The Vienna summit

6 Key excerpts on "The Vienna summit"

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  Guide to International Relations and Diplomacy

  • Michael Graham Fry, Erik Goldstein, Richard Langhorne(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  Khrushchev and Eisenhower proceeded to Paris, knowing the summit had little chance of success. Eisenhower could claim a victory of sorts in his leadership of the Western alliance. De Gaulle, frequently at odds with the United States, demonstrated his allegiance to the West when called on to take sides. Khrushchev also used the summit to consolidate his power. Two weeks before the conference there had been extensive changes in the Soviet government and party apparatus, with Leonid Brezhnev inching his way closer to the leadership by becoming Chief of State. Khrushchev used the Paris summit to demonstrate his control of policy to adversaries in the Kremlin. Furthermore, Soviet relations with the Chinese were rapidly deteriorating; Khrushchev may have used the summit to convince the Chinese that the Soviet view of Western aggression was accurate. Two years later Khrushchev tried once again to solve the issue of Berlin but had to concede failure. He solved the problem permanently by building the Berlin wall. Glassboro, 1967 Historic meetings between the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States at a New Jersey college. US proposals made there led to the com-mencement of bilateral strategic arms limitation talks (SALT) about two years later. The Glassboro summit, unlike most such meetings of US and Soviet leaders before and after, was not the product of elaborate planning and detailed consultation. Indeed, the date of the meeting was set only days in advance and the site finalized only 24 hours before the first meeting began. The impetus for the Glassboro summit came from President Lyndon B. Johnson, who felt that completion of the basic text of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) cleared the way for measures to slow, if not to end, the strategic arms race. In this connection, Johnson wrote to Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin in January 1967 to propose discussions leading to some kind of understanding regarding strategic weapons, both offensive and defensive.

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  The Vienna Meeting Of The Conference On Security And Cooperation In Europe, 19861989

  A Turning Point In Eastwest Relations

  • Stefan Lehne(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  perestroika and the emergence of strong nationalist movements in most non-Russian parts of the Soviet Union also increased awareness of the enormity of the Soviet predicament. The perception of the Soviet Union as an expansionist superpower gradually gave way to an image of a sick giant with uncertain prospects of recovery. Nothing illustrates this change of attitude better than the fact that during 1988 and 1989 much of Western debate on East-West issues focused on the question of "helping Gorbachev." Although this discussion remained inconclusive, most Western governments, to their credit, appeared ready to use the historic opportunity for a significant improvement of East-West relations. Arms control and disarmament, particularly in the areas of conventional forces, strategic nuclear weapons, and chemical weapons received new attention. Diplomatic efforts to defuse Third World crises achieved first results, and cooperation in a broad range of areas intensified considerably.

  What was the role of the Vienna meeting during such a time? One important function was to serve as a forum for an ongoing dialogue on the developments in the East. For the reform-oriented East European governments, the Vienna meeting offered an opportunity to explain their new approach to internal and foreign policy. They could thus highlight the contrast to their own past policies and to those of their more conservative neighbors. Poland and, in particular, Hungary used their increased freedom of action to the hilt and sharply diverged from the positions taken by other Warsaw Pact members. The independent profile achieved by these countries was important, both in helping to further expand their room for maneuver as well as an example to other Eastern states. The Soviet Union's attitude to the Vienna meeting appeared for a long time ambiguous. Proposals like the Moscow conference initiative were clear demonstrations of "new thinking." But the Soviet Union's confrontational line in the implementation debate and the slow evolution of its substantive positions initially raised doubts about the extent to which the CSCE process would be used as a vehicle for Gorbachev's new foreign policy. Only in mid 1988 did it become clear that the Soviet leadership had opted for a very positive approach that would turn the conference into a milestone on the journey to better East-West relations.

  The role of the Vienna meeting as a monitoring instrument for developments in the East was particularly important in the human dimension. Human rights activists in the East, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the West, and the Western and neutral delegations at the meeting combined to form an effective trilateral mechanism to promote respect for human rights. Through their relentless and detailed criticism of human rights violations, based for the most part on information supplied by Eastern activists and Western NGOs, Western delegations helped to identify the most severe shortcomings, established criteria for the improvement of the human rights record, and contributed to mobilize the political will necessary to carry out the required changes.

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  Economic Summits and Western Decision-Making

  • Cesare Merlini(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Two days later the seven heads of government issued, alongside their economic communique, a ‘Statement on Arms Control’, which reasserted the ‘Western’ commitment to pursue lower levels of armaments in relations with the USSR, but meanwhile to prepare to deploy the intermediate-range missiles which NATO had agreed to position within Western Europe from the end of 1983. This declaration, hailed as the ‘success’ of the summit, served as a visible symbol of Western solidarity, both to the Soviet leadership and to the electorates of West European countries. It signalled to the Japanese the increasing association between Japan and its Western partners on security issues – welcome to some, highly unwelcome to others. But it was a last-minute declaration. The issue was raised by Mrs. Thatcher and President Reagan on the first evening of the conference. Overcoming the reluctance of President Mitterrand, the agreement in principle was passed on to the foreign ministers for drafting; but their initial draft did not meet with the approval of all the heads of government. The agreed text emerged seven hours later than intended, with a stronger emphasis on the commitment to arms reduction than its Anglo-Saxon initiators had envisaged, and – in deference to French and Japanese reservations – without any reference to the North Atlantic Alliance.

