WEEK 14 NOTES: FOREIGN POLICY OF THE 1970s AND 1980s

Nixon and SALT I

• Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT): despite the Vietnam War, Nixon and Brezhnev meet in May 1972 to discuss SALT: SALT was intended to halt the nuclear arms race, as well as deal with the issues of ABMs (Anti-Ballistic Missiles) and SLBMs (Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles), which both the US and USSR either were working on or increasing numbers of; Nixon and Brezhnev’s genuine personal friendship allowed both sides to quickly reach an agreement; the ABM Treaty (1972) limited both sides to only two ABM sites total (later reduced to one; the US later scraps its ABM program entirely); SALT I froze nuclear arms production for 5 years, including SLBMs (though older ICBMs could be replaced by new SLBMs); SALT I did not include bombers or Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs, allowing several warheads to be placed on a single missile); the Soviets also got favorable trade agreements with the West, and the US got the USSR to agree on reduction of their conventional forces
• Watergate, Part I: Nixon’s mania for secrecy and preventing leaks to the press had led to his staff becoming powers unto themselves; the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP) was formed to find “dirt” on any of Nixon’s potential opponents, which led to the burglary of the Democrat Party’s national headquarters at the Watergate Hotel (17 June 1972); the burglars were arrested and linked to both CREEP and Nixon—though Nixon denied any involvement
• Election of 1972: ironically, Nixon needed neither CREEP nor the Watergate break-in to be reelected: Democrats nominated George McGovern on a platform of immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and a guaranteed minimal wage, but Nixon’s success in ending the Vietnam War and in foreign policy gave him a strong lead he never lost; Nixon buries McGovern in one of the biggest landslides in American history, 520-17
• Watergate, Part II: soon after Nixon won reelection, several of Nixon’s aides were indicted on being involved in the Watergate break-in, and arranged plea bargains, one of which revealed that Nixon taped all conversations in the White House; when an independent prosecutor demanded the tapes be turned over, Nixon refused, claiming executive privilege, but eventually turned over some of the tapes after a near-revolt at the Justice Department when Nixon threatened to fire the special prosecutor; Nixon is named as an “unindicted co-conspirator” to the Watergate break-in (1 March 1974); after Nixon refuses to turn over the remaining tapes in July, the House of Representatives began drawing up articles of impeachment; rather than face an actual impeachment, Nixon resigns (5 August 1974) and Gerald Ford becomes President; Ford pardons Nixon in September, though Nixon never admits to any wrongdoing

Ford and Carter

• Ford and SALT II: coming in under a cloud from Watergate and dealing with several problems inherited from Nixon (distrust of the government, the fall of South Vietnam in April 1975, and the oil crisis caused by an Arab embargo—the US had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973), no one knew exactly what to make of Ford—much less the Soviet Union; nonetheless, Ford and Brezhnev keep a prearranged meeting at Vladivostok (November 1974), where both set a framework for SALT II
• SALT II: whereas SALT I established a “freeze” on nuclear weapons, SALT II was an actual reduction of them: both sides would be limited to 2400 “launchers” (including missiles and bombers) and no more than 1320 MIRVed warheads; SALT II stalled over the question of American development of small, hard to intercept cruise missiles, Soviet development of the supersonic long-range Tupolev Tu-22M “Backfire” bomber, and the Jackson-Vanik Agreement (which linked SALT II talks to Soviet abuse of Russian Jews)
• Election of 1976: though Ford won the Republican nomination and had a strong poll showing due to his experience and the Vladivostok meeting, Jimmy Carter won the Democrat nomination based on being a “Washington outsider,” untainted by politics and scandal; though close, Carter wins the election 297-240
• Carter and SALT II: Carter proposes a new SALT II framework that would reduce MIRV numbers even further, end the development of modern ICBMs (the Soviet SS-18 “Satan” and US MX Peacekeeper), and end the development of modern bombers (the Soviet Tu-22M and the US B-1 Lancer) but Brezhnev was uninterested, as he was satisfied with the initial SALT II agreement and angry at Carter for the latter’s open support for Soviet dissidents; Carter also faced a public split in policy between his own Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, and his National Security Advisor, Zbignew Brzenzinski—Vance supported yet more concessions, while Brzenzinski, aware of the poor state of the post-Vietnam US military, was afraid of any further cuts; nonetheless, Carter and Brezhnev sign the SALT II agreement as originally agreed on at Vladivostok; Carter cancelled the B-1, citing expense and as a show of good faith (which Brezhnev does not reciprocate), which angers the US military
• The “China Card”: Carter decided to emulate Nixon in using China against the Soviet Union by normalizing relations with the People’s Republic of China; Deng Xiaoping, the new leader of China after Mao’s death in 1976, was more than happy to use the US against the USSR by embarking on a liberalization of the PRC and opening China up to American goods
• Afghanistan: a 1978 coup brought the Taraki regime to power in Afghanistan, overthrowing the earlier liberal monarchy; Taraki’s chief advisor, Haifzullah Amin, promptly angered the Afghani people by declaring Islam to be false and attempting to force the very traditional hill tribes into Communism; the hill tribes promptly begin attacking government forces, and despite the Soviet “removal” (assassination) of Amin in 1979, the Taraki government was in danger of falling; Brezhnev sends in 85,000 Soviet troops, but even this isn’t enough, as the hill tribes and other factions form the mujahedeen (“warriors of God”) to fight the Soviets in the mountains, leading to a ten-year war that will claim 26,000 Russians, 75,000 mujahedeen, and possibly as high as 2 million Afghani civilian lives; it would also scuttle SALT II, as Congress refused to ratify it after the Soviet invasion
• Iran Hostage Crisis: Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, had become very unpopular in his own country due to a history of extravagant excess and repressive measures—while the House of Pahlavi was doing very well, Iran’s poor, very traditional rural areas suffered from a lack of economic growth and opportunity, while the Iranian middle class lacked political power; a coalition of the middle class (represented by Iranian military officers) and the lower class (represented by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters) overthrew the Shah in 1979 when the latter was out of the country for cancer treatment; college students allied to Khomeini seized the American embassy (4 November 1979) in a fit of patriotic fervor, and Khomeini used Carter’s lack of response as leverage, and eased the Iranian moderates out of power, taking sole control of Iran as a theocrat
• Election of 1980: for Carter, everything had gone wrong: the economy was stagnant, inflation was high, SALT II had fallen apart, and he looked weak—Carter had boycotted the Olympics in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which did nothing but anger Americans; Carter’s botched attempt to rescue the hostages (Operation Eagle Claw, 25 April 1980) made him look even worse; Carter fends off Democrat challengers and is renominated, but the Republicans nominate Ronald Reagan, the former governor of California; Reagan runs on “Morning in America”—a plan for economic and national revitalization, a tougher foreign policy, and complete reform to the US military; Reagan wins the election 489-49 and immediately gets his first foreign policy success when the hostages are released from Iran on his inauguration day (Khomeini feared that Reagan would immediately attack Iran if the hostages were not released; Iran was at war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq by this time, and feared American intervention on the side of Iraq)