946 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

In the early years of Vietnam, it was widely believed (a view
that I found preposterous) that the Soviets were deeply con-
cerned that Vietnam might get out of hand, and therefore
were our partners in seeking a settlement of the issue. The
possibility that the Soviets might positively enjoy watching the
Americans stewing in their own juice was rejected out of hand.
That the Soviets would immensely benefit from the refocusing
of American attention on the supposed Chinese threat, and

a from the diversion of American resources away from Western
Europe and the competition in strategic forces, was a reality all
too rarely examined in Washington. Surely the Soviets would
g eagerly help extricate the American bacon from the Vietnam-
$ ese fire. Given these preoccupations and these beliefs, it is
hardly surprising that the conviction took hold that the Soviets
also shared American objectives with respect to arms control.
It was an article of faith that the Soviets sought only to match
American strategic capability; their buildup would cease as they
approached American force levels. That the Soviets do not
think like American liberals has been a lesson very slowly
  learned.

The upshot was a growing faith in the inevitability of arms
control and in the effectiveness of the arms control process.
Collaboration on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (where super-
power interests coincided) furthered such hopes. At the Glass-
boro summit in 1967, the Americans attempted to persuade
Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin of the legitimacy of these views.
Simultaneously they attempted to dissuade the Soviets from
deploying strategic defenses- for that would result simply in
the accelerated deployment of strategic offensive forces.
Though they failed to move Kosygin on that occasion, they
continued to believe that the logical force of their arguments
would ultimately persuade the Soviets.

All these hopes, however, were suddenly dashed by the
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. That invasion, which to less
Utopian observers of Soviet conduct appeared inevitable in the
circumstances, rather surprisingly caught the Administration
by surprise. As in 1960, an external event had interrupted the
arms control process. The American reaction to what in Soviet
eyes should have been accepted as a fortuitous, if not irrelevant,
event- later repeated in Angola and even. more markedly in
Afghanistan- makes sustained and unvarying participation in
bilateral arms negotiations impossible for the American de-
mocracy.