“Forget the ideology, we must negotiate”: how the negotiations between Brezhnev and Nixon went

Exactly 50 years ago, on May 22, 1972, US President Richard Nixon flew to Moscow for talks with General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev. A year later, at the end of June 1973, Brezhnev made a return visit to the United States, and in 1974 Nixon again visited the Soviet Union. How the communist and the capitalist agreed and why only two Soviet translators translated the most confidential conversations between the two leaders, Andrey Vavilov, a participant in the events, told RT.

"We had to negotiate"

- During the negotiations between Brezhnev and Nixon, you were one of the two main interpreters, and for both sides.

What were these negotiations about, what agreements were concluded as a result?

— It was an interesting time.

It was characterized by the fact that the Soviet Union had achieved nuclear parity with the United States.

The Americans did not expect that after the war the USSR would be able to catch up militarily with them so quickly.

And so there was no other way out for them - it was necessary to negotiate.

Nixon, for all his faults, was a visionary politician.

He understood where the arms race was leading, which was draining the United States too.

He saw the strengthening of the Soviet Union in influencing the rest of the world - in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe.

Even in Western European countries there were quite strong communist parties.

And so Nixon agreed with Moscow's call to establish a reasonable modus vivendi between the US and the USSR and stop the never-ending arms race.

To agree that there should be no nuclear war, to exclude an accidental conflict that would lead to the destruction of the population of our countries and even life on the planet.

Meeting of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev and US President Richard Nixon in Moscow, 1972
AP

During the talks, the leaders of the two major world powers signed agreements to limit missile defense, as well as strategic offensive weapons.

They agreed on the principle of equal security and pledged to exclude the outbreak of nuclear war, gave impetus to the development of broad cooperation in the economy, medicine, space, and many other areas.

All this became possible thanks to the policy of detente, which was successfully pursued by the top leaders of the two most powerful nuclear powers, despite ideological contradictions.

It was a period when both sides realized that détente was in their national interests, that it strengthened their national security.

They stated that these are not just beautiful words, but the condition under which they will exist in a safer world, where there will be no hegemony of one power.

And let the ideology be on its own - whatever you like.

And, in fact, there were practically no disputes on ideological issues between Nixon and Brezhnev personally and between other leaders of our countries - Kosygin, Gromyko, Kissinger.

These were negotiations between two powerful states that understood what was most important for their interests at this historical moment.

"Brezhnev was a cheerful man"

- A year later, in 1973, during the ceremony of signing an agreement in the United States, Brezhnev and Nixon staged an improvisation, perfectly playing along with each other.

Brezhnev, judging by the newsreel, was a man with a sense of humor.

Could you talk about him as a person?

- At that time, Brezhnev was a cheerful person, very natural.

He could create a relaxed atmosphere at work.

With him there was no fear of saying something wrong, of experiencing nervousness.

Glances with Nixon at the time of the signing - it was so well played for journalists, for members of Congress, that laughter rose in the hall.

Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon at Camp David, 1973

Or there was another moment on the balcony of the White House: all eyes were on them, and Brezhnev began to whisper something in Nixon's ear.

Nixon did not know Russian, and Brezhnev did not know English.

But Nixon played along and started nodding.

And there were a lot of such cases.

Especially at the talks, which, of course, were not open to the general public and to television and lasted for hours, days.

This happened not only with Nixon, but also with his right hand, Henry Kissinger.

Brezhnev loved casual humor.

And he appreciated people who understood him.

- This year marks exactly 40 years since the death of Brezhnev.

It is customary to speak of the last years of his life as a period of stagnation.

Was it related to his health?

The role of the individual in history is of gigantic importance.

Perhaps, especially in our country.

And of course, if Brezhnev had not crossed the path of Kosygin, had given him his place as a real head of state, then our country would have reached unprecedented heights.

I would now overtake both America and China.

Kosygin was an extremely smart, intelligent person, receptive to new ideas.

Excellent manager, organizer and negotiator.

He understood the essence of international problems and conflicts.

He knew how to resolve them and at the same time strengthen the authority of the Soviet Union.

Gettyimages.ru
© Wally McNamee / CORBIS

- Brezhnev was a front-line soldier.

Was he sentimental?

— Yes, definitely.

He was a deeply Russian person, and Russians are all sentimental.

Often nostalgic.

He loved feasts with people he liked.

I remember when the difficult negotiations with Kissinger in Zavidovo ended, he sat us all down at the table and began to tell stories and joke.

When toasts were raised to his health as a war hero, even tears welled up in his eyes.

Yes, he liked to reminisce about the war.

And he greatly appreciated his front-line friends and colleagues.

Extremely appreciated.

- It was for him a kind of quality mark - a man who went through the war?

- Yes, of course.

