The First Thaw

The 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) began stabilizing the arms race by setting verifiable ceilings on nuclear delivery systems. This effort slowed the competition that had accelerated as the Soviet Union reached parity with the United States by the late 1960s, although new technologies including multiple independently retargetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) threatened a new round of competition. The reduction in military tensions was matched by economic ties symbolized by American grain sales and social progress in the Helsinki Human Rights Accord of 1975, which bound the Soviets to observe basic human rights, including the right of citizens in the Soviet sphere to emigrate, in exchange for the West's recognition of the existing borders in Eastern Europe.

For Nixon, the major benefit of détente was the separation of the North Vietnamese from their sponsors, eliminating the fear of a Korean War redux. This gave Washington freedom of action. To force North Vietnamese concessions, Nixon first ordered the secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia, then overtly invading the two countries in 1969 and 1970. These events, though, triggered a resurgence of the American antiwar movement, with 250,000 protestors marching on Washington in 1969. The death of four Kent State University protestors at the hands of Ohio National Guardsmen led Nixon to ease domestic unrest by speeding up withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Saigon's army was put to a major test during the Easter 1972 North Vietnamese offensive. Unlike Tet, this conventional assault proved vulnerable to a combination of American airpower and South Vietnamese ground forces. With the ground offensive stalled and an American air campaign hitting previously off-limit targets, the North Vietnamese agreed to negotiate. Secret talks in Paris produced a treaty that Saigon, excluded from negotiations, refused to sign. Hanoi's refusal to renegotiate broke up the talks and spurred a U.S. air operation to force Hanoi back to negotiations. Round-the-clock “Christmas” bombings ended when the North Vietnamese agreed to the American changes designed to placate the South Vietnamese. The last U.S. combat troops left soon thereafter, in 1973. Contrary to the treaty, but not to expectations, the North Vietnamese broke the accords, reinforced their troops in the south, and launched a final assault in 1975 that an exhausted United States refused to halt. The reunification ended a 30-year conflict and badly undermined global perceptions of U.S. power and domestic confidence. In the interim, Nixon, who had centralized executive power to an unmatched degree, resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.

Congress moved to reverse that centralization by investigating the domestic abuses of executive power by the CIA and FBI. Both agencies had been used by Nixon and his predecessors against domestic opponents in the civil rights and antiwar movements as well as political opponents. The Rockefeller Commission, created by Pres. Gerald Ford, and the Senate's Church Committee both investigated CIA intelligence operations and exposed covert CIA activities from Iran and Guatemala to Cuba and Vietnam. This exposure was matched by attempts, most notably the War Powers Act, to reassert legislative authority in foreign policy and of congressional oversight of intelligence activities.

While American prestige waned in East Asia, Israel's two victories over Arab armies in 1967 and 1973 demonstrated the continued volatility of the Middle East, a region once again subject to Cold War proxy conflicts. The 1973 war threatened direct superpower involvement when the Soviets hinted at intervention to prevent Egypt's collapse and the United States responded by visibly placing its nuclear forces on alert. Proxy wars spread south as Cuban troops fought South Africans for control of Angola. In the Horn of Africa, Ethiopian and Eritrean troops fought their ancient conflict, fueled by superpower arms shipments.

Into this environment of spreading conflict and diminished American influence, Jimmy Carter's 1976 election to the presidency promised a change in American policy. His emphasis on human rights led him to reduce support to some American allies while also pressuring the Soviet Union to live up to the Helsinki accords. Carter continued negotiating a second SALT treaty and improved American relations with Latin America by signing the Panama Canal Treaty, which guaranteed the return of the canal to Panama in 1999.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16