weekly plenary meetings, with a formal statement by each side, with no provision for questions or discussion, would achieve little. My American and German colleagues and I agreed to try to get the Russians to accept the idea of a weekly `informal' meeting, with three representatives on each side (on the West, the American plus either the German or myself and one other direct participant) and to reduce the regular plenaries to one a week. The Russians who hoped to engage in bilateral US/Soviet talks (which the West, including the Americans, were determined to resist), and the rest of the Ad Hoc Group, who feared that the Group's influence would be threatened (see below), were initially reluctant to accept this idea, which was explored tentatively on a number of social occasions. It was eventually adopted, on the understanding that the informality would be emphasised by holding the meetings in one of the Ambassadors' residences (alternating between East

and West) and that the purpose was to `explore' not to `negotiate'. The

8

`informal' meetings began in March 1974: a specific topic for each was agreed in advance between East and West and they normally lasted about three hours. After a slow start they proved an invaluable (in effect the only) forum in which a relatively free-ranging debate on the substance of the negotiations could be conducted.

The prospects of finding a compromise which would be acceptable to the Alliance were never high. Many people doubted whether they even existed. Nevertheless Soviet aims and intentions were the subject of constant re- assessment by the Delegation and the FCO; at one point the latter described Soviet willingness to pay NATO's price in MBFR (somewhat hyperbolically)

as `the acid test' of their commitment to military detente. We were always looking for indications that circumstances extraneous to the negotiations might influence Soviet policy on MBFR. But the negotiations in Vienna tended to acquire a life of their own. Modifications in presentation or words used by the East were closely examined by the Ad Hoc Group to determine

whether they signalled a desire for progress. After three years the initial deadlock was little nearer being broken. The data tabled by the Warsaw Pact

seemed to imply acceptance of approximate parity as the outcome but only by falsifying the existing balance to give the appearance that this result could be reached by adopting the Soviet proposal for equal percentage reductions.

The NATO Ad Hoc Group Mindful of the disarray during the exploratory talks, there was, from the start, a determination on the part of all members of the Group to present a united front to the Warsaw Pact. In the intervening four months NATO had

got its act together and the Delegations were much better prepared for the substantive negotiations. Meetings took place at least twice a week and often more; the chairmanship rotated weekly; the subject for Western presentation at the next Plenary was agreed and the speaker nominated; and views were exchanged on the latest Eastern presentation. In addition, the Group discussed future tactics and reports on bilateral contacts with the East.

It would be wrong to suggest that all the meetings were harmonious or that a consensus was always reached easily. The Americans inevitably played a leading role and the size of their Delegation enabled them to produce papers of a quantity which the others could not match. The forceful personality of the US Deputy Head, Jonathan (Jock) Dean, was both an irritant and a stimulant in the Group. It took some time before his Ambassador, Resor, a courteous and intelligent lawyer who had been Secretary of the Army,

established effective authority over his ebullient deputy, somewhat to the relief of the Group. But Dean, who had considerable flair and ingenuity and

9

was an immensely hard worker, remained throughout a powerful influence

and often appeared to operate on a very loose rein from Washington.

My American and German colleagues and I held regular tripartite meetings. These were not declared to the Group but their existence was generally recognised and tacitly accepted. Provided the three of us resolved our differences, which we usually did though not always easily, we had a good chance of persuading the rest of the Group. However this often involved lengthy discussion of national views strongly advocated by other Direct Participants and the flank countries, the latter seldom missing an opportunity of insisting that their interests should not be overlooked. The

most sensitive issue in this first year was the launch of the `informal

meetings'. The Group feared that they would result in a loss of control by the Group as a whole. But, faced with the alternative of bilateral US/Soviet talks, the Group accepted the `informals', on the strict understanding that no formal agreements would be reached; agenda and speaking notes would be

agreed in advance by the Group; and a full report would be circulated to the Group on the following day. Outside the Group, the Italian Ambassador (bilateral) took the lead in arranging occasional lunches of EC

representatives which achieved little but gave him a role.

Whatever internal disagreements the Group had to overcome, it maintained an impressive record of solidarity vis-ä-vis the East. In an unguarded remark, a member of one of the Warsaw Pact Delegations admitted their frustration

that, despite all their efforts, they had been unable to find any chink in the NATO armour through which they could drive wedges; he wished he could say the same of his own allies! Indeed, an outstanding success of the talks was the way in which the NATO participants worked together, for the first time in

negotiations with the Warsaw Pact in which their security interests were directly involved, to achieve a degree of cohesion which was sometimes lacking at other levels in the Alliance.

The Warsaw Pact Delegations The Russians were firmly in charge. Khlestov was a lively character, sometimes quick to take offence but an able negotiator who fully exploited the limited flexibility within his brief in his efforts to entice the Alliance representatives onto the Soviet ground. By contrast his Deputy, Smirnovsky, was a dour and natural stonewaller but with an engaging smile; his understanding of English

ways after seven years as Ambassador in London (which he was sad to leave

when his government withdrew him, having made him the scapegoat for the

expulsion of the 105 spies in 1971) proved helpful on several occasions. The

other Warsaw Pact Delegations had bit parts in which they were allowed a

10

limited freedom to ad lib but, as the representative quoted in the preceding paragraph said: `your solidarity is reached by agreement whereas ours is imposed on us' (which paradoxically made some of them less solid in private than they appeared in public).

At the start relations between East and West were correct and courteous. But being destined to live and work together for a long period, the Western Ambassadors felt the need to find a reasonably relaxed basis for social relations. Formal entertaining proved a dismal failure; the Eastern

representatives waited for the Russians to take the lead and few would engage in small talk. Cocktail receptions were more successful, since the participants, virtually all members of the 19 delegations, took the easy course of talking endlessly about the state of the negotiations. Dean hit upon the idea of singing together, which had proved an acceptable diversion during the Preparatory Talks. We tried this out at one or two informal dinners and it

caught on, partly no doubt because Khlestov was (allegedly) an opera-singer manque, his father having insisted that he should become a lawyer. Soon these

singing evenings became a regular feature of our social lives, in the Vienna Weinstuben or in our own houses. A `Song Book for Negotiators', assembled and constantly up-dated by Dean, contained songs from all the participating countries in their original languages, with phonetic versions for those in the

more `difficult' (i. e. Warsaw Pact) languages.

This practice resulted in the development of close personal relations between

the Ambassadors, and the few senior members of their staffs who occasionally took part. These relations were reinforced by a programme of joint (East/West) events such as an all-day walk through the Vienna Woods, a two- day expedition to Bavaria and a tour in Czechoslovakia. I do not claim that this social camaraderie made the negotiations easier, but it helped to build a mutual respect which prevented the highly controversial and often hard- hitting discussions from affecting personal relations outside the working sessions. This was not unimportant in the rather hothouse atmosphere generated by the close, even intimate, circle in which the negotiations took

place.

Austria's Contribution The Austrian Government were generous hosts. They provided the venue for Plenaries and various other facilities, and periodically they organised receptions and other entertainment for the Delegations. But otherwise they

played no part in the proceedings. In effect the negotiators lived in a world entirely divorced from the local scene.

11

Conclusions Those in the West who may have hoped for agreed force reductions, whether for national purposes or as a means of correcting the East/West imbalance,

were disappointed. But as an exercise in damage limitation, the talks were a success: no Western unilateral reductions took place, and all the Soviet

objectives were denied. Politico-military cooperation within the Alliance was strengthened by practical experience. The Russians and their allies were drawn into discussion of military matters to an extent which would previously have seemed impossible and were forced to recognise (as they refused initially to do) the legitimacy of NATO's security concerns, which would have

to be taken into account. All these were positive gains, which could be built

on throughout the subsequent negotiations.

