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Synopsis

Détente in Europe, 1972-76: Synopsis

Chapter I covers British reactions to the prospect of Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) and Britain's contribution to the exploratory talks during January-June 1973. Senior Whitehall officials were, as in the case of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), initially very sceptical about the value of MBFR. They feared that force reductions could lead to a decoupling of the United States from its European allies and jeopardise NATO's military security. The Government was, nevertheless, prepared to embark on this 'perilous voyage' in the hope that it could thereby assist the US Administration to withstand mounting Congressional pressure for unilateral cuts in American forces in Europe. The difficulties involved in trying to maintain the cohesion of an alliance divided over negotiating strategy and tactics, and led in Vienna by an overly-independent US delegation, constitute one of the Chapter's principal themes: 'the lot of an honest broker in an Alliance in disarray is not always a happy one', noted one British diplomat.

Chapter II charts the first three years of the substantive MBFR negotiations in Vienna. The Government's objectives were to be seen by Parliament and the public to be working seriously for a lowering of force levels 'while maintaining undiminished security for all.' To this end British diplomats, along with other allied representatives, sought to remove the existing disparities between NATO and Warsaw Pact force levels by phased reductions to a 'common ceiling'. But the Russians resisted Western proposals for asymmetric reductions which would have involved greater cuts in Soviet forces than in those of the United States. The resulting stalemate outlasted the conclusion of the CSCE in August 1975, and by 1976 the MBFR talks were generally regarded as a measure of the Soviet Union's continuing commitment to détente in Europe.

The documents in Chapter III trace the slow but gradual recovery of Anglo-Soviet relations from the low point reached in the wake of the expulsion from Britain of 105 Soviet spies in September 1971. They include: analysis of Soviet motives for treating Britain as the 'odd man out' - an attitude some officials attributed to Britain's chosen role as 'Cassandra to the Western Alliance'; Sir A. Douglas-Home's visit to Moscow in December 1973; the FCO's reassessment of East/West relations in the aftermath of the energy crisis; reconsideration of policy towards Eastern Europe following the replacement of Mr Heath's Conservative Government by Mr Wilson's Labour administration, including the preparation of the 'Hattersley Paper' on relations with the Soviet Union; and British reactions to US/Soviet 'bilateralism'.

Chapter IV begins with the visit of Mr Wilson and Mr Callaghan to Moscow in February 1975 and the inauguration of what was termed the 'new phase' in Anglo-Soviet relations. Neither this nor the Helsinki Final Act were, however, to herald any 'armistice in the war of ideas'. Sir T. Garvey, Britain's Ambassador in Moscow, insisted that the Soviet Union would continue to preach international Communism, but added 'we also heartily desire change in Soviet society ...We wish to see them humanised, brought under the rule of law, and their citizens to know, to speak and to move.' The seemingly relentless expansion of Soviet military might, the Soviet Union's intervention in southern Africa, and Moscow's evident readiness to exploit the 'crisis of capitalism', also contributed to Western disenchantment with détente. By December 1976 Mr Crosland, the new Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, was prepared to 'vulgarise' the language of détente and to label the Soviet Union an 'imperialist power.'

Mr R.J. O'Neill's Vienna despatch of 17 February 1989, 'MBFR: What did we achieve?', which considers the significance of almost sixteen years of negotiating on MBFR, is printed as Appendix III. Mr O'Neill the last UK Head of Delegation to the talks, concluded that although no agreement had been achieved, the talks had in one sense served their purpose: 'there (had) been no reduction in United States forces in Europe; the Warsaw Pact (had) itself announced unilateral reductions and withdrawals of forces; and the burden of unreduced military expenditure (had) made its contribution to the crippling of the Soviet economy which (was) Gorbachev's greatest single problem.'