Cold war or détente? The Soviet viewpoint

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Foreword

In the years following World War II, my family left the Netherlands and emigrated to South Africa because we sincerely believed that a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was imminent. At Yale University, where I studied international relations in the class of 1950, Arnold Wolfers, master of Pierson College, where I lived, stressed that the most important outcome of World War II was not the crushing of the Nazis, but the rise of the Soviet Union to superpower status.

Only in 1971 did I first journey to the USSR. I was preparing for National Dutch television a documentary on the subject ‘Limits to Growth,’ then published by the Club of Rome and put together by a team of scientists at M.I.T. using methods designed by Jay W. Forrester. For this project I interviewed and filmed both Georgi A. Arbatov, director of the Institute of United States and Canadian Studies, and Dr. Jermen M. Gvishiani, vice chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology of the USSR Council of Ministers.

During the following twelve years I made dozens of additional reporting trips to the Soviet Union, and whenever his schedule permitted I would sit down with Professor Arbatov to exchange views on the United States and the world. Each time I became more convinced that, aside from his occasional interviews in selected media or leading articles in Pravda, an effort should be made to let a wider public be aware of Dr. Arbatov's views and thoughts about U.S.-Soviet relations.

I prepared a folder with 150 basic questions and submitted them to Professor Arbatov. In preparation, I had visited numerous USSR special-

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ists in the United States, from the National Academy of Sciences to research centers at Harvard and Stanford, to such insiders as the Rostow brothers, Paul Nitze, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Major-General Keegan, Richard V. Allen, and others. In principle, Professor Arbatov agreed late in 1979 to prepare this book, and we immediately started working on it. The events in Iran and Afghanistan, and the overall deterioration of the international situation, naturally, became subjects of discussion, adding new dimensions and a new significance to our dialogue.

Among the questions I asked, there were quite a few unpleasant ones, implying criticism of Soviet life and the policies of the USSR. Professor Arbatov did not take them as unfriendly, realizing that those questions were really on the minds of many people in the West. I think our work itself confirmed that peaceful coexistence is possible. On many questions we remained in disagreement, and yet the work went on in an atmosphere of goodwill, mutual understanding, and the desire of both sides to make the book as useful as we could.

A vacuum in information no doubt prevails. Seldom do we see ourselves as others see us or as we really are. Therefore, I hope this comprehensive summary of the views of a foremost specialist from the other side will contribute to a more accurate view of how the United States, and maybe all of us in the West, are being looked upon and considered in the capital of the largest country in the world. It is a most incomplete contribution; many more questions will be on the minds of readers, as they were on mine. But projects like this are bound by certain limits, and it is hoped, nevertheless, that a modest addition will be made to a deepened and extended understanding between two great peoples, as well as to those whose principal interests are bound by history to either superpower.

I am obliged to stress that part of this manuscript was completed early in 1981. Since then, Professor Arbatov and I have managed to update many of the questions and answers to cover events in the first half of the Reagan administration, including the imposition of martial law in Poland. There are still some accents on the Carter administration, Afghanistan, and other matters that might have receded into the background had I been able to complete the interviews a year later. Perhaps it is better that certain earlier events remain in focus - they are often the foundation on which present and future relations are constructed.

While working on this book, I came into contact with several staff members of the Institute of United States and Canadian Studies of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. We were a cooperative team, and I would like to thank them for their assistance and encouragement.

Willem Oltmans

New York, 1982