Because a person who has been tested in the war is, in most cases, a reliable person.

Brezhnev personally knew these people, appreciated and promoted them.

Moreover, from the lowest positions, whether it be a driver or a sergeant.

He believed them.

"Breakthrough Agreements"

- As a result of the negotiations, agreements were signed on the limitation of strategic arms, on missile defense, SALT-2.

It is believed that these treaties marked the end of the Cold War.

Is it really true?

“We can say that these were breakthrough agreements that set limits to the increase in nuclear weapons stockpiles both in America and in our country.

Although there were then influential people interested in building up armaments.

And in America, this is still a business that was very interested in increasing sales of not only nuclear weapons, but all types of weapons, including to other countries.

Agreements overcame this trend.

The Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms fixed the actual arsenals of nuclear weapons at that time, preventing them from growing.

And SALT-2 of 1979 set limits to it not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively.

But the most important was the anti-missile defense agreement.

This began under Kosygin, when he was in the United States in 1967 and negotiated with President Johnson.

US President Richard Nixon and General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev.
Signing agreements.
Moscow, Kremlin, 1972
Gettyimages.ru
© Sovfoto/Universal Images Group

We accompanied him with my good friend and our best translator Viktor Sukhodrev.

In the United States, he was Secretary of Defense McNamara.

Smart man.

He posed the following question: "Let's not create missile defense."

Kosygin says: “Why, this is a defense, not an attack?”

And he replies: "As soon as one state strengthens the defense, another begins to develop missiles and other means to overcome this defense, and a vicious circle emerges."

And he convinced Kosygin, who reasonably offered to agree in parallel on the limitation of offensive weapons.

The American position then was correct - not to develop missile defense.

We concluded this agreement on missile defense in 1972, as a result of the most difficult negotiations.

But in 2002, President Bush suddenly abandoned it.

And the Americans took the position of the Soviet Union of those times,

that defense is good, it is moral.

Thus, the cornerstone of the entire structure of arms limitation was knocked out.

The gates were opened for the improvement of those types of weapons that would overcome this defense, and the process again went down a dangerous path.

"Spheres of Influence"

- The meeting between Brezhnev and Nixon took place just ten years after

the Caribbean crisis.
What has changed so radically in this decade?
Did other people take over the negotiations?
Or have circumstances in the world changed during this time?

- Both.

Nixon, on the other hand, was a notorious reactionary.

One hundred percent anti-adviser.

But he understood that America was facing a powerful state that was rapidly developing and expanding its influence on the rest of the world.

Therefore, let's forget the ideology, we must negotiate with this new powerful state.

For its part, the policy of the Soviet Union was to reduce tension everywhere.

Because international tension caused enormous damage to our economy and the standard of living of the population.

We had to stop the arms race.

And Brezhnev, with all the Soviet leadership, understood that this was a chance.

That's why they agreed with Nixon.

And the most interesting thing (this is little remembered) is that they completely set aside ideological issues - communism, capitalism.

There are two states, two superpowers.

And they should have their spheres of influence.

Nixon never raised the question of why we entered Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968, why 500,000 of our troops are stationed in the GDR.

Never.

This is your area, and you are in it.

And our sphere is Latin America, Canada, Western Europe.

Nixon constantly emphasized that the main thing is not to give other countries the opportunity to spoil our relations.

In those days, after all, the Vietnam War was going on, the Arab-Israeli confrontation did not stop.

But Nixon and Kissinger treated some of their NATO allies with prejudice.

“In my notes, I emphasized the idea that Nixon repeated several times: both states should not be drawn into conflicts in peripheral regions that do not affect the fate of the world.<...> Fears about the interference of “small countries” in the special relations of the two superpowers and drawing them into their conflicts ran like a red thread through all the meetings between Nixon and Brezhnev.

From Andrei Vavilov's book "Secrets of Detente - Eyewitness View".

“I only listened to Kissinger”

- During the negotiations, you worked in tandem with Viktor Sukhodrev.

Why didn't Nixon bring in American translators?

- A feature of the American administration, which has always been, and now is especially pronounced, is the leakage of classified information.

Therefore, Nixon had full confidence in the Soviet translator.

Nixon removed American interpreters from the most confidential negotiations.

When there were large plenary meetings of two delegations, protocol events, they were included in the work.

And for narrow meetings, when there were two or three people from each side, American translators were not allowed.

Although they were personal translators, quite experienced people.

And maybe they would not disclose anything.

But Nixon made the decision nonetheless.

His presidency was generally imperial, he made decisions himself.

And only listened to Kissinger.

And Congress didn't matter as much in America then as it does now.

