The New Diplomacy

In epic public give-and-take, at long diplomatic dinners and in late evening dacha talks, the Vice President of the U.S. spent more time with the Boss of the Soviet Union last week than any other American statesman in cold-war history. Around the world the rustlings and whisperings of regular diplomacy all but came to a halt while the chancelleries cocked their ears toward Moscow. In Moscow, oddly enough, there were no negotiations at all in the orthodox diplomatic sense, but there were loud, serious, deadly earnest debates about the resources and strengths of the West and Communism. "One reason for the length of the debates," cabled TIME Correspondent Charles Mohr from Moscow, "is that Khrushchev finds it hard to believe that he cannot top Nixon, and so he keeps trying. Nixon on his own part has not been able to top Khrushchev, either."

In one aspect the Nixon visit was just more evidence of the East-West thaw, the cultural exchange flow that has taken thousands of scientists, politicians, engineers, entertainers, students, athletes and tourists from one side of the Iron Curtain to the other. But the Nixon trip was more than that. The thaw, as envisioned by the Russians, would leave the U.S. so impressed with Soviet good intentions that the West would settle for harsh Soviet terms for peace. Nixon added something new to the exchange: assurance that the U.S. has its own goals, aims and ambitions for the orderly development of the world, is ready to fight to keep them from being chewed away, is ready to negotiate only if they are respected.

This notice of intentions--elaborately written in the language of peace and plenty at the American fair, convincingly repeated in the language of unashamed power by Nixon--was the essence of the new diplomacy. It riled some old-style folks. Huffed the London Daily Express: "A disgraceful performance . . . Back to the days of secret diplomacy is the best prospect for world peace."

There was certainly no guarantee that the new diplomacy would assure peace. It might, in fact, irritate and intensify the crisis. But if it served to correct assumptions on both sides, to sort out myths from facts, then at least it would give the old diplomacy a new starting point that would make some sense.

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