REPRINTED FROM:

Harper's
MAGAZINE

HENRY A. KISSINGER

THE NEXT
SUMMIT
MEETING

*One of America's most respected strategists tells why the new President will be under great pressure to meet again with Khrushchev . . . and how such a conference could be turned into an American gain, rather than another fiasco.*

AS THE General Assembly met this fall—only four months after the abortive summit conference—the press was full of familiar speculation about another summit meeting: we read endless rumors and reports about the activities of intermediaries, secret interviews, personal conferences. Once again, the public was given the impression that only an unfortunate personal misunderstanding stood in the way of peace. And, once again, the United States seemed to oscillate back and forth between a posture of apparent fear of a diplomatic confrontation and a diplomacy which treated the affairs of nations as a popularity contest.

This kind of confusion should not be allowed to continue. If the United States is to deal successfully with the Soviet Union, it must recognize how erratic and immature its diplomacy has been in the past. And it must try to discern the pre-conditions for an effective diplomacy—particularly for the personal diplomacy which has been so much in vogue in recent years. So far, we have dismally failed to do either.

Consider, for example, the Paris summit meeting last spring. When it collapsed, a sudden reversal took place in the West. What for years had been advocated as the magic solvent of all

tensions came to be considered as a parody of diplomacy. All the arguments for summit diplomacy which had seemed so persuasive while the conference was being planned were suddenly replaced by their precise opposite. Personal diplomacy, which had been thought capable of ending the Cold War, was now held responsible for perpetuating it. As Mr. Khrushchev's mood changed, the West seemed as much in danger of being mesmerized by his frown as it had earlier been beguiled by his smile.

Yet as the Soviet diplomatic offensive resumes, we will again find ourselves under pressure to attend a summit conference—it has indeed already been foreshadowed by Mr. Khrushchev's speeches at the General Assembly. When this happens, it is essential that we shall draw the correct lessons from the fiasco in Paris—not to mention Geneva and Camp David.

It was not the fact of negotiations which was to blame but the attitude which staked so much on the fact of a meeting of heads of state and so little on the substance of the negotiations. The eagerness to end the Cold War can be as demoralizing as a rigid persistence in the status quo, when it is not related to concrete programs or when it creates the illusion that international problems can be settled simply or dramatically.

We will in the years ahead have many diplomatic confrontations with the Soviet Union. It is therefore essential that we enter these conferences without illusions. The problems of summit diplomacy are only a symptom of more general conditions which have produced a diplomatic impasse. If we are to negotiate purposefully on any level, these conditions must be recognized.

Four factors seem of particular importance: (a) the destructiveness of modern weapons; (b) the polarization of power; (c) the nature of Communist ideology; (d) national attitudes peculiar to the West and particularly the U. S.

It is not an accident that the diplomatic stalemate has become more intractable as weapons have grown more destructive. Rather than facilitating settlement, the increasing horror of war has made the process of negotiations more difficult. Historically, negotiators have rarely relied exclusively on the persuasiveness of the argument. A country's bargaining position has traditionally depended not only on the logic of its proposals but also on the penalties it could exact for the other side's failure to agree. When diplomacy failed, other pressures were brought into play. The Congress of Vienna has been considered the model diplomatic conference, but its settlement—which maintained the peace of

Reprinted from Harpers Magazine, December 1960.

Copyright, 1960 by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.

THE NEXT SUMMIT MEETING

LCJ

Europe for a century—was not achieved without the threat of war.

As the risks of war have become more cataclysmic, the result has not been a universal reconciliation but a perpetuation of all disputes. Much as we may deplore it, most major historical changes have been brought about to a greater or lesser degree by the threat of force. Because the violence of weapons has grown so out of any proportion to objectives to be achieved, our age cannot have war. But we have also to learn the painful and complex lesson that peace is something more than the absence of war. Humanity faces no problem more important than how to bring about peaceful change. But the importance of the task must not obscure its complexity.

HOW DIPLOMACY GROWS RIGID

THE hard task of diplomacy has been magnified by the polarization of power in the postwar period. As long as the international system was composed of many states of approximately equal strength, subtlety of maneuver could to some extent substitute for physical strength. As long as no nation was strong enough to eliminate all the others, shifting coalitions could be used for exerting pressure or marshaling support. They served, in a sense, as substitutes for physical conflict. For example, in the classical periods of cabinet diplomacy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a country's diplomatic flexibility and bargaining position depended on its availability as a partner to as many other countries as possible. As a result, no relationship was considered permanent and no conflict was pushed to its ultimate conclusion. Disputes were limited by the tacit agreement that the maintenance of the existing system was more important than any particular disagreement. Wars occurred but they did not risk the national survival and they were settled in relation to specific, limited issues.