Three in the center: US President Richard Nixon and Soviet translators Andrei Vavilov and Viktor Sukhodrev.
Moscow, 1972
© From the personal archive of Andrey Vavilov

- Now, when they talk about Brezhnev, they immediately remember the term "stagnation".

Nixon is strongly associated with the Watergate scandal, after which he was forced to resign.

What happened then?

“It all started with Nixon's rather innocent goals.

In American political culture, all presidents write memoirs at the end of their term, for which they then receive millions in royalties, movie rights, etc. A person cannot remember everything that happens every day during a political career.

So Nixon installed a listening system in his office at the White House.

And when visitors came, assistants, there were conversations, sometimes very frank, - all this was recorded on tape.

And those who came did not know about it.

Knew a very limited circle.

The second goal was to keep a business chronicle of meetings.

Suppose there is a dispute over some issues, sometimes very confusing.

What did they decide, how did they not decide who said what.

And when there is a film, the assistants can scroll through and figure out how to proceed further, what instructions to pass on to the departments.

Nixon considered this essential to the smooth functioning of the execution process.

But it could not remain a secret for long.

Andrey Vavilov, William Hyland (Director of the US Bureau of Intelligence and Research), Viktor Sukhodrev.
Moscow, Kremlin, 1974
© From the personal archive of Andrey Vavilov

Some members of his administration began to talk about it, and American journalists got wind of it.

Woodward and Bernstein of The Washington Post realized that this was a colossal scandal.

It got into the press, it got into Congress, it started to spin: "Without permission - this is secret surveillance, what is it!"

And most importantly, when these records began to appear, they showed Nixon in an unsightly light: he swore obscenely, gave unflattering characteristics to his own appointees.

Further - worse: he said how to adjust something, to pay someone.

In Washington, there is the Watergate Hotel, where the office of the Democratic Party, then in opposition, was located.

And with the knowledge, perhaps not even of Nixon himself, but of his entourage, agents of the Republicans penetrated there to play a joke.

But they were detained by the hotel security guards.

They were later given the nickname "plumbers", that is, those who eliminate information leaks.

And then tape recordings came to light in which Nixon discussed how much it would be necessary to pay so that the caught agents would not confess.

The information was in print.

Everything rolled like a snowball.

This was a violation of laws, and corruption, and bribery of witnesses.

This crushed Nixon.

US President Richard Nixon in Belarus.
Next to him are Fyodor Surganov, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR, and Tikhon Kiselyov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the BSSR.
Behind Nixon is translator Andrey Vavilov.
Minsk, Machulishchi airport, July 1, 1974
© From the personal archive of Andrey Vavilov

- He was also not remembered for his friendship with the Soviet Union at that moment?

- Not.

At that time, practically the entire American society supported the course towards détente, towards the end of the Cold War, towards an agreement with the Soviet Union.

"We are often naive"

- How did the US perceive the collapse of the USSR?

Has the question of ending the arms race disappeared by itself?

- The collapse of the USSR was unexpected for everyone: for us, and especially for the Americans.

For dozens of institutes for the study of the Soviet Union.

Nobody could have predicted this.

The US leadership thought this: since this happened, America was right.

So, it was a colossus with feet of clay, and the ideology of communism is worthless.

America remains the only superpower and can dictate its terms to this part of the world that has found itself in such a catastrophic situation.

And why then do you need to negotiate with them?

— Do you mean the non-expansion of NATO to the East, which was promised to Gorbachev?

What do you think, if now Mikhail Sergeyevich actively spoke out about this to the whole world and reminded them of their promise, this would be an argument, given the respect for him in the Western world?

No, I don't think that would be an argument.

That's not the point.

You can promise to marry, and then not marry.

Say you fell in love.

And where are you going?

Everything is explained by the balance of power, which has changed so much that the West decided: why should we keep our promises?

Russia is weakening.

You never know what we promised!

This dispute is scholastic: they promised - they did not promise, they signed - they did not sign.

Even now.

Well, they will sign a promise not to expand NATO into Ukraine and Georgia.

Then, over time, they may say that it was done in a different situation and now they will not comply with it.

So they withdraw from various treaties - on open skies, on missile defense: they claim that they are outdated.

It's all about the balance of military and economic power: whether they are afraid of you or not, whether you are weak or a strong opponent.

Special Assistant to the President of the United States Stephen Bull and Soviet Foreign Ministry Advisor Andrei Vavilov.
Moscow, Kremlin, 1974

- You said that the collapse of the USSR was a surprise for the Americans.

But what about the talk that the Soviet Union was destroyed by the Americans?

You know as well as I do what happened in the USSR and what we thought.

And there were different factors.

Of course, the Americans have always been subversive.

Why do they need a strong opponent?

It is clear.

But there were also processes within the Soviet Union: ideological stagnation, a stupid policy that did not allow people to freely travel abroad, limited the freedom of the press and the receipt of information.