12

THE TOUCHSTONE OF DETENTE British diplomacy and the talks on MBFRI

Keith Hamilton

During the 1970s detente was rarely without its detractors. British

governments welcomed the easing of East/West tensions, but questioned its impact on the unity of the Atlantic alliance and popular perceptions of Western defence requirements. On 9 December 1976, barely nine months after his appointment as Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in James Callaghan's Labour Cabinet, and only two months before his untimely death, Anthony Crosland told a meeting of NATO Ministers in Brussels that the Helsinki Final Act, the document embodying the conclusions of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), `was symbolic but... not the core of detente'. He argued that `security in the face of increasing Russian strength was more important', and that the Alliance

should seek greater stability in the East/West military balance and should `show up the disparity between Soviet peaceful protestations and their military build up'. The Soviet Union, he added, `should now be regarded as an imperialist power'. 2 Crosland's statement reflected his own expressed desire to `vulgarise' the language of detente, and the disappointment of his

senior officials with Soviet conduct in eastern Europe and, more recently, in

southern Africa. A paper prepared by the Planning Staff of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and dated 23 November defined detente as the negotiation of a modest modus vivendi based upon a common interest in

the avoidance of military confrontation leading to nuclear war. As, however,

the paper made clear, changes in East/West relations had so far been of degree rather than kind. The CSCE had been a step in the direction of `extending and normalising' human contacts on both sides of the European divide. 3 But almost four years of negotiating in Vienna over what Western diplomats continued to describe as Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) in central Europe had so far contributed little towards military detente. Indeed, some FCO officials felt that Crosland might, with a view to

The opinions advanced in this paper are the author's own and should not be taken as an expression of the official Government policy. I This paper is based very largely upon Documents on British Policy Overseas (hereafter cited as DBPO), Series III, Volume 111, Detente in Europe, 1972-76, eds. Gill Bennett and Keith Hamilton (London: WHP/Frank Cass, 2001). 2 DBPO, Vol. III, No. 94. 3 Keith Hamilton, The Last Cold Warriors: Britain, Detente and the CSCE, 1972-1975 (Oxford: EIRU, St. Antony's College, 1999), pp. 23-24; and DBPO, Series III, Vol. II, The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1972-75 (London: TSO, 1997).

13

raising the profile of the Vienna talks, publicly designate them the `touchstone' or `proving ground' of detente. 4

The elevation of MBFR as a measure of detente would seem surprising to anyone familiar with what had been FCO thinking on the subject when MBFR exploratory talks opened in Vienna in January 1973. Officials in Whitehall were then even less enthusiastic about negotiations on MBFR than they were about their diplomatic sibling, the CSCE, preparatory talks for which had begun in November 1972. Both negotiating fora were considered likely to work to the detriment of NATO and to the benefit of a Soviet Union set upon the eventual `Finlandisation' of Western Europe. But while British officials recognised that the CSCE might offer opportunities for broadening the agenda of detente and for challenging communist rule in the East, they could see no such compensating advantage in MBFR. The notion that force reductions in central Europe could be compatible with undiminished security for all they dismissed as a `pipe dream'. Three years of intensive study within NATO had revealed that any satisfactory MBFR agreement must require considerably larger withdrawals and reductions by the Warsaw Pact than by the Atlantic Alliance, and there seemed little chance of Western diplomats being able to persuade Moscow to accept an understanding on this basis. Even were this attainable, it was doubtful whether it would leave the Alliance with a credible defence posture. As the British Defence Policy Staff

pointed out in a paper of 21 April 1972, irrespective of the scale of any Warsaw Pact reductions, there might be a `critical minimum' of NATO forces,

perhaps not very far below current levels, at which the Alliance's strategy of flexible response ceased to be viable. The alternative would entail greater reliance on the nuclear deterrent, and that could have considerable political consequences. `If we ever get to the negotiating table', the Defence Policy Staff reasoned, `NATO will therefore be bargaining a known military risk against only the prospects of detente. '5

Given these considerations, it might well be asked why the British, unlike the French, should have agreed to participate in the pursuit of MBFR? The

answer was given by Crispin Tickell, the head of the FCO's Western Organisations Department (WOD), the lead department for both CSCE and MBFR, in a minute drafted barely six weeks after the commencement of the exploratory talks at Vienna. He noted on 13 March 1973: `We do not like the MBFR

... We are in the negotiations because we think that it is the best way of

helping the Americans keep their forces in Europe at acceptable levels, and

4 DBPO, Series III, Vol. III, No. 93. 5 Ibid., No. 1.

14

because we think it enables us the more effectively to protect our own and European defence interests. '6 The negotiations were, on the Western side,

very much an American-sponsored idea to which the British and other European allies subscribed in the hope that they would thereby be able to

assist the administration in Washington to contain neo-isolationist tendencies

and withstand Congressional pressures, particularly those applied by Senator Mike Mansfield and his associates, for unilateral cuts in United States forces

in Europe. Whitehall was also aware of the need to take account of public opinion in Britain and elsewhere in Western Europe. Detente commanded considerable popular support and NATO had, as the Defence Policy Staff

admitted, to be seen to remain active in its pursuit. And despite indications

that the Americans wanted the Europeans to become more self-reliant in defence matters, some members of the Alliance seemed to `hanker

perversely' after MBFR which, they anticipated, would enable them to reduce the size of their defence budgets. West German support for MBFR as an element of Ostpolitik might have waned, but in Whitehall the Belgians and Canadians were judged `doves', preoccupied by detente and seeking a respectable excuse to reduce their defence effort. Even the Dutch, though `outwardly hard-liners', seemed to be looking to limit their military spending. There was indeed an ambiguity in Western perceptions of MBFR. Some European governments were evidently preparing to latch onto a conference as a device for cutting their defence efforts. But assurances offered by President Nixon to NATO defence Ministers in December 1970 that given a `comparable effort' by the European allies, there would be no reduction in US troop levels in Europe, `except in the context of East/West negotiations', suggested that Washington regarded MBFR as a mechanism both for

placating domestic critics and for discouraging overseas allies from

embarking on unilateral force reductions. 7

At an official level there were those in Britain who, though doubtful about the prospects for MBFR, thought that the negotiations might be used to encourage and expand defence cooperation in Western Europe. James Cable, the head of the FCO's Planning Staff, expressed his fears in a minute of 13 July 1972 that if American force reductions were `not exploited to launch a new movement towards a more effective and self-sufficient European defence

... the departure of any substantial number of American

troops [would] mark the beginning of an accelerated decline in European defence efforts, leading to a loss of political self confidence and to increasing

reliance on accommodation with the Soviet Union as a substitute for effective

6 Ibid., No. 4. 7 Ibid., No. 1.

15

defence'. 8 Much the same point was made by Tickell in discussions he had

with West German officials in October. Ten months after Britain's signature of the accession treaty to the European Community (EC) and one month after Kissinger had persuaded the Soviet leadership to accept the opening of exploratory talks on MBFR in exchange for Western agreement to

preparatory talks on CSCE, Tickell told the Germans that it was `time to inject into the debate on the future relationships of European countries some consideration of defence issues'. 9 Similar concerns also conditioned Tickell's thinking about the way in which MBFR negotiations should be

conducted. In a minute of 30 November he argued in favour of reductions limited to American and Soviet forces in an agreement reached through multilateral negotiations. There were, he recognised, disadvantages to this course. American forces were, after all, the most efficient and best equipped in Europe; without the pretext of MBFR certain countries might still be

tempted to engage in unilateral reductions; and a US/Soviet agreement would smack of the sort of `bilateralism' in strategic matters which put the Europeans `constantly at risk of having matters of vital interest to their security settled over their heads'. Yet, Tickell contended, if as a result of MBFR reductions were to be made in West European forces, `the basis of any future European defence system could be eroded' and Britain would find it

more difficult to promote its aim of giving the enlarged EC a `defence

aspect'. Such reductions might also be interpreted in the United States as evidence that the Europeans remained reluctant to assume full responsibility for their own defence. It was therefore, Tickell reasoned, up to Britain to

persuade its allies to look at MBFR not simply in terms of force reductions, but as an `instrument of dialogue' with the Warsaw Pact countries on the `real issues of European security'. Likewise, the emphasis in negotiations should be moved away from consideration of troop reductions alone and towards the

examination of various proposals for constraints and verification. Britain, Tickell urged, must advance the argument that these `should be seen as an essential lead in to the MBFR, and that later reductions should be a product of detente and not a means to it'. 10 There was no hint here then of MBFR being the `touchstone of detente'. On the contrary, in 1972 detente was considered a precondition of agreement on MBFR.

