Cold War

What was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?  (It included Russia, but the two things were not the same.)



Scary Nikita:


 



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FOR MUCH OF THE COLD WAR, AMERICANS WERE NOT CONFIDENT THAT THE USSR WOULD CRUMBLE.

Whittaker Chambers on abandoning his life as a Soviet spy: "I wanted my wife to realize clearly one long-term penalty, for herself and for the children, of the step I was taking. I said: `You know, we are leaving the winning world for the losing world.' ... Almost nothing that I have observed, or that has happened to me since, has made me think that I was wrong about that forecast."

Nixon on ABM and SALT

They [the Soviets] deployed more than a hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) while we deployed none; they added several nuclear missile-firing submarines to their Navy while we added none; and they deployed forty new ABMs around Moscow. We knew that even as the debate in Congress over an American ABM was raging, the Soviets had initiated work on more ICBMs and ABMs, as well as major new radar systems in conjunction with their deployment; they were also building additional submarine missiles. I felt that tactically we needed the ABM as a bargaining chip for negotiations with the Soviets: they already had an ABM system, so if we went into negotiations without one we might have to give up something else, perhaps something more vital. In that sense, we had to have it in order to be able to agree to forgo it. I tried to persuade Congress that what the ABM vote represented was really a philosophical turning point in America’s strategic credibility.

From the State Dept:

The administration ultimately won the ABM battle. Congress did not actually pass the bill authorizing spending on defense projects, including the ABM, until November 9. But the Senate effectively approved Safeguard on August 6 [1969], when, by votes of 51–49 and 50–50, it defeated amendments that, if adopted, would have prohibited all funding for the system’s deployment. Vice President Agnew cast the tie-breaking ballot in the latter vote. The next day Nixon wrote a memorandum in which he directed Kissinger, Ehrlichman, and H.R. Haldeman to get “out the true story,” which was that the ABM victory was a result and reflection of the “Nixon Style.” The President urged them to “point out that RN made the decision to tackle ABM head on against the advice of most of his major advisers, including particularly the State Department.”

... 

In his memoirs, Nixon concluded, “I am absolutely convinced that had we lost the ABM battle in the Senate, we would not have been able to negotiate the first nuclear arms control agreement in Moscow in 1972.” (Nixon, RN, page 418)

Kissinger and Brezhnev (Hoff 184)

Dictator Humor:




Soviet Jews:  take your pick on which is the real Nixon



RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, page 876:

I have never had any illusions about the brutally repressive nature of Soviet society.  But I knew that the more public pressure we placed on Soviet leaders, the more intransigent they would become…. I felt that we could accomplish a great deal more on the Jewish emigration issue when we were talking with the Soviets than when we were not.  Although we did not publicly challenge the Soviet contention that these questions involved Soviet internal affairs, both Kissinger and I raised them privately with Brezhnev, Gromyko, and Dobrynin. This approach brought results…. [T]he statistics are proof of undeniable success: from 1968 to 1971 only 15,000 Jews were allowed to emigrate.  In 1972 alone, however, the number jumped to 31,400.  In 1973, the last full year of my presidency, nearly 35,000 were permitted to leave.

One of the emigrants was a young Felix Sater

One of the many "Holy Crap!" moments of the Nixon years:

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