  When heads of government meet together, they naturally talk about the issues uppermost in their minds. At Williamsburg the subject of Lebanon was raised both in bilateral and multilateral conversations, as an immediate problem with implications for regional and global security, in which American, French, Italian and British troops were already contributing to peacekeeping forces. The forthcoming deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe was a direct and central concern to five of the seven participants at Williamsburg, and an indirect concern to Japan in the event of negotiations on arms reductions in Europe leading to a displacement of Soviet missiles towards the Far East. The discussion, with all its differences of perspective, appeared to have brought home once again to the Americans the importance of pursuing negotiations on arms reductions in parallel with deployment, and to have underlined for the French and the Japanese the need to accept that ‘the security of our countries is indivisible and must be approached on a global basis’. The utility of producing a published statement lay partly in the discipline of forcing the participants to define their agreed line, partly in the signal which it gave to the Soviet Union, and – at least as important – partly in the signal which it gave to public opinion in Western Europe, the United States and Japan.

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  Soviet Diplomacy And Negotiating Behavior

  The Emerging New Context For U.s. Diplomacy

  • Joseph G. Whelan(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  87

  This optimism persisted despite the fact that no concrete problems had been resolved at the summit meeting. The deadlock continued on all the major issues dividing East and West. At best, the leaders of the Four Powers had only momentarily come to grips with them at Geneva; they referred them to the Foreign Ministers for later negotiations.

  Amid warnings or some skeptics (including Dulles), disillusionment soon set in, first with the formal Soviet rejection of Eisenhower's "Open Skies" proposal in August and then the collapse of the Foreign Ministers Conference in October.88 At this conference, held in the same room as the summit meeting, the Soviets, as Eisenhower put it, repudiated every measure they had agreed to in July—measures, it might, be added, that had created some reasonable expectations of serious negotiations.89 Yet, the President held to the belief, despite this setback, that the "spirit ot Geneva" had not faded entirely: He cited the value of East-West exchanges that had their "small beginnings at the summit conference.90

  But the fact of the matter was, as Bohlen observed, that there had been "no real progress" at the Geneva summit and at best the calculated ambiguity of the final communique only made it possible to hope that the Foreign Ministers meeting "might pull something out of the bag." That hope proved to be "illusory," as each side put its own interpretation on the Geneva communique, notably with respect to the German question. The discussions went "round and round," Bohlen noted, and in the end the talks proved to be "as friendly and unproductive as at Geneva."91

  Thus with the momentary expectations of some mutual accommodation in the cold war dashed, East-West relations reverted to their old pattern of hostility and tension. As Hayter described conditions in the aftermath, "There would be no war, but no concessions and no agreements."92

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  Eisenhower, Macmillan and Allied Unity, 1957–1961

  • E. Geelhoed, A. Edmonds(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  For example, on 4 March 1960, he wrote to one British citizen, Jack Page, commenting on how hard he had worked “to reach a general agreement on the holding of a summit.” Macmillan believed that “with goodwill we should make valuable progress which can be followed up at later meetings.” 1 The device to be used to resolve these issues was the Four-Power Summit in Paris, involving Eisenhower, Macmillan, Khrushchev, and French President Charles de Gaulle, scheduled for 16 May 1960. Pre- sumably, the four leaders hoped for a historic breakthrough on nuclear testing and perhaps even the basis for resolving the dispute over Berlin. But the initial optimism for the conference ended abruptly when the Soviets shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft piloted by Francis Gary Powers on 1 May. Khrushchev reacted furiously to this tres- pass of Soviet air space and, failing to get a satisfactory apology from Eisenhower, used the flight as a pretext for torpedoing the summit conference. The collapse of the Paris summit had profound consequences for the Cold War. The nuclear arms race accelerated; the atmosphere of suspi- cion between the Soviet bloc and the West intensified; and the prospect for serious negotiations virtually disappeared. The Soviet Union also began a conscious effort to sow discord throughout the world; in the Caribbean with Cuba, in Africa with the civil war in the Congo, and in Asia with the increasing amount of violence in Indochina. The collapse of the summit and its tense aftermath was a major setback for Harold Macmillan. The repercussions of this failure did not affect his domestic political standing, but they did seriously damage Britain’s capacity to act in the international arena. And, as the individ- ual most responsible for promoting the summit, Macmillan was natu- rally the one who seemed most disheartened by its failure.

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  Relationships/Beziehungsgeschichten. Austria and the United States in the Twentieth Century

  • Günter Bischof(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Studien Verlag

    (Publisher)

  Vienna was the site of important summit meetings (Kennedy–Khrushchev in 1961, Carter–Brezhnev in 1979) and long-running arms-control conferences (Conventional Force Reduction Talks), as well as the third host (with New York and Geneva) of important United Nations agencies like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Austria was an important player among the Neutral & Non-Aligned states in the preparation and execution of the Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe, culminating in the Helsinki meeting in 1975 that cemented European détente, and its follow-up meetings. Politically, Washington has respected Austrian neutrality since Foreign Minister and then Chancellor Bruno Kreisky defined his “active neutrality” policy as very pro-Western. Economically, Austria continued to profit from the counterpart funds left over from the Marshall Plan. In 1961, the American government handed over the entire counterpart account to the government of Julius Raab, who initiated the “ERP-Fonds” as an important permanent, long-term, low-interest investment vehicle for the Austrian economy. 2 Austrians perceived their status as a “special case” during its four-power occupation (1945–55) and then as a Cold War neutral as a “Sonderfall”—call it “Austro-exceptionalism”. The U.S. tolerated Austria’s growing trade relationship with Eastern Europe in the 1970s but looked askance at Austrian high-tech exports to the Communist Bloc during the 1980s under Reagan. Culturally, widespread Americanization defined Austria’s young generation, which rendered the U.S. a quasi-“cultural superpower.” 3 Austria made up its failure to integrate into the European Economic Community by closely aligning itself with the West German economy; while serving as a “secret ally” of the West during the occupation decade and beyond, it kept its defense expenditures to a minimum. Austrian defense spending during the Cold War never amounted to a credible defense of its neutral status in case of attack

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