This stance was endorsed by NATO. An Alliance guidance paper stated plainly that the `implementation of [force] reductions should be the product and not the cause of detente'. And British delegates to the exploratory talks

8 Ibid., No. 2. 9 Ibid., pp. 10-11. 10 Ibid., No. 2.

16

were reminded that the negotiations should `initially be concentrated on

such measures designed to create greater confidence between both sides...

and that a greater degree of such confidence should precede any actual

reduction of troops'. The broad objective of British delegates as defined by a briefing paper of 30 January 1973, nevertheless, remained to `seek some way

of lowering the level of armed forces and armaments in Central Europe while maintaining undiminished security for all'. It was, the FCO conceded, `the

least that Parliament and public opinion [would] expect'. Equally important British objectives were `that the Americans should maintain substantial

military forces in Europe, preferably not much lower than their present levels', and that the unity of the Atlantic alliance should be preserved. "

Preparations for MBFR talks had already created severe strains within NATO. These could worsen, and the British wished to combat tendencies to favour

unilateral or inadequately compensated reductions. Western delegates, the briefing paper concluded, should cooperate in `using the Alliance machinery as the chosen diplomatic instrument in such a way that the Americans [would] also be happy to use it and [were] not tempted to deal bilaterally

with the Russians'. 12 They were soon to be disappointed. Reluctant to delay

the opening of the talks, the Americans had not insisted on a prior agreement on participation and procedures. The first multilateral meeting of representatives of all nineteen participating states was in consequence followed by fourteen weeks of haggling in bilateral meetings and what the Soviet Head of Delegation described as `plenary cocktails', a more-or-less regular series of receptions hosted alternately by Eastern and Western delegations. Meanwhile, much to the alarm of other NATO delegates, the Americans seemed all too ready to put their domestic preoccupations before

the maintenance of agreed allied positions. In the words of William Mumford, a senior Ministry of Defence official and UK deputy Head of Delegation, there developed a 'strong undercurrent of European resentment at the hustling, often bull-dozing tactics employed by the US with their allies, made manifest and accentuated by the personality' of Jock Dean, the leader

of the American team. 13

The main source of contention both between East and West and, ultimately, amongst NATO delegates, was the problem of deciding what for the purposes of MBFR constituted central Europe. Put simply, the Warsaw Pact countries opposed initial Western demands that Hungary, but not Italy, should be included in the force reductions area. This the Western allies had already

11 Ibid., No. 3. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., No. 4.

17

anticipated. NATO studies had suggested that the compensation the East

would require for a deal covering Hungary would outweigh any advantages thereby accruing to the West. Indeed, only late in the day and then at Belgium's behest had Hungary been added to NATO's `guidelines' area for MBFR. The United States had given strong support to this initiative. Nevertheless, hardly six weeks into the exploratory talks, the Americans, who were determined to ensure the opening of substantive negotiations in the autumn, proposed to their allies a formula which would have left in abeyance the question of Hungary's direct participation. Britain, the Benelux

countries and West Germany, were reluctant to accept this compromise. But the countries of NATO's southern flank, Greece, Italy and Turkey, seemed only too anxious to deflect pressure from the Warsaw Pact to draw the Mediterranean lands into the reductions area in return for Hungary's inclusion. In these circumstances the British emerged as hardest liners at Brussels and at Vienna. Their case was clear. It was well known that East and West were divided over Hungary, and they felt that any agreement which did

not provide for Hungary's full participation in the substantive negotiations would be interpreted publicly as a major defeat for NATO at the outset of the process, especially as it would mean leaving out of the reckoning a country which was indisputably part of central Europe and where four Soviet divisions

and 200 aircraft were stationed. However, in the absence of allied unity it

seemed inevitable that the Warsaw Pact countries would have their way. On his return to London, a disconsolate Mumford registered his mood in the opening sentences of a report dated 22 March and subsequently circulated in Whitehall. `NATO', he complained, `has embarked on a perilous voyage. It has divided objectives. Its preparations have been found wanting. The locusts

are eating into the few months left for NATO's preparations for the substantive talks ...

The Soviet Union who is in charge of its Warsaw Pact allies is displaying no good will. '14

From the British standpoint matters did not improve. The news from Washington that Mansfield had persuaded the Senate Democratic caucus to adopt a resolution calling for a substantial reduction in US forces overseas seemed to sap further Dean's will to resist Soviet tactics. Within NATO the British floated the idea of winding up the exploratory talks with an agreement on a simple agenda, and leaving vexed questions of practice and procedure to be settled through other diplomatic channels. But in the presence of an American ally who found a retreat on Hungary acceptable, and European allies who considered it tolerable, they were compelled to

14 1&&

18

acquiesce in a package, approved at the first formal plenary of the talks on 14 May, which, while it allowed for the enlargement of the strategic area under negotiation, in effect designated Hungary a flank participant. This, in

the opinion of John Thomson, the UK Head of Delegation, `represented a

victory for Soviet persistence over Western impatience'. 15 True, in the

concluding stages of the exploratory talks, the Russians accepted a final

communique which Thomson felt accorded `perhaps a shade of advantage to the West'. Although they rejected NATO's concept of `balanced' force

reductions, they agreed to describe the talks as negotiations on the Mutual Reduction of Armed Forces and Armaments and Associated Measures in Central Europe -a cumbersome semantic compromise which could be interpreted as covering such Western desiderata as constraints and verification. 16 Soviet assent to the opening of substantive negotiations in October 1973 was, however, only secured during Brezhnev's visit to the United States in June. Indeed, in this and in other respects the exploratories seemed to enhance the tendency towards Soviet/American bilateralism. Allied conduct was, as a joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) report suggested, such as to convince the Russians that they had no reason to make concessions to the West as a whole and that there were advantages to be had from

protracted negotiations. 17

Thomson subsequently recalled that at Vienna so much of the energy of the allies had been devoted to negotiating among themselves that it had `sometimes seemed as if the negotiations with the Russians [were] a secondary matter'. 18 A rather different picture was in the meantime emerging from the CSCE preparatory talks at Helsinki. The CSCE had been

a Soviet initiative and it had been the Russians who had sought to accelerate progress towards the summoning of a conference which they evidently hoped

would confirm the territorial status quo in Europe. They had even tried to make the opening of substantive talks on MBFR conditional on the completion of the CSCE. The Americans had for their part taken a backseat

at Helsinki. Neither President Nixon nor Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser, attached much significance to the conference, and they left it to the West Europeans, both as NATO allies and as participants in European Political Cooperation, to take the lead. Detailed preparations had been made for the talks, and Western delegates, along with neutral delegates, had worked well and effectively together in pressing successfully for

15 Ibid., No. 7. 16 Ibid., No. 6. 17 Ibid., No. 8. 18 Ibid., No. 6.

19

agreement on an agenda and conference procedures which would permit, in

the context of Basket III, the fullest examination of such hitherto taboo issues

as human contacts and the freer dissemination of information. When in July 1973 the Foreign Ministers of the thirty-five participating states gathered in Helsinki for Stage I of the Conference, they could look forward to negotiations which offered opportunities for redefining the scope of detente. They might extend its meaning beyond the narrow notion of an easing of tensions between alliance blocs in order to transcend ideological divisions in Europe. The West might also be able to use the CSCE to loosen Moscow's grip on its East European allies. 19 By contrast, the prospects for MBFR still seemed positively dangerous from a British point of view. The Russians could be expected to exploit differences within NATO and thereby undermine the US commitment to the defence of Western Europe. They might also secure a locus standi which would permit them to interfere in West European affairs particularly where defence arrangements were concerned. Far from being the touchstone of detente, MBFR appeared more likely to serve as testimony to its bilateralisation.

Fortunately from the British point of view, the Americans, who once more assumed the lead in the allied negotiating team, were not set upon achieving an early resolution of the substantive talks. The Western powers were also somewhat better prepared than they had been at the commencement of the exploratories. A key element in their thinking was the assumption that any agreement on force reductions must be on an asymmetrical basis. In central Europe the Russians not only enjoyed short lines of communication over which they could reinforce rapidly, but were also judged quantitatively superior to NATO in conventional offensive equipment. There would then, if these disparities were to be removed or neutralised, have to be `significantly larger reductions in Soviet forces in the agreed area compared with those of the Alliance'. With this in mind, it was settled that NATO should seek reductions in two phases: in the first, the parties would agree on a 15% cut in US and Soviet forces in the agreed reductions area, with Russian cuts of 68,000 men, including one tank army of five divisions, and American cuts of 29,000 men of which the proportion of combat troops was as yet undecided; and in the second, each side would make further cuts to bring their forces down to a common ceiling of 700,000 in the reductions area, representing a 10% reduction in NATO forces and a 20% reduction in those of the Warsaw Pact. 20 Such a programme was hardly calculated to appeal to the Soviet Union and on 8 November, barely a week after the opening of substantive

19 See Hamilton, Last Cold Warriors, pp. 12-15. 20 DBPO, Series III, Vol. III, No. 9.

20

talks in Vienna and before the tabling of the Western proposals, the Soviet delegation submitted a draft agreement which envisaged the reduction in

three stages of all armed forces, including air and nuclear forces, in central Europe. Reductions were to be carried out in whole units of approximately similar types and were to fall on the forces of direct participants in

proportion to their contribution to the total forces on each side, thereby creating permanent separate ceilings on the manpower and equipment of individual allies. 21