Whenever the number of sovereign states was reduced, diplomacy became more rigid. When a unified Germany and Italy emerged in the nineteenth century, they replaced a host of smaller principalities. This reflected the dominant currents of nationalism. But from the point of view of diplomatic flexibility, some of the "play" was taken out of the conduct of foreign policy. To the extent that the available diplomatic options diminished, the temptation to achieve security by mobilizing a country's physical strength increased. The armaments race

prior to World War I was as much the result as the cause of the inflexibility of diplomacy. France and Germany were in fundamental conflict. And neither state could organize an overwhelming coalition. As a result, power had to substitute for diplomatic dexterity, and the period just before World War I witnessed a continuous increase of the standing armies.

World War I accelerated the polarization of power. By the end of World War II, only two major countries remained—major in the sense of having some prospect of assuring their security through use of their own resources and their own industrial and military capabilities. But a two-power world is inherently unstable. Any relative weakening of one side is tantamount to an absolute strengthening of the other. Every issue seems to involve life and death. Diplomacy turns rigid, for no state can negotiate about what it considers to be the requirements of its survival. In a two-power world these requirements are likely to appear mutually incompatible. The area where diplomacy is most necessary will then appear most "unnegotiable."

(The bi-polarization of the world is not necessarily permanent, however. As some of the large but underdeveloped countries create modern industries, we can expect world power to become more diffused.)

The inherent tensions of a two-power world are compounded by the clash of opposing ideologies. For over a generation now the Communist leaders have proclaimed their devotion to the overthrow of the capitalist world. They have insisted that the economic system of their opponents was based on exploitation and war. They have never wavered from asserting the inevitability or the crucial importance of their triumph. To be sure, periods of peaceful coexistence have alternated with belligerence, particularly since the advent of Mr. Khrushchev.

But one of the principal Communist justifications for a relaxation of tension can hardly prove very reassuring to the Free World. Peace is possible, Soviet Communists argue, because war is no longer necessary to bring about the downfall of the non-Communist countries; the West is growing so weak that it will go to perdition without a last convulsive upheaval. At the

Henry A. Kissinger is associate director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard and author of the influential study, "Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy." This article is adapted from his forthcoming book, "The Necessity of Choice."

BY HENRY A. KISSINGER

height of the spirit of Camp David, only a year ago, Khrushchev said: "The capitalist world is shaking under the blows of the Socialist camp. What shakes it even more than the rockets is the attitude of our workers toward their work. . . . We have the will to win."

Negotiations with Communist leaders are complicated by one of the key aspects of Leninist theory: the belief in the predominance of "objective" factors. Communist leaders insist that in Marxist-Leninist theory they possess a tool enabling them to distinguish appearance from reality. "True" reality cannot be determined from what statesmen say but rather from the productive processes—the social and economic structure—of their country. Statesmen, particularly capitalist statesmen, are powerless to alter the main outlines of the policy their system imposes on them. Since everything depends on a correct understanding of these "objective factors," "good will" and "good faith" are meaningless abstractions. One of the chief functions of traditional diplomacy—to persuade the opposite party of one's viewpoint—becomes extremely difficult when everything the other man says is discounted from the outset. Khrushchev said at Leipzig in 1959: "History teaches us that conferences reflect in their decisions an established balance of forces resulting from victory or capitulation in war or similar circumstances."

Much of the diplomatic stalemate has therefore little to do with lack of good will or ingenuity on the part of the statesmen. Without an agreement on general principles, negotiations become extremely difficult. What will seem most obvious to one party will appear most elusive to the other. When there is no immediate penalty for failing to agree and when at the same time the balance of power is so tenuous, it is no accident that the existing dividing lines are so rigidly maintained. For the *status quo* has at least the advantage of familiarity while any change may involve catastrophe. But, since these dividing lines are being contested, protracted tension is nearly inevitable.

This impasse has sometimes led to long periods in which diplomacy has to all practical purposes abdicated its role. Or else it has produced a form of negotiations which has almost seemed to revel in *not* coming to grips with the issues dividing the world. The reference which is often made to the co-existence achieved by Medhammedanism and Christianity or by Protestantism and Catholicism is not fully relevant to the contemporary problem. In both cases, co-existence was the result of protracted, often ruinous, war-

fare—the very contingency diplomacy is now asked to prevent. The desire to resolve the Cold War must not blind us to the fact that the very things which made this effort so necessary also make a creative response more difficult.

