The Making of Détente: Eastern Europe and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965-75(Cold War History)

Containing essays by leading Cold War scholars, such as Wilfried Loth, Geir Lundestad and Seppo Hentilä, this volume offers a broad-ranging examination of the history of détente in the Cold War. The ten years from 1965 to 1975 marked a deep transformation of the bipolar international system of the Cold War. The Vietnam War and the Prague Spring showed the limits of the two superpowers, who were constrained to embark on a wide-ranging détente policy, which culminated with the SALT agreements of 1972. At the same time this very détente opened new venues for the European countries: French policy towards the USSR and the German Ostpolitik being the most evident cases in point. For the first time since the 1950s, Western Europe began to participate in the shaping of the Cold War. The same could not be said of Eastern Europe, but ferments began to establish themselves there which would ultimately lead to the astounding changes of 1989-90: the Prague Spring, the uprisings in Gdansk in 1970 and generally the rise of the dissident movement. That last process being directly linked to the far-reaching event which marked the end of that momentous decade: the Helsinki conference. The Making of Détente will appeal to students of the Cold War, international history and European contemporary history.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part 1: Background Structural Problems 1. Cold War, Culture and Propaganda 2. Convergence Theories in France in the Sixties and Seventies Part 2: The Problems of the Eastern Bloc 3. The “Mejdunarodniki” in the Sixties and Seventies: Background, Connections and Agenda of Soviet International Elites 4. The Sofia Spring 5. Yugoslavia: International Problems and International Role Part 3: Tensions and Recoveries in the Western Alliance 6. American-Western European Relations (not) Redfined (1969-1977) 7. France and NATO (1966-1976) 8. The Harmel Report (1967) and the Consolidation of the Western Alliance 9. Ostpolitik and its Impact on the Federal Republic’s Relationship with the West 10. American Policy towards Moscow and the Fear in Western Europe of a Soviet-American Condominium Part 4: Security in Europe and the Helsinki Process 11. The Federal Republic of Germany and European Security 12. Britain and the Helsinki Process 13. Giscard d’Estaing and the East 14. Finland and the Two German States 15. The Warsaw Pact and the Helsinki Process 16. The Limits of Helsinki: Kissinger and the 1974 Portuguese Revolution

About the Author :
Wilfried Loth is professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Chairman of the EU Liaison Committee of Historians. Georges-Henri Soutou is professor of Contemporary History at the University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris-IV).