These terms were incompatible with Western objectives since their

acceptance would confirm what NATO perceived as the existing imbalance

of forces in central Europe. Whilst the Western Allies were seeking unequal reductions to a common ceiling, the Warsaw Pact countries were offering `symbolic' reductions of equal quantity, to be followed by reductions of equal proportions; and instead of two phased negotiations confined to ground forces, the East proposed a single negotiation with all the forces (including

nuclear weapons and aircraft) of direct participants being reduced from the outset. Sub-ceilings on individual participants, which the British feared would prejudice the evolution of future European defence arrangements (including the creation of a European defence community), would also be

unavoidable and they, in turn, would impede British and German efforts to make up for any shortfall caused by cuts in US forces in Europe. Moreover,

the Warsaw Pact proposals said nothing about the verification and non- circumvention arrangements which the NATO participants wished to consider as `associated measures'. They were, as Clive Rose, the UK Head of Delegation, recognised, evidently intended to appeal to public opinion in the West: they were superficially easy to understand, superficially fair and superficially simple to execute. The Russians may also have hoped that by seizing the initiative they would be able to disrupt Western tactics and draw Western delegations into negotiations on the basis of Soviet proposals and concepts. The US delegation, now led by Stanley Resor, at first appeared impatient to engage in detailed bargaining with their Soviet opposite numbers. But Allied unity was maintained within NATO's Ad Hoc Group (the committee of Allied negotiators in Vienna), and war in the Middle East and the ensuing energy crisis seemed to moderate domestic pressure on the Nixon administration for early force reductions. 22 When in the following October Tickell visited Washington for tripartite talks with the Americans

21 Ibid., No. 10. 22 Ibid.

21

and West Germans on the longer term aspects of allied defence policy, he found MBFR to be very much `on the back burner'. 23

By then it was clear that the positions assumed by the NATO and Warsaw Pact delegations left little scope for compromise, and that the Eastern participants were in Rose's words 'digging themselves in for a war of attrition'. 24 Regular informal meetings between NATO and Warsaw Pact representatives, disguised in the first instance as 'social gatherings', began in February 1974, and these allowed both sides to explore each other's attitudes, strategy and tactics. 25 Yet such negotiations as there were proceeded at a snail's pace. The Russians insisted that Western proposals were inadequate and that any agreement must cover all forces and armaments: they wanted assurances that both the Bundeswehr and the British Army of the Rhine would be brought within the scope of the reductions, and refused to accept general undertakings that European forces would be reduced in a second phase. Meanwhile, British diplomats remained wedded to the view that the Warsaw Pact was simply 'seeking to codify the [East/West military] imbalance and to persuade the West to give it a certificate of respectability in the agreements which would eventually emerge from Vienna'. 26 There was, in any case, as a JIC paper of 6 May contended, always the danger that the Russians were simply using the policy of detente 'to soften up the West while maintaining their long term aims and improving their military strength'. 27 Indeed, Sir Terence Garvey, who in the autumn of 1973 was appointed British Ambassador in Moscow, was already speculating on whether some in the Soviet leadership might think the moment ripe for a fresh ideological advance. From a Leninist perspective the West's economic problems, and especially the industrial unrest associated with the onset of the energy crisis, must, he thought, confirm that 'what was foretold by the prophets [was], at last, verily coming to pass'. There may have been 'no let-up in pro-detente propaganda in the Soviet press', but predictions by Communist party ideologues of impending `radical revolutionary transformations' did nothing in the judgement of Julian Bullard, head of the FCO's Eastern European and Soviet Department (EESD), to remove underlying Western fears that 'one day doctrine and policy [would] coincide, and that the present separation between them [was] merely a question of tactics'. 28 It was also likely that

23 Ibid., No. 18. 24 Ibid, No. 16. 25 Ibid., No. 12. 26 Ibid., No. 14. 27 Ibid, No. 58. 28 Ibid., No. 53.

22

rising fuel costs would check the economic growth of Western Europe, slow the process of integration, and leave the Warsaw Pact countries more dependent upon the Soviet Union. In these circumstances it seemed singularly inauspicious to envisage any form of agreement which might limit British or West German forces in central Europe.

The MBFR talks were, however, about more than relations with the Soviet Union and its allies. The draft steering brief prepared for the British delegation in the autumn of 1973 was laced with phraseology which seemed to lend credence to the Primat der Innenpolitik-the notion once so fashionable

amongst historians of the 1960s and 1970s. Britain's participation in the talks was, the brief acknowledged, `primarily as an exercise in damage limitation', intended to allow the Government to be seen by Parliament and the public to be `working seriously for a lowering of the level of armed forces and armaments in Central Europe', while ensuring that there remained an `adequate level of American troops in Europe'. 29 As Tickell later explained, Western governments were engaged in a dialogue with their own parliaments and domestic public opinion, and amongst themselves in trying to arrive at, and elaborate, agreed allied negotiating positions. so The Conservative Government's loss of its parliamentary majority in the general election of February 1974 was a poignant reminder to British negotiators of the importance of domestic opinion. Summoned in response to the challenge posed by striking miners to the Government's efforts to impose wage restraint, the election resulted in the formation under Harold Wilson of a minority Labour administration committed to undertaking a widespread review of, and therefore probably cuts in, Britain's defence expenditure. In

opposition Labour politicians had also been highly critical of the expulsion from Britain in September 1971 of 105 Soviet diplomats on charges of espionage-a move from which Anglo-Soviet relations had only just begun to recover. 31 And Callaghan, the new Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary,

seemed unlikely to enthuse over what Bullard described as Britain's `chosen role as a Cassandra to the Western alliance on the theme of the Soviet threat to Western Europe'. 32 Indeed, on 19 March Callaghan told the Commons that the Government would `look for opportunities to build a safer and more productive relationship with the Soviet Union', and he subsequently requested Roy Hattersley, then Minister of State in the FCO, to prepare a

Ibid., No. 9. so Ibid., No. 25. 31 DBPO, Series III, Vol. I, Britain and the Soviet Union, 1968-1972 (London: TSO, 1997), Nos. 75-77. 32 DBPO, Series III, Vol. III, No. 40.

23

position paper on the current state of Britain's relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. 33

The drafting of the Hattersley paper was in Bullard's words to prove a `rather foggy exercise' in which senior officials were obliged to `ransack their minds and cupboards for types of action which [had] never previously been thought to be in the British interest, but which would now be so represented'. In the final version, completed on 30 July 1974, Hattersley contended that the British must make it clear that they no longer regarded themselves as the `sheet anchor of defence against the hurricane of detente', and that their interests would best be served by `activity' rather than the adoption of a `defensive posture'. He observed that, in view of the fact that the Labour Government were committed to `substantial reductions in defence expenditure ... and that some of these must be made within NATO', there was clearly much to be gained from successful MBFR which included early reductions by all NATO nations. Britain, he argued, could do more within the Western Alliance to help the MBFR negotiations along, and he

recommended that they should be ready to go further in blurring the distinction between the two phases of MBFR and be more forthcoming on the inclusion of nuclear weapons in any agreement. Yet, where bilateral relations with the Soviet Union and its East European allies were concerned, the paper had little more to propose than increased Ministerial visits and more active trade promotion. 34 British policy was in any case bound to be

conditioned by changes taking place elsewhere in East/West, and more particularly US/Soviet, relations. Slow progress in the CSCE, virtual deadlock in the MBFR negotiations, uncertainties about what would be achieved in SALT II, differences between Moscow and Washington over developments in

the Middle East and Cyprus, the debilitating affect of the Watergate affair on the American presidency, and opposition in Congress to Kissinger's dealings

with the Soviet Union all seemed to threaten the future of detente. There

were still, however, those like Bullard, who were concerned about the possible emergence of a US/Soviet condominium and its potential for damaging the interests of America's European allies. Such fears were not allayed by the communique issued at the end of Nixon's visit to Moscow in July 1974 which appeared to endorse the Soviet desire to see an early conclusion to the CSCE. 35

33 Ibid., No. 66. 34 Ibid. 35 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Richard Nixon, 1974 (Washington: GPO,

1975), pp. 571-2; DBPO, Series III, Vol. II, No. 89.

