Arguably the most important diplomatic process of the period between 1964 and 1975, at least symbolically, was the ambitious attempt to bring the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Europeans together within one new integrative security framework. This process, which unfolded in Europe in the early 1970s, resulted in what came to be known as the Helsinki Accords of 1975.
The idea of a European security conference, which would legitimize the postwar borders in Europe and reconfirm the Soviet Union’s status as a great European power, was one of the top priorities of the post-Khrushchev leadership, and one which especially suited Brezhnev is his role as a peacemaker.
A secondary Soviet goal was to expand trade relations and achieve some degree of integration into the European economy. Initial Soviet proposals did not include humanitarian issues, which later were commonly referred to as Basket III of the Helsinki Accords. Basket III, which included human rights provisions and other nonmilitary aspects of security such as domestic security of citizens, freedom of information, freedom of movement, and availability of cultural and educational contacts between citizens of different countries, provoked sharp differences of opinion among Soviet leaders. Brezhnev and Gromyko cautiously favored including Basket III in the negotiations, Suslov was against, and Andropov took a cautious position. He understood the need to confirm borders and expand economic contacts, but sensed the potential dangers of the human rights provisions. According to Melvyn Leffler, the Soviet leaders were faced with the "tradeoff: recognition of human rights in return for recognition of the territorial status quo."239
The attention that the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) negotiations received at the highest level is evident in the fact that April 1973 and April 1975 Central Committee plenums - the only ones from 1973 to 1980 that dealt specifically with foreign-policy matters - discussed the CSCE negotiations, and that several Politburo sessions addressed CSCE-related issues, with at least one meeting, on January 7, 1974, largely devoted to it.
The Final Act of the CSCE was signed in Helsinki on August 1, 1975, and printed in full in Pravda. Brezhnev’s goals seemed to be achieved: postwar European borders were confirmed in an international agreement; the Soviet Union was recognized as a member ofthe European great power concert; and relations with the United States were firmly set within the framework of arms-control agreements. Upon signing the Final Act, Brezhnev probably felt he was at the peak of his political career. Yet, even as Soviet leaders were celebrating the Helsinki Accords, the fruits of the perceived victory were beginning to turn sour.
Soviet human rights activists quickly began using the Helsinki Final Act as a way to make their case abroad. The first Helsinki Watch Group was established in Moscow on May 12, 1976, by the prominent dissident, physicist Iurii Orlov. The Soviet government cited other provisions of the act to accuse foreign governments of interference in Soviet domestic affairs. The dissidents retorted that the Helsinki Accords legitimized human rights movements in the USSR and other socialist countries.240
Western support for the new wave of human rights movements combined with other irritants, which by the mid-1970s had accumulated in US-Soviet bilateral relations and in the Third World, to start pulling detente apart just as it seemed to reach its apogee.241 Instead of becoming the year that consolidated detente, 1975 became the watershed between detente and what seemed like a second round of the Cold War.
World History
