After the Paris Debacle

Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.

THE Summit Conference has collapsed, in anger, bewilderment and dismay: the Conference on which, for more than a year, the world had placed high hope. In this situation anything can happen--and probably won't. It is always risky to forecast what is going to occur in the kind of world in which we now live. It is more so than ever at this turbulent moment in the relations between the two super-powers.

We of the West are dealing with a man, Nikita Khrushchev, who is as unpredictable as he is touchy and tough; we are also dealing with a society, Russian and Communist, which functions in a way which we of the free and "open" West find it well-nigh impossible to understand. Such understanding is particularly difficult for North Americans who by tradition and temperament are prone to consider conflict between nations as something temporary and abnormal and who are not easily conditioned for trouble of indefinite duration and uncertain outcome. We like to think of other peoples as basically friendly and we find it difficult to understand the mentality of those for whom conflict and tension are a normal part of national and personal life.

So we are shocked that one man should smash so ruthlessly a Conference for discussion and negotiation which was largely his own creation and for which, presumably, he had been preparing for months. There are, of course, many reasons that can be produced for this irrational conduct: the stiffening of the Western position over Berlin; the contrast between the President's friendly attitude at Camp David and hard United States statements which followed it; a struggle between factions within the Soviet "governing clique," between those who wished to ease international tensions and the Stalinists; pressure from Peking. These, singly or in combination, plus the mercurial "kicks and carrots" disposition of Mr. Khrushchev, are enough to explain what happened.

There was also the U-2 incident which handed the Russians, no doubt to their surprise, the excuse they needed. They found it easy to transform this excuse into a reason. In doing so, they not only had the strong and organized backing of their own people; they also found considerable support in world public opinion...