24

Soviet/American `bilateralism' was, as Rose admitted, far `less evident in the Vienna negotiations' than the fear of it amongst other Western delegations. It was, nonetheless, apparent that the Russians might, for the sake of Brezhnev's detente policy, be prepared to go some way towards meeting American wishes on MBFR. Rose suspected that they would pursue any such understanding by `wedge-driving', and that their primary object would be to achieve an agreement which would reduce the Bundeswehr and thereby

obstruct the development of any European defence union in which West Germany might have a dominant role. They were, he thought, determined to have a droit de regard over European defence cooperation. 36 The prospects for

their achieving this were slim. British, West German and US delegations were working in close collaboration at Vienna: on the Western side they constituted what Tickell termed the `motor for the negotiations'. Tickell was, however, perturbed by the `curiously isolated atmosphere' in which the talks were being conducted, and by the degree of independence enjoyed by some Western delegations. The very informality of the contacts established between the two sides had encouraged the development of a series of overlapping group identities: Eastern and Western participants understood each other well, enjoyed good personal relations, went on coach trips together, organised conference hikes, and even had an MBFR song-book for

their evening entertainments. 37 `A twenty mile walk through the Vienna

woods, which resembled, in its latter stages, a sequence from Napoleon's

retreat from Moscow', Rose recalled, `enabled some eleven of us to discover

our common humanity and forget our ideological differences in shared discomfort. '38

The danger of all this from London's point of view was that local tactical considerations might be given priority over broader matters of policy, and that Western European interests might too easily be subordinated to the wishes of an overly-independent American delegation. There were no easy solutions to these problems. NATO delegations in Vienna were responsible for deciding on day-to-day negotiating tactics, and Rose had only limited

room for manoeuvre. The constraints imposed by alliance diplomacy could not be ignored, especially when Eastern participants tabled a proposal on 26 November 1974 for a freeze on the manpower of both sides until the negotiations were completed. The proposal, whose very simplicity seemed calculated to appeal to public opinion in the West, once more put Allied

negotiators on the defensive. Its acceptance would have confirmed the

36 DBPO, Series III, Vol. III, No. 16. 37 Ibid., No. 19. 38 Ibid., No. 16.

25

existing imbalance of forces in central Europe; its rejection, which the

Americans favoured, would have presented the East with a considerable

propaganda advantage. The proposal severely tested Allied cohesion. Moreover, it came just at the point when the British Government were

preparing to announce in their defence White Paper that any cuts in their forces in Europe must depend on the prior achievement of an agreement on MBFR. 39 Fortunately for Western delegates, the Russians chose not to exploit their initiative to the full. Influenced perhaps by the forthcoming official visit

of Wilson and Callaghan to Moscow, they tended to play down the notion of

a freeze when the fifth round of the talks began in January 1975, and

accepted without undue protest its formal rejection by the West. 40

British officials had hoped that Wilson's visit to Moscow in February 1975,

the first by a British Prime Minister since 1968, would inaugurate a new era in bilateral relations between Britain and the Soviet Union. Indeed, the term `new phase' was deliberately inserted in the joint statement issued at the end of the visit, and in a subsequent guidance telegram Callaghan observed that it seemed clear that the Soviet side `wished to open a new phase, in which Britain [moved] up alongside France and the FRG in Brezhnev's pattern of detente diplomacy'. 41 This was not just hyperbole. The value of the visit was largely symbolic. But in the preceding `unproductive' phase of Anglo-Soviet

relations Britain had been very much the odd-man-out in the Western

alliance and, as Garvey suggested in his report on the Moscow talks, the warm welcome extended by Brezhnev to Wilson might have been directed towards silencing Britain's `discordant voice in the choir of detente'. 42 The Russians had, after all, only recently witnessed the disappearance of three of the principal protagonists of detente in the West, Brandt, Pompidou and Nixon,

and they could hardly ignore the prominent role being played by British diplomats in Stage II of the CSCE at Geneva. Indeed, it was a British initiative

which permitted a compromise on Basket III issues and allowed Brezhnev his

much desired summit at Helsinki. 43 The FCO was however cautious about the prospects for further East/West detente. The collapse of US policy in south- east Asia, setbacks for Kissinger's diplomacy in the Middle East, communist advances in Portugal, and divisions within NATO over Turkey's military intervention in Cyprus, all appeared to offer Moscow fresh opportunities for

expanding Soviet influence abroad. And while Garvey was of the opinion that

39 Ibid., No. 20. 40 Ibid., Nos. 21 and 23. 41 Ibid., No. 76. 42 Ibid. 43 DBPO, Series III, Vol. II, Nos. 119 and 120-124.

26

there was `no credible alternative to Westpolitik for the Russians to adopt', their pursuit of a relaxation of world tension was, he insisted, conditional on their `maintaining to the fullest extent practicable the imperial aims of old Russia and the revolutionary aims of the Marxist myth'. 44Callaghan made the point himself when, on 10 November, he told the Commons that the CSCE had brought no overnight end to East/West tension: there remained, he said, `great ideological differences' and there was no `armistice in the war of ideas'. 45

There was also no progress towards an accord on MBFR. Rose had long since reached the conclusion that if the Russians were ever going to make the

concessions thought essential by the West, they were unlikely to do so solely for anything the Allies might offer them in Vienna. An agreement, he

predicted, would only be achieved because the Russians had taken a political decision that one was desirable for `reasons partly or wholly extraneous to the

negotiations themselves'. Others assumed that the outcome of the talks

would depend on the successful conclusion of the CSCE and/or some advance towards the completion of a new Strategic Arms Limitation accord (i. e. SALT II). But the signing of the CSCE Final Act seemed to have little or no impact upon the Soviet stance in Vienna. 46 Both East and West continued to reiterate their basic positions `on familiar ground and in hallowed

phrases', and only in the practical field of force definitions was any useful work done during the autumn of 1975. This was in part attributable to a waning of Western interest in the outcome of the talks. The end of the Vietnam war and the emergence of a new and more hard-headed

relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union had seemed to change Congressional attitudes towards defence expenditure. The Mansfield lobby was in retreat, and it was no longer so necessary for the administration in Washington to find excuses for the retention of American forces in Europe. Likewise, in West Germany Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was evidently ready to take a much tougher line on defence than his immediate

predecessor, Willy Brandt. `It is', Tickell minuted on 20 August, `fair to say that in no NATO country is there at present unmanageable pressure for

44 DBPO, Series III, Vol. III, No. 85. 45 Ibid., No. 83. 46 In a paper of 17 November 1975, drafted for a forthcoming Heads of Mission conference in London, Rose maintained that 'Soviet and Warsaw Pact strategic and military objectives after CSCE remained exactly as before it'. The `fundamental purposes of Soviet military policy', he contended, `have not changed - to provide military support for the Soviet Union's foreign policy objective of changing the balance of power in the world in general and in Europe in particular in favour of socialism, and to provide an invincible war-fighting capability for defence against attack by the West'. Ibid. No. 26.

27

unilateral cuts or instant progress in MBFR. ' Within the Atlantic Alliance

pressure for greater efficiency had tended to focus attention upon the

redeployment of forces, the need for the standardisation and interdependability of weapons, and the division of labour in defence

planning and tasks, all of which had in turn made MBFR look less like a

panacea for reducing military expenditure. Nevertheless, as Tickell admitted, there was still scope for agreement at Vienna, especially if, as appeared likely,

the Western delegates were to offer their Eastern counterparts a package including the withdrawal from Europe of certain American nuclear armaments and the inclusion of air manpower in the proposed collective ceiling. 47

Such a proposition, which the Americans had originally suggested to their

allies as a third negotiating option and which was therefore usually referred to simply as Option III, had been under consideration since the autumn of 1974. It amounted to an American offer to withdraw from the reductions area 1000 nuclear warheads, 54 dual capable F-4 aircraft, and 36 surface to surface missile launchers in return for the Warsaw Pact's acceptance in the principal NATO objectives for Phase 1 of the talks i. e. the withdrawal of a Soviet tank army and the East's agreement to the concept of a common ceiling. Rose was far from optimistic about what this offer might achieve. Nevertheless, he thought that the consensus of Allied negotiators at Vienna

was that Option III was the one card in Western hands that might tempt the Russians to contemplate asymmetric reductions. Resor and his staff favoured it, 48 and in March 1975 it was examined in detail during trilateral Anglo- German-American talks in Washington. Both the British and the West Germans were anxious that the offer should not be made until they and the Americans were agreed on exactly what it was intended to buy. If, for instance, it were used simply to secure Soviet agreement to asymmetrical reductions in American and Soviet forces in Phase I, the West Europeans

might still be left without any assurances regarding the East's commitment to a common ceiling in Phase 11.49 In the event the Western Allies were able to agree that they would insist that the common ceiling, now covering both

ground force and air manpower, should be defined in Phase I. Moreover, the British were, after a good deal of hard-bargaining, able to secure the addition to the Western presentation of a proviso making it explicit that reductions in

non-US Western equipment were not part of the offer, and that limitations

on such equipment, whether ground, air or nuclear, were unacceptable. But

47 Ibid., No. 25. 48 Ibid., No. 20. 49 Ibid., No. 22.

28

if the offer, which was formally tabled on 16 December 1975, represented a substantive shift in the West's approach to the negotiations, it was, as Tickell had foreseen, still considered inadequate by the Russians. 50 Two months later, on 19 February 1976, they proposed instead Phase I reductions of US

and Soviet forces including specific weapons reductions, a `freeze' in the size of the forces of all other direct participants, and equal national percentage reductions within a precisely defined subsequent phase. While this went some way towards accepting the Western notion of phasing, it left the two sides as far apart as ever on such basic issues as asymmetric reductions and collective, as opposed to national, ceilings.

