The High Human Price of Detente

SIX years ago, detente supplanted containment as America’s East-West policy; it has been supported by a majority of the American people ever since. Detente ended the long and costly cold war struggle and lightened the taxpayers’ burden; thanks to its “centerpiece,” the Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement and on-going SALT talks, it has dispelled much of the nightmare fear of a nuclear conflict with Soviet Russia.

Nevertheless, in the Nixon-Kissinger-Ford years, Americans’ support for detente contained a certain element of uneasiness. During the last presidential campaign, Governor Carter identified what was troubling his fellow citizens: detente as designed and conducted by his predecessors, he said, lacked moral substance. And he promised, if elected, to “restore morality to U.S. foreign policy.”

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Clare Booth Luce

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SIX years ago, detente supplanted containment as America’s East-West policy; it has been supported by a majority of the American people ever since. Detente ended the long and costly cold war struggle and lightened the taxpayers’ burden; thanks to its “centerpiece,” the Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement and on-going SALT talks, it has dispelled much of the nightmare fear of a nuclear conflict with Soviet Russia.

Nevertheless, in the Nixon-Kissinger-Ford years, Americans’ support for detente contained a certain element of uneasiness. During the last presidential campaign, Governor Carter identified what was troubling his fellow citizens: detente as designed and conducted by his predecessors, he said, lacked moral substance. And he promised, if elected, to “restore morality to U.S. foreign policy.”