## AN AMERICAN PECULIARITY

These obstacles to the effectiveness of diplomacy are magnified by some attitudes toward negotiations peculiar to the West and especially to the United States. From the moment in our national history when we focused our attention primarily on domestic development, we met very few obstacles that were really insuperable. We were almost uniquely blessed with the kind of environment in which the problems that were presented—those at least that we really wanted to solve—were difficult but manageable if enough effort was applied to them. Almost from our colonial infancy we have been trained to measure a man, a government, or an era by the degree of energy with which they attacked their contemporary problems—and hence by their success in finding a final, definite solution. If problems were not solved, this was because not enough energy or enough resolution had been applied. The leadership or the government was clearly at fault. A better government or a better man would have mastered the situation. Better men and a better government, when we provide them, *will* solve all issues *in our time*. Or so we instinctively believe.

As a result, we are not comfortable with seemingly insoluble problems. Many of the erratic tendencies in American policy—for example, the oscillation between rigid adherence to the *status quo* and desire for novelty for its own sake—are traceable to our discomfort when faced with protracted deadlock. We grow restless when good will goes unrewarded and when our proposals have to be maintained for a long time.

This accounts for the persistence of the belief in the efficacy of personal diplomacy—a conviction reinforced in the United States and Great Britain by the passionate belief that peace is the "normal" condition among states. For countries so opposed to the very notion of war, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that tensions must be caused by shortsightedness or misunderstanding and that they can be removed by a change of heart of the leading statesmen. President Eisenhower, before embarking on an unprecedented round of visits to foreign capitals, was at pains to insist that his purpose was to "clear" the atmosphere rather than to negotiate.

THE NEXT SUMMIT MEETING

If peace ultimately depends on personalities, ab-
stract good will may well seem more important
than a concrete program. Indeed the attempt
to negotiate specific settlements can appear as
an obstacle rather than as an aid to peace.

"Our many postwar conferences," said President Eisenhower in July 1955, prior to the Geneva summit conference, "have been characterized too much by attention to detail, by an effort apparently to work on specific problems rather than to establish the spirit and the attitude in which we shall approach them."

Within three years of assuming office, Presi-
dent Eisenhower, whose party had charged its
opponents with being soft toward Communism,
found himself engaged in the Geneva summit
meeting which called forth a flood of self-con-
gratulatory comment, both in America and
abroad. After a decade of Soviet intransigence,
the press was almost unanimous in its assertion
that Soviet policy had been mellowed by the
personal charm of one man. "The occasion was
in fact made for Mr. Eisenhower," said the *New
York Times* editorially on July 25, 1955. "Other
men might have played strength against strength.
It was Mr. Eisenhower's gift to draw others into
the circle of his good will and to modify the
attitudes if not the policies of the little band of
visitors from the other side of the Elbe."

The conviction was widespread on both sides
of the Atlantic that the Cold War had been due
largely to personal distrust. Since this had been
removed at Geneva, an era of peace was begin-
ning. In England, the *New Statesman* wrote:

"It is indeed an intense sense of relief which unites President Eisenhower with President [sic] Bulganin. Neither ever conceived that his own country would launch war. But each giant was quite convinced that the other giant was capable of doing so. It was this conviction which created the climate of Cold War and precipitated the rearmament race. *The Cold War was suddenly called off at Geneva because both sides recognized that these suspicions were entirely unfounded.*"

FATUOUS CONFIDENCE

PERHAPS the most moving—if also fatuous
—statement of the philosophy of personal
diplomacy was made by the then Foreign Min-
ister, Macmillan. At the end of the Geneva
Foreign Ministers' conference in November 1955,
in a statement which goes far to explain his later

policy as Prime Minister, he said of the July
summit meeting:

Why did this meeting send a thrill of hope
and expectation round the world? It wasn't
that the discussions were specially remarkable
... it wasn't that they reached any very sen-
sational agreement. It wasn't really what they
did or said. What struck the imagination of
the world was the fact of the friendly meeting
between the Heads of the two great groups
into which the world is divided. *These men,
carrying their immense burdens, met and
talked and jokéd together like ordinary
mortals.* . . The Geneva spirit was really a
*return to normal human relations*. . . I
cannot help thinking that last summer's
*Geneva idyll* was not a vague or sham affair.
[Italics added.]