The East's rejection of option III appeared to condemn the Vienna talks to further deadlock. It is doubtful whether this was considered a serious setback in Whitehall. From the British point of view, one of the principal gains so far

secured from the multilateral diplomacy of detente had been the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act which offered Western governments the opportunity to take up human rights issues in the Soviet Union and its East European satellites-51 During the negotiations at Geneva Russia's allies had

not displayed the degree of independence that some in the West had once expected. Agreement on Basket III issues had nonetheless expanded the agenda of detente. A paper prepared by EESD in November 1975 argued that there was no longer any point in telling the Russians that the ideological

struggle was inconsistent with detente, and that the West should take advantage of the Final Act `to make the contest more equal by widening and improving the channels through which Western ideas and objective information about the West [could] reach the citizens of the Soviet Union

and Eastern Europe'. 52 And in a despatch of 11 March 1976 Callaghan

recalled with approval an earlier assertion by Garvey that it was not only the communists who wanted to promote revolutionary change: `we also heartily desire change in Soviet society and the others that emulate it'. 53 The

mechanisms of military detente as encapsulated in the Vienna force

reduction talks were never likely to provide such opportunities for promoting change. Moreover, while the CSCE had encouraged closer cooperation amongst the Western allies, especially those who were partners in the European Community, MBFR still had the potential to weaken NATO. When in August 1975, Tickell, the last head of WOD, left the FCO to begin a

50 Ibid, No. 27. 51 On the implementation of the Helsinki Final Act see DBPO, Series III, Vol. II, Appendix III. 52 DBPO, Series III, Vol. III, No. 84.

53 Ibid., No. 87.

29

sabbatical in the United States, he reminded his colleagues that the Americans might yet settle with the Russians in Vienna on terms disadvantageous to European interests in Phase II. In such circumstances, he

believed that Britain should lean more towards the West Germans than the Americans. `We must', he minuted, `not expect the Americans to stay in

Europe in their present numbers for ever, and the Germans, and with them

the other Europeans, with whom we shall be increasingly associated, will

constitute our essential shield. '54

There was, however, no immediate prospect of a reduction of US forces in

Europe. Public pressure for cuts in American military spending abroad

seemed to be in decline, and there was less talk of the threat posed by an incipient Moscow/Washington axis to European interests. As William

Wilberforce, head of the FCO's Defence Department (the department now

responsible for MBFR matters), explained in a submission of 12 March 1976,

the public mood had changed on both sides of the Atlantic to `one of some disenchantment with "detente" and a correspondingly greater awareness of the need for sound NATO defences'. 55 And on 15 March Callaghan told an Office meeting that the political gain the Government had expected to

extract from MBFR had `largely been achieved: MBFR had enabled Western

Governments to resist domestic pressures for unilateral force reductions'. 56

American critics of detente had in the meantime become increasingly vocal in expressing their concern about the Soviet Union's growing military might, the prospect of the Russians exploiting a SALT II agreement in order to

secure a `war winning capability', and their rigid suppression of internal dissent. Soviet involvement in the former Portuguese colony of Angola, the massive assistance the Russians afforded to the MPLA, and their backing of Cuban intervention, had, in the words of Sir Peter Ramsbotham, Britain's Ambassador in Washington, `confirmed the pessimists' fears and deepened

their anger at US impotence in the face of Soviet "adventurism"'. In a television interview on 1 March President Ford even announced that he was dropping the word `detente' as a description of US policy towards the Soviet Union: henceforth he would describe the process as a `policy of peace through strength'. This did not in Ramsbotham's opinion mean that the US

administration was intending to abandon the central core of Kissinger's

policy towards the Soviet Union. But it reflected a change in atmosphere

54 Ibid, No. 25. 55 Ibid., No. 28. 56 Ibid.

30

which affected the conduct of US/Soviet relations during the remainder of the year. 57

Callaghan was less ready to abandon the language of detente. He did, however, instruct the British Ambassador in Moscow to impress on the Russians that `while we have no objection to the contest of ideas, we object strongly to efforts to promote the solution by force of political problems arising in countries far from the Soviet Union's territory'. 58 When the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko visited London in March Callaghan

emphasised that detente was `indivisible' and that British public opinion was `not likely to accept that detente in Europe should be immune from developments in the African continent'. 59 Callaghan's officials remained alive to another danger, that of the British public being lulled into a false

sense of security by the apparent achievements of detente, and by the increasing tendency of commentators and politicians to refer to the Cold War

as if it were a past event. Indeed, FCO Planners had earlier argued that Soviet

military intervention in Eastern Europe (presumably in a delinquent Romania) `might strike a useful blow against wishful thinking' in the West. ° Soviet propaganda had meanwhile continued to make much of the need to shift from political to military detente. Yet, the past five years had witnessed the greatest build-up of Soviet military power since the Second World War,

and in the MBFR talks the Russians had seemed to resist all measures which might impair the superiority of Warsaw Pact forces in Europe.

The scale of the problem was analysed in a JIC report of 22 December 1975. It pointed out that Soviet theatre forces in central Europe (i. e. East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia) had since 1968 remained constant at 27 divisions and three tactical air armies, but that increases within them had

resulted in an enhancement of their combat strength equivalent to six complete pre-1968 divisions. And increased effectiveness in the air forces (including those in Hungary) was assessed as equating to the addition of four

complete pre-1970 air regiments. `By electing to introduce these improvements on a piecemeal basis within units', the report explained, `rather than in the form of additional formations, the Russians have

contrived to avoid much of the public apprehension which would have been

aroused in the West by more obvious methods. ' There had also been some

57 Ibid., No. 89. 58 Ibid., No. 86. 59 Ibid, No. 88. 60 Ibid., No. 54.

31

significant improvements in ground forces equipment, particularly in tanks, infantry combat vehicles, self-propelled guns and towed artillery, obstacle-crossing equipment, air defence, logistics and nuclear delivery

systems. A number of advantages of quality once enjoyed by NATO had

disappeared or were fast disappearing and in some fields the Russians might be in the lead. Earlier deployment of new ground force equipment to the

groups of forces, and more intensive modernisation of these groups seemed to indicate an enhanced Soviet desire to strengthen them both relatively and absolutely. 6'

Meanwhile, as was pointed out at a conference of Britain's Ambassadors to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union which assembled in London in November 1975, Western societies were `faced to a greater extent than at any time since 1939 with the complex task of maintaining their economic and social integrity and their will to defend themselves, if necessary, in a relatively relaxed non-confrontational situation'. Monetary inflation might so far have done more than detente to increase pressure on Western governments to reduce defence expenditure, but the relaxation of East/West tension made it

all the more difficult to counter Soviet efforts to nurture in the West a public mood favourable to unilateral disarmament. 62 And, given these circumstances, the MBFR talks assumed a new significance. British diplomats

were fully alive to the fact that it would probably cost the Soviet Union more to withdraw forces from Eastern Europe than to maintain them there, and that few savings were likely to accrue from their disbandment. But they also felt that Brezhnev remained wedded to the pursuit of detente and that he

might be ready to sanction progress in Vienna in order to ensure a more favourable international climate for the CSCE review conference which was scheduled to meet in Belgrade in 1977. He would not wish to risk further

public disillusionment with detente in the West, and there might, the FCO

speculated, `be a greater disposition in Moscow to look at the political advantage that would accrue to the Soviet Union from reaching an agreement with the West, even at the cost of some military concession'. 63 If Brezhnev's detente policy were to be kept on track then the Russians must assume a more constructive attitude towards MBFR. `In short', noted Sir John Killick, now Britain's permanent representative to NATO, `we must somehow make credibly clear that not just Belgrade, but the whole process of detente

61 Ibid., Appendix II. 62 I bid, No. 84. 63 Ibid., No. 84.

32

(its achievements as well as its future development) is at stake unless the

present Soviet military build-up is halted. '64

An agreement on the central issues of MBFR nonetheless remained as far off

as it had ever been. Quite apart from the Soviet reluctance to accept the

notion of asymmetric reductions, there were fundamental differences between the two sides over the nature of the Phase I obligations into which Western direct participants other than the United States might enter. Eastern delegates maintained that cuts in Soviet forces must depend on their receipt of concrete guarantees from the West Europeans and the Canadians

regarding the scope of their reductions and the date by which they would be

completed, whilst Western delegates insisted that Soviet reductions must precede any such commitments. True, in June 1976 the Warsaw Pact delegates for the first time tabled data on their ground and air force

manpower in central Europe -a move which was particularly embarrassing to their Western colleagues since they were unable to respond immediately

with updated NATO figures because of France's opposition to the inclusion in them of French forces in the reductions area. The numbers supplied by

the East were in any case considerably lower than Western estimates, and although Rose considered the initiative evidence that the East's `interest in keeping alive the possibility of substantive progress [was] genuine', other British officials thought it designed to prevent the Soviet Union being blamed for the continuing stalemate. 65 Indeed, participants in the talks spent much of the autumn of 1976 engaged in what Edwin Bolland, Rose's

successor as UK Head of Delegation described as the `restating and elaborating [of] their respective positions'. The process had in effect become

a diplomatic ritual. Yet in the view of Patrick Moberly, Assistant Under- Secretary superintending Defence Department, the Vienna talks were emerging `as a prominent feature in the detente panorama', and were being

seen in the West as `one of the means of testing the Soviet commitment to detente'. If the talks could be so elevated, they might be used to demonstrate to an otherwise complacent Western public that it was the Russians who lacked commitment to detente. There was therefore, FCO Planners contended, a strong case for making MBFR `the proving ground for detente' and for bringing the Vienna talks more to the attention of the public in order to facilitate the maintenance of an adequate Western defence effort. Crosland, who had succeeded Callaghan as Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in April 1976, was receptive to the tactic. Disenchanted with the `new phase' in Anglo-Soviet bilateral relations, which, despite Gromyko's visit