And of course, an idealized view of the Western world - how good it is there, how polite everyone is there, what the standard of living is there, while not noticing poverty, racism, and cultural narrow-mindedness.

I know the USA well.

I lived there, traveled there dozens of times as a diplomat, worked there.

There is certainly a lot of attraction in science and technology.

Look at the power of American popular culture in clothing, fashion, music, movies.

And this force acted, especially on young people,

And at the same time, people did not have the opportunity to live there, work and understand how it will affect you.

Will you be abandoned or will the state help you, as we have.

It seems to me that such a feature of the Russian character as naivety played a fatal role in the fate of the USSR.

This is still felt by some politicians.

We are often naive, sentimental, take the word of other leaders and countries.

We forget the advantages of our own country and its culture, the characteristics of its people.

"relied on us"

— How important is it for a translator to know the cultural layer of the country in whose language he/she works?

- Sometimes Nixon used unexpected phrases, quotations, jokes that were difficult to translate, and many of our people did not understand what he meant.

But it turned out that Viktor Sukhodrev spent his entire childhood in England, and I in the United States.

Both he and I learned English from American comics, radio, newspapers, and Hollywood black-and-white films of the 1940s.

They were close to the generation of Nixon and Kissinger.

And it helped a lot in the negotiations when we translated to Nixon.

One day he was surprised that I went to a school in Los Angeles, which he knew very well.

“A top-level translator is the voice of the country's leader;

he conveys his thoughts to the negotiating partner and actually clarifies the thinking of the latter.

<...> Much depends on the accuracy of the participants' thoughts;

an inaccuracy could affect the decision-making by both parties.”

From Andrei Vavilov's book "Secrets of Detente - Eyewitness View".

Victor Sukhodrev, Steven Bull and Andrey Vavilov.
Stephen Bull - Moscow, Kremlin, 1972

— Have there been moments in your translation practice when you corrected a mistake in order to smooth out some situation?

- Usually at the highest level there are very professional translators who understand that a mistake in the words of a leader can lead, if not to war, then to a temporary misunderstanding.

Such situations have been and still are.

I had several cases when I had to imperceptibly correct the words of the speaker already in translation or delicately explain to him that he misspoke.

Both Brezhnev and Kosygin were always sympathetic to such actions of the Soviet diplomatic interpreter.

They relied on us also because they were confident in our knowledge of the issues of negotiations.

By the way, this made us different from the American and British translators.

Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and Andrei Vavilov, Advisor to the Russian Foreign Ministry, nearby.
USA, 1973
Gettyimages.ru

— One of your books is devoted to the consequences of the arms race for the environment.

In particular, there you talk about the insidiousness of biological weapons.

- Bacteriological weapons are prohibited by the 1972 international convention as weapons of mass destruction.

And it was forbidden because, in particular, that it turned out to be ineffective.

It is much more effective to drop bombs, fire artillery, launch rockets.

In addition, biological weapons are highly indiscriminate.

It can infect those who use it.

It can uncontrollably infect civilians, even ethnically selectively.

But the fact is that in the laboratories of states, experiments are constantly being conducted to search for antidotes, methods of counteraction.

And in order to develop antidotes, one must have real viruses and bacteria, that is, pathogens.

There is danger here.

And there will be suspicion.

Until now, Americans blame China for the emergence of the COVID-19 epidemic.

The question remains why Ukraine is destroying biolaboratories along with documentation.

“In some cases, it is difficult to prove guilt in committing an attack, since individual organisms exist in one form or another in nature.

And if they spread covertly, then it can be argued that this situation has developed as a result of a spontaneous epidemic.

From Andrey Vavilov's book "Ecological Consequences of the Arms Race"

- How did another book of yours appear - "Secrets of détente - an eyewitness"?

- When I retired from translation activities, I was engaged in disarmament and ecology at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

But all the time there was a thought: what if we put on paper a long experience of translation work?

Still, important meetings, Brezhnev, Nixon... At first I decided to write a book for an American audience, because they are obsessed with Nixon.

He is like a fabulous figure in their political history.

- With a plus sign or with a minus sign?

Both a plus and a minus.

But it's interesting.

This is a scandal, this is a bright personality.

The book Nixon's Comrades was published in the US in 2016 and was noticed, including by Kissinger, by my other former colleagues from the White House apparatus during the détente period.

It is available in the US Library of Congress - it is one of the largest libraries in the world.

Later, Sergey Lavrov, who read it, gave me the idea to make a translation for the Russian reader.

The book was published by the MGIMO publishing house under the title "Secrets of Detente".

Then a Parisian publishing house approached me with a request to publish it in French.

They translated it from English under the name La guerre froide - "Cold War".