It is easy to sympathize with Mr. Macmillan's
call for a return to normal human relations. One
wonders, however, whether the democracies' no-
tion of normalcy is not their Achilles' heel. An
atmosphere of confidence is undoubtedly help-
ful. It is less certain, however, whether the free
countries render themselves or the cause of peace
a service by making a settlement seem so simple
and by evading all difficult issues. Had the Cold
War really resulted from personal distrust or
were the causes deeper? Is it not possible that
such yearning for agreement, and the identifi-
cation of a settlement with good personal
relations, are themselves obstacles to serious ne-
gotiations? What conceivable incentive could
be left for the Soviet leaders to negotiate respon-
sibly at a summit, when the mere fact of its
being assembled plays so large a role in Western
thinking?

Hardly a year after the Hungarian rebellion
of 1956, many in the West again insisted on a
summit conference and construed the attempt to
define an agenda as intransigence. At the time
of the execution of Premier Nagy in 1958, Joseph
Harsch wrote in the *Christian Science Monitor*:
"His [Khrushchev's] chances of ever being in-
vited again to Windsor or of reaching the White
House ended decisively with these murders. No
man with such blood on his hands can hope to
be received in such quarters."

Yet within a year an invitation had been
issued and was greeted as inaugurating a new era
in Soviet-American relations.

In retrospect it may be doubted whether after
a decade of Soviet intransigence it was our task
to reassure the Soviet leaders—as was so gen-
erally claimed at the time of the Geneva summit
conference. Since we failed to relate our asserted
wish for peace to a concrete program, we may

*New Statesman and Nation, August 13, 1955*

BY HENRY A. KISSINGER

have convinced the Soviet leaders that they could
combine the advantages of professing peaceful
co-existence with the fruits of intransigence.
Rather than bringing about a spirit of compromise,
Geneva may have removed any incentive
for it. On the way back from Geneva, Mr.
Khrushchev stopped in East Berlin and committed
himself to the sovereignty of East Germany,
laying the basis for the crisis over Berlin
three years later. And within a month the world
learned of the Soviet sale of arms to Egypt, a
transaction which produced two years of upheavals
and brought the world on several occasions
to the very edge of the abyss.

Since the Geneva summit meeting made no progress toward settling any of the issues that divided the world, it was no accident that a little more than a year later the concurrent crises of Suez and Hungary marked a renewal of the tensions of the Cold War. Nor is it surprising that the result was not a closing of ranks by the West, but an increasing chorus for another summit conference, which had an agenda no more specific than that of the previous one and which was advocated once more as a means for removing distrust, establishing good will, relaxing tensions, and contributing to the transformation of Soviet society—although no one was able to say precisely how all this would be done.

When the long-awaited summit conference of
1960 collapsed before it had even started, a
shudder of apprehension went through the
world. A chance for peace seemed to have been
lost. But what really imperiled peace was the
self-righteousness and evasion of responsibility
that had staked so much on formalisms. After
all, the prelude to the Paris summit conference
had given little cause for the hopes attached to
it. At first, we found ourselves maneuvered into
the position of seeming to fear meeting the
Soviet leaders face to face. By insisting on "prog-
ress" at a lower level before he would agree to
a conference of heads of state, President Eisen-
hower only brought about a preposterous situa-
tion: he finally claimed that Mr. Khrushchev's
mere willingness to go to the summit was in it-
self an indication of progress. After suggesting
that a summit meeting might be a reward for
good Soviet conduct, the West finally was forced
to treat Mr. Khrushchev's ambiguous postpone-
ment of an unprovoked threat as a concession.
These vacillations were hardly calculated to en-
courage the Soviet leaders to approach the sum-
mit conference with responsibility.

Moreover, many of the arguments advanced on
behalf of summit diplomacy were fatuous in the

extreme. It was urged that only the heads of
state could settle the really intractable disputes.
No subordinate, it was said, would dare to
abandon the rigid positions of the Cold War.
In the Soviet Union, in particular, only Mr.
Khrushchev was said to be in a position to
make really fundamental decisions. And the
mere fact that a summit meeting was in prospect
was thought to place constraints on Soviet in-
transigence. A series of summit meetings, accord-
ing to this line of argument, could not fail to
relieve tensions.

But even before the collapse of the Paris con-
ference, many of these contentions were open to
serious doubt. It is trivial to pretend that the
complex problems which have rent the world
for a decade and a half can be solved by harassed
men meeting in the full light of publicity for a
few days. It cannot be in the interest of the
democracies to adopt a style of diplomacy which
places such a premium on the authority of a few
leaders. Mr. Khrushchev may be the supreme
ruler in the Soviet Union and the only one with
sufficient power to make binding agreements.
It does not follow that the democracies can co-
exist with a dictatorship only by imitating its
method of operation.