64 Ibid., No. 94. 65 mod., No. 32.

33

to London, had been more characterised by petty bickering than active cooperation, Crosland agreed with his Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Michael Palliser, that they should `vulgarise' the language of detente and, with the Angolan conflict in mind, he readily endorsed the notion of denouncing the Soviet Union as `an imperialist power'. In the meantime, MBFR would be made the public touchstone of detente. 66

The Russians, for their part, seemed reluctant to envisage the talks' demise, and Callaghan had already appeared to indicate that he was not averse to the MBFR negotiations evolving into a `continuing process' like the Geneva- based UN Conference of the Committee on Disarmament. 67 In consequence, the talks continued, only finally to be wound-up twelve years later on 2 February 1989, a month before the opening in Vienna of the negotiations on Conventional Forces in Europe. There was, as Robin O'Neill, Britain's Ambassador in Vienna and last Head of Delegation, then recalled, `no moment when both sides really wanted agreement, except on such one- sidedly favourable terms as to be unnegotiable; and for a number of years neither side was ready for an agreement at all'. Warsaw Pact participants had nonetheless come to accept the Western case for `measures designed to promote the general goal of increasing security and stability'. The talks became the only multilateral forum for regular East/West contact on security questions, and provided the arms control background for a whole generation of politico-military experts in NATO and the Warsaw Pact. And, as O'Neill recognised, they in one sense achieved Whitehall's original objectives. They forestalled any reduction in US troops in Europe, and the burden of unreduced military expenditure had contributed `to the crippling of the Soviet economy' which by 1989 was Gorbachev's `greatest single problem'. 68

This last remark was doubtless made with tongue in cheek, implying as it did that MBFR had become one of the West's Cold War-winning weapons. Nevertheless, what is striking about what Tickell had once described as this Janus-headed negotiation'69 is how even during the first four years of the talks Whitehall's perception of their political value had changed. As with the CSCE, the British had been reluctant participants in this multilaterisation of detente in Europe. The CSCE had, however, provided new mechanisms for expanding the meaning of detente and for carrying the war of ideas into the enemy encampment. Tom McNally, Callaghan's Political Adviser, was by

66 Ibid., No. 94. 67 Ibid., No. 28. 68 Ibid., Appendix III. 69 Ibid., No. 16.

34

November 1975 advocating a `positive [ideological] war of movement- advancing our ideas, challenging theirs'. 70 Yet, progress in applying principles agreed at Helsinki was slow, and within a year it suited British

statesmen and diplomats to define detente in narrower terms and to utilise MBFR to focus public opinion on the more menacing aspects of Soviet foreign policy. It was, after all, as FCO Planners argued, difficult to see any way, apart from Western acceptance of Soviet hegemony, by which the confrontational element in East/West relations could be avoided. The Vienna talks remained in Tickell's words `a classic device by which Western govts resist[ed] pressure for unilateral [force] cuts'. 71 By 1976 they were also a means by which ministers and officials sought to remind an all too unwary populace of the limits of detente. Almost as much an exercise in public, as in military, diplomacy, the MBFR talks were ultimately, like the CSCE negotiations, less about finding alternatives to confrontation than about adjusting battle fronts in a continuing Cold War.

70 Ibid. No. 83. 71 Ibid., No. 14.

35

PARITY LOST' Francis Richards

Arms and Manpower I sing, and lest the Theme Too Lofty for my Modest Talents seem, Come, lovely NATO, lead the Everian troop Of martial spirits to my Drafting Group; With timely guidance, Nymph, my thoughts inspire And teach the hand that tunes the untutored lyre!

Thy broad wings, steel-girt Goddess, swiftly bear Thee over towns and forests through the air, O'er snow-clad Taunus, and the rushing Rhine Beyond the Elbe and Oder-Neisse line, From where the Stolid Dutchman guards his Dyke To Lodz, and where the morning Sunbeams strike The crests of Tatra; and from Pripet's fen To Friesland's meadows, and then back again, Tell all, fair Harbinger; do not conceal What thy all-seeing National Means reveal - How stands the Balance between East and West? Are the scales level? Or is one depressed? Could our defences stand the brutal shock Of Eastern wolves descending on our Flock? But stay! Why do thy tattered garments gape, Inadequate to hide thy Beauteous Shape? Rubescent cheek and downcast eye proclaim Thee as the victim of some deed of shame. Speak, fair Everia; for my spirit longs To dress thy wounds, and vindicate thy wrongs!

Then speaks the Goddess, fighting back her tears, `In deference to your somewhat Tender Years And lack of Clearance, I shall exercise Some Self-Restraint, and subtly Bowdlerize My Tale; some circumstances you would find Repugnant to the Chaste and Modest Mind. Now hearken: first I bent my hapless course To make inspection of the Western force.

In the opinion of Sir Clive Rose, who kindly provided the explanatory footnotes, this parody 'was one of the best things to come out of the first three years of the MBFR talks'.

36

All through the day the Luneberg Heath beat With clash of armour and with marching feet; The proud parade those fearsome Teutons led, Rank on brave rank, with Leber' at their head; Then Rumsfeld2 marched his Grizzled Legions on, With Lance and Pershing, and with Honest John; The Rhenish Army, with its Ancient Gear, And dwindling British Cohorts next appear; Thousands more, to sounds of fife and drum, From Benelux and Canada there come - A bold array! What danger could impend When such as these our Liberties defend? Alas! Too soon I laid my fears to rest, For as I turned my back upon the West, And Eastward sped across a low'ring sky A darker scene presented to my eye; Black clouds rose up to bar my passage, chased By chill winds from Siberia's icy waste. The birds fell silent, and fast took their flight, Yielding their place to creatures of the night, Foul shapes of Evil, reeking of Fresh Blood; Foxbat and Flogger, Fitter, Frog and Scud, Fishbed and Faggot, Ganef, Grail and Bear Gibbered and shrieked in the putrescent air. Beneath - beyond the bristling hedge of steel, Cleaving the Continent from head to heel, That rings the Workers' Paradise about To keep the Workers in, and others out - I saw Pavlovsky's Slavic Vanguard dread, The Muscovitish myriads, outspread. A Horde unnumbered as the grains of sand In Gobi, or on Blackpool's Tropic Strand - A motley million, drawn from near and far; Buryat and Bulgar, Prole and Commissar, The smooth Armenian and the brown Uzbek, The rancid Kirghiz and the humbled Czech, Kazakhs and Tadzhiks, Latvians and Huns, Tundra and taiga yield their choicest sons,

I Herr Leber, Federal German Defence Minister.

2 Donald Rumsfeld, US Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council 1973-76.

US Secretary of Defense from 2001.

37

Tartary's jetsam, gathered by the tide And cast up on the continent's far side; Forces which to our own as well compare As hawk to plover, or as hound to hare. Most prominent among their serried ranks Mine eyes descry the dread Main Battle Tanks Metallic Pachyderms, whose Toughened Hide Can turn oncoming Weaponry aside, Whose Mighty Gun and Caterpillar Track Make them a fearsome weapon of Attack, Monsters descended lineally from those Which braved with Hannibal the Alpine snows And fought the Macedonian, when of yore He strove with Porus by the Indus shore..

Now part the ranks, as once the Red Sea's wave Passage to Israel's fleeing children gave; What champion can it be that takes the field? The trumpets sound, and Brezhnev stands revealed: That fabled chieftain and commander staunch, Hardened of Sinew and Immense of Paunch, He comes, with Foul Intent and Visage Fell, Like Cerberus before the gates of Hell. Too late I knew the peril of my plight, Too late I turned to save myself by flight; Through wood and plough, Collective Farm and mire Splashed by mud and rent by thorn and briar, By plain and puszta, over stile and hedge, At first I kept a Qualitative Edge. Some time the unequal steeplechase I led, Though close behind I heard the heavy tread Of lusty Brezhnev and his Ribald Crew As foot by foot they ever nearer drew. I slipped: they seized me: and what then befell No power on earth can move my lips to tell; Mine not to draw aside the Kindly Veil That night cast o'er the ending of my tale. Long did thy Nymph endure their Bestial Rule; But when at length the fires of Lust grew cool They rose, like Glutted Vultures from a Bone And left me, bruised, dishonoured and alone. Full long I wept, and cursed the fatal slip

38

That gave me to that Forced Relationship With Brezhnev's myrmidons; a Nameless Whore, Thy Maiden Goddess maiden is no more. What tears, what prayers can e'er restore to me My virgin treasure, spotless PARITY? Oh Parity! Sole pledge of Lasting Peace, Whose name is potent to make Discord cease! By SALT experts acclaimed the brightest gem That gleams in Detente's dazzling diadem! Which nips th' incipient Conflict in the bud, That Mars may howl in vain for human blood And Zeus's nuclear Bolt rest in his hand While rosy Pax prevails throughout the land And SACEUR lays aside his idle blade To sport with Amaryllis in the shade. My Parity once lost, how can there be A real enhancement of stability? She paused, and cries of grief distressed the air As NATO gave full rein to her despair; Sobbing, she laid her lovely head to rest On Dr. Luns's3 sympathetic breast. Then blazed the lightning from his wrathful eye As to the Goddess Luns returned reply: `Hush, Wronged Enchantress! Wipe away thy tears! Vain is thy grief; unfounded are thy fears. Still in thy service beat some Valiant Hearts, Practised in War and Diplomatic Arts; To their assistance let us have recourse, To win by guile what has been lost to force. For thou shalt have thy Parity again When Terence Wood4 shall come to Dunsinane! ' At Luns's word, the call goes far and wide To summon NATO's champions to her side. First honest Resor5, learned in the law, As Cincinnatus in those days of yore Sped at the Senate's call to succour Rome,

3 Dr Joseph Luns, Netherlands Foreign Minister 1952-71, Secretary-General of NATO, 1971-

84. 4 Assistant Head of Western Organisations Department, FCO, 1973-77 Ambassador to Austria 1992-1996.

5 Stanley Resor, Head of US Delegation 1973-77. Formally US Secretary of the Army.

39

Forsakes the plough, and leaves his prairie home; With his Achitophel, the wily Dean, 6

He treads the road to once-imperial Wien. Next Behrends7 leaves the margin of the Rhine, With Hofmann, 8 and his store of Nahe wine; And Cagiati, 9 Nimrod of the Alps, Turns from the chase to hunt for Russian scalps. And Adriaenssen10 his resolve attests To spice the Group's discourse with Gallic Jests; Winter11 and Vos12 this Band of Heroes swell With Spyridakis, 13 Grande, 14 and Türel, 15 But stay! What gallant troop from Albion's shore Sets sail, in dazzling panoply of war, And braves the buffets of the Northern sea? 'Tis ROSE, 16 the flower of Whitehall's Chivalry, Destined to shine in Vienna's far-famed fight, And, having had his Day, to be a Knight. Others there are in Rose's train, whose names Are ever on the lips of Russian dames, Who use them to intimidate each child That shows an inclination to be wild: In case it be, as we have been assured, True that the Pen be mightier than the Sword, With devious Gillmore, 17 skilled in Soviet Lore,

6 Jonathan Dean, Deputy Head of US Delegation 1973-77. Formerly head of US Delegation to the exploratory talks. 7 Wolfgang Behrends, Head of the Federal German Delegation. Later, Federal German Ambassador to Canada. 8 Wilfred Hoffman, Deputy Head of the Federal German Delegation. 9 Italian Ambassador to Austria, nominally Head of Italian Delegation. (Italian interests in

the talks were in practice represented by the Counsellor at the Embassy. ) Later Italian Ambassador in London. 10 Head of Belgian Delegation, also at the exploratory talks. 11 Head of Luxembourg Delegation.

12 William Vos, Head of Netherlands Delegation. 13 Head of Greek Delegation. Subsequently Greek Ambassador in Cyprus. 14 George Grande, Head of Canadian Delegation. Later Canadian Ambassador to South Africa. 15 Head of Turkish Delegation. 16 Sir Clive Rose, Head of UK Delegation, 1973-76. UK Permanent Representative on the North Atlantic Council, 1979-82. 17 David (later Sir David) Gillmore, Head of Chancery and Deputy Head of UK Delegation 1975-78. Permanent Under-Secretary of State, FCO, 1991-93.

40

And sapient Mehew, 18 our success is sure: While if the Sword be mightier than the Pen, Why, Pratt19 is with us, and we win again! Oh Concourse of Great Minds! Excess of Brain! When shall Europa see thy like again! Let Brezhnev tremble! Let Podgorny quail! The cause of Right must surely now prevail!

My task is done: mine not to sing the scene Of what transpires behind locked doors in Wien. Seek not with hands profane to draw aside The Veil of Secrecy ordained to hide The Hofburg's Mysteries. Its weekly Rites Are only for the eyes of Acolytes; Remember Pentheus, and the fate of him Whom raving Maenads once tore limb from limb Because with impious gaze he dared to spy On what was not intended for his eye. (But he who yearns for Knowledge nonetheless Has but to scan the columns of the Press. ) And now my patient Muse I may release To sing of Love, and other toys of peace, Of Nymphs and Shepherds, Daffodils and Larks, The Joys of Spring in green suburban parks, And wait the day when she shall be retained To sing the Lay of PARITY REGAINED

18 Peter Mehew, Counsellor (Ministry of Defence), UK Delegation, 1975-77.

19 Brigadier Oliver Pratt, Defence Adviser, UK Delegation, 1973-76.

41

NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS

Sir Clive Rose GCMG

Francis Richards CMG, CVO

Head of the United Kingdom Delegation (UKDEL) to the talks on Mutual Reduction of Forces and Armaments and Associated Measures in Central Europe, 1973-76. Ambassador and UK Permanent Representative at the North Atlantic Council, 1979-82. He is the author of Campaigns Against Western Defence: NATO's

adversaries and Critics (London, 1985)

First Secretary, UKDEL Vienna, 1973-76. Director, Government Communication Headquarters since 1998.

Dr. Keith Hamilton Senior Editor, Documents on British Policy Overseas. His publications include (with Richard Langhorne) The Practice of Diplomacy: Its Evolution, Theory and Administration (London, 1995)

42

DOCUMENTS ON BRITISH POLICY OVERSEAS

This collection of documents from the archives of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is published by authorisation of Her Majesty's Government. The Editors have been accorded the customary freedom in the selection and arrangement of documents.

SERIES I (1945-1950)

Published

Volume I The Conference at Potsdam, July-August 1945.

Volume II Conferences and Conversations 1945: London, Washington and Moscow.

Volume III Britain and America: Negotiation of the United States loan, August-December 1945.

Volume IV Britain and America: Atomic Energy, Bases and Food, December 1945 July 1946.

Volume V Germany and Western Europe, August-December 1945.

Volume VI Eastern Europe, August 1945-April 1946.

Volume VII The United Nations: Iran, Cold War and World Organisation, January 1946-January 1947.

In preparation

Volume VIII Britain and China, 1945-1950

SERIES II (1950-1955)

Published

Volume I The Schuman Plan, the Council of Europe and Western European Integration, May 1950-December 1952.

Volume II The London Conferences, January June 1950.

Volume III German Rearmament, September-December 1950.

Volume IV Korea, June 1950-April 1951.

In preparation

Volume V Britain and East Asia, 1951-1954

43

SERIES III (1960 -)

Published

Volume I Britain and the Soviet Union, 1968-1972)

Volume II The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, 1972-1975

Volume III Detente in Europe, 1972-1976

In preparation

Volume IV The Southern Flank in Crisis, 1973-1976

Berlin in Crisis: 1948-89

44

FCO HISTORIANS RECENT OCCASIONAL PAPERS

No. 9 DBPO: Publishing Policy and Practice

No. 10 United Kingdom, United Nations and divided world 1946

No. 11 1945-1995: Fi fIy Years of European Peace

No. 12 Nationality and Nationalism in East-Central Europe since the

18th Century

No. 13 The Growth of Multilateral Diplomacy

No. 14 Britishness and British Foreign Policy

No. 15 Spies, Secrets and Diplomacy

No. 16 Journey to an Unknown Destination: the British Arrival in Brussels in 1973

For further information, contact FC, () Historians, RHI) Old Admiralty Building, Whitehall, London, SW IA 2AF

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

ISBN 0 903359 84 7