The notion that a series of summit meetings
might induce Mr. Khrushchev to forget his de-
mands on Berlin did not do justice to the in-
telligence of the Soviet dictator or indeed to his
domestic position. Surely it bordered on the
frivolous to suggest that Mr. Khrushchev might
be induced to table his demands without noticing
it. And even assuming that he is the most "con-
ciliatory" Soviet leader, he could hardly be ex-
pected to tell his colleagues in the Kremlin that
the privilege of meeting Western leaders periodi-
cally seemed to him more important than specific
gains. Indeed, personal diplomacy of the type
preceding the Paris summit meeting may force
a Soviet leader either to press for some tangible
gain or to make outbursts of intransigence to
prove his ideological toughness to his colleagues.
Far from being the most moderate policy, it is
the most risky one.

HOW TO LOSE AT THE SUMMIT

IN ANY case, it soon became apparent that
whatever the benefits of high-level meetings
for the Soviet Union, these could be realized
without any concrete negotiations and indeed
without a summit conference. The separate
"preparatory" meetings between Mr. Khrushchev
and the individual Western heads of state re-

THE NEXT SUMMIT MEETING

duced the already slight chances of the summit meeting still further. They gave Mr. Khrushchev all the symbolic gains he might have expected from a summit conference and without any need to confront the Western alliance as a unit. They ensured that nothing of consequence could possibly happen at the summit. If concessions were to be forthcoming, it was certain that Mr. Khrushchev would prefer to make them to the allies individually than at a summit conference —where they might appear as a response to Western unity. At the same time, one crucial function of high-level meetings—to inform the heads of state of each other’s point of view—had already been accomplished in individual conferences, and with greatly heightened possibility of misunderstanding.

It has been argued that Mr. Khrushchev interpreted President Eisenhower's behavior at Camp David as indicating a readiness to make major concessions on Berlin and that part of his rage during the abortive summit conference was due to disappointment in this respect. Whether this was in fact the case, the diplomacy leading up to the summit was made to order for this kind of misapprehension. Moreover, since each side had staked a great deal on a presumed expertise in assessing the domestic situation of the other, they were forced into repeated public declarations designed to reassure their own public opinion and—in Khrushchev's case—their own die-hards. This in turn guaranteed that periodic statements of extreme intransigence would become a "normal" feature of diplomacy.

As a result, the idea that the imminence of a summit meeting acts as a check on belligerence was not borne out by the record. In the period preceding the summit, both sides restated their positions in the sharpest possible forms. Mr. Khrushchev in particular delivered a series of extremely menacing speeches. The West, if it wanted to proceed with the summit, thus found itself in the humiliating position of having to explain that no threat had been uttered. These maneuvers were inherent in the nature of personal diplomacy. When heads of state are the principal negotiators, their most effective bargaining device—in some circumstances the only available one—is to stake their prestige in a manner which makes any concession appear as an intolerable loss of face.

The evasion of concreteness, the reliance on personalities, the implication that all problems can be settled with one grand gesture—all these tempt the Soviet leaders to use negotiations to demoralize the West. It is in the Soviet interest

to turn all disputes into clashes of personalities. The peoples of the Free World cannot be expected to run risks or to make exertions because of a personal dispute. If the only obstacle to peace is the absence of face-to-face rapport among leading statesmen, then all the tensions and exertions of a decade and a half have been frivolously imposed on us. Whenever the Soviet leaders succeed in giving the impression that all tensions are due to an unfortunate misunderstanding or else the evil machinations of individuals, they make it more difficult for the West to argue later for concrete settlements.

This is why whenever the Communist leaders have pressed for a relaxation of tensions they have tied the success of it to personalities. Then, whenever the underlying causes of the tension reassert themselves—as they inevitably must if not resolved—the charge can be made that the breakdown is due to the operation of the capitalist system or to the predominant influence of hostile personalities—as is shown by Mr. Khrushchev's vicious attacks on President Eisenhower after the abortive summit conference at Paris. By contrast, it should be the responsibility of our statesmen to make clear that while we are always ready to negotiate, the negotiation must be serious, detailed, and specific.

This is not to say that summit conferences are always to be avoided. It does suggest that when the present period of Soviet intransigence ends and the West finds itself again under pressure to attend a high-level meeting, we should have learned to distinguish form and substance, and to weigh pros and cons without sentimentality.

The advantage of a summit meeting is that the participants possess the authority to settle disputes. The disadvantage is that any statements or threats they make cannot be disavowed. A summit conference can make binding decisions more rapidly than other diplomatic forums. By the same token, the disagreements are likely to be more intractable and the decisions more irrevocable. We should never underestimate the possibility of using summit conferences to mark a new departure in the relations of states. At the same time, it would be foolish to deny the perils of having as principal negotiators the men who make the final decision about the use of hydrogen bombs. They may, after all, come to feel that frustration or humiliation leaves them no alternative but a showdown.

A summit conference may contribute to clarifying the opposing point of view. But this is helpful only if the tension is caused by misunderstanding. Otherwise, clarifying the opposing

BY HENRY A. KISSINGER

points of view may only deepen the schism. In short, the same factors which make for speed of decision also increase the risks of disagreement.

Moreover, when heads of state become the principal negotiators, they may soon find themselves so preoccupied with the process of bargaining that they have little time or energy available for formulating policy. During the period preceding the Paris summit conference, it was an oddity when all heads of state were at home simultaneously. During his last two years in office, President Eisenhower was almost constantly on the move—attending conferences, preparing for or recuperating from good-will visits. Such a diplomacy may suit a dictatorship or a state which wishes to demoralize its opponents by confusing all issues. It is not conducive to developing constructive long-range policies. It may buy time, but at a price which makes it unlikely that the time will be well used.

In such an atmosphere, agreement all too often becomes an end in itself. However unimportant the settlement, no matter how irrelevant, it is said to contribute to a climate of confidence which will "improve" the situation. More ingenuity is expended on finding things to agree on, no matter how trivial, than in coming to grips with the issues which have caused the tensions. In the process, a curious distortion takes place. The difficulties which are "ironed out" are often soluble only because they are inconsequential. But the mere fact that they are settled is taken as a proof of the possibility of "progress." Agreements, rather than contributing to a solution of the real issues, become a means to postpone coming to grips with them. They do not end the Cold War; they perpetuate it.

This is illustrated by the topics which were slated to be discussed at the Paris summit conference: exchange of persons, nuclear testing, arms control, and Berlin. These are either so unimportant that they can be solved fairly easily but would hardly require the attention of heads of state, or they are so complicated that a summit conference can serve at best as a means of deferring a decision.

Exchange of persons is hardly a subject that should require the attention of heads of state—quite apart from the fact that the significance of cultural exchange in reducing immediate political tensions is vastly overrated. The negotiations on banning nuclear tests depend on technical considerations to which a meeting of heads of state can add little. And indeed negotiations have continued essentially as before despite the collapse of the summit conference.

Arms control is so complicated that the contribution of the summit could at best have been a general statement leading to a detailed examination later. This leaves the issue of Berlin. Here, the Soviet Union could have made a greater contribution to peace by never provoking the Berlin crisis than by insisting on holding a summit meeting over it.

## TO THE SUMMIT WITH PURPOSE

WHETHER to resort to summit meetings is essentially a practical and not a moral issue. They should be held only when there is some clear substantive advantage in prospect. It is sometimes easier for heads of state to break a deadlock and to chart a new course than for subordinates inevitably committed to existing policies. High-level meetings can ratify agreements and give general guidelines for further detailed negotiations. They should be used for these purposes with courage and conviction. But to see in them a magic solvent for all difficulties is to build policy on illusion. Such a course creates constant temptations for the Soviet leaders to use meetings of heads of state to demoralize the West. Phrases such as "relaxation of tensions" or "peaceful coexistence" become devices to press extreme demands. The West is invited to accept Soviet proposals or suffer the penalty of renewed Cold War.

When the primary purpose of summit meetings is thought to be the fostering of good will, in the abstract, they become not a forum for negotiations but a substitute for them; not an expression of a policy but a means of obscuring its absence. The constant international travels of heads of government without a clear program or purpose may be less an expression of statesmanship than a symptom of panic.

The real indictment of the diplomacy culminating in the fiasco at Paris, then, is the attitude of trying to get something for nothing, the effort to negotiate without goal or conception. This is what must be remedied. The problem is not to save summit diplomacy by leavening it with the presence of heads of state from the uncommitted areas—as has been suggested. Rather, it is to clarify our program for whatever negotiations may take place at any level. We can negotiate with confidence if we know what we consider a just arrangement. If we lack a sense of direction, diplomacy at any level will be doomed. Flexibility is a virtue only for those who have purpose.

Harper's Magazine, December 1960