by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Among the first news reports after Richard Nixon’s victory, one caught my attention regarding the future president’s guiding principle for peace policy. According to him, negotiations for peace should proceed with proper diligence but from a position of strength rather than weakness.
This principle subtly critiques Lyndon Johnson’s peace strategy, which hasn’t been based on strength. The United States’ recent stance at the Paris talks with North Vietnam makes this perfectly clear.
The two public figures—Nixon and Johnson—disagree on this issue:
a) Since Stalin’s death, successive leaders of the Soviet Union have continued to smile at the West with gestures of peace. At the same time, Russian propaganda agencies have persistently reported a series of changes that Western public opinion has received very favorably: a fledgling restoration of private initiative, a reduction in bureaucratic centralization, a easing of religious persecution, and so on.
b) The Soviet giant appeared to weaken within the communist world even as it softened its stance toward the West. The Yugoslav split, the Chinese split, and the autonomous tendencies seen in some satellite countries in Europe suggested that Soviet influence was waning considerably.
c) Western public opinion, which had mainly supported a strict anticommunist policy until then, faced two issues: Should it stick to the hardline stance of the past, considering this now manageable enemy? Were the once-essential precautionary steps still worth taking, given the enemy’s decreasing strength?
d) Would a confident policy of systematic and disinterested concessions by the West encourage the positive trends emerging in Russia? Would moderate disarmament by the West help to reduce the factors causing the disintegration of the communist bloc by easing fears of American aggression in the communist world? If so, would concessions be the way to achieve peace?
e) Alternatively, should we accept that such concessions might benefit the Soviets by making them more confident and resourceful, repairing the damage caused to their international reputation by divisions within the communist bloc, and providing them with the means to suppress Chinese envy and their satellites’ disobedience? If that is true, concessions could harm the cause of peace. A balanced approach of diplomacy and firmness would be better for strengthening peace.
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Which one is correct?
Let’s assess the Soviet threat at the end of the Johnson Administration.
To meet the hopes for peace raised by the Soviets’ abundant smiles and relentlessly promoted internal reforms, Johnson adopted a concessionary policy in Vietnam that essentially granted NLF communists official recognition equal to Saigon’s anticommunist government. This, along with the unprecedented humiliation of the unpunished capture of the Pueblo by North Korean communists, significantly shook American prestige across the Far East and Australia.
At the same time, the British withdrew from the Indian Ocean, leaving a dangerous vacuum that the United States did not fill. Soviet diplomacy has been exploiting this military situation, which leaves South Asia’s non-communist nations terrified and at Russia’s mercy.
The British also withdrew from the Mediterranean. Seizing the opportunity presented by this disaster, the Soviets sent significant naval forces there, posing a clear threat to southern Europe. Meanwhile, they support the socialist regimes of the United Arab Republic (UAR) and Algeria.[1] Pro-Soviet propaganda emanates from these two nations, especially the UAR, promoting Pan-Islamist holy war and xenophobia to incite social revolution among all Muslim peoples of Central and South Asia. When the Soviets managed to “break through” the Suez Canal, they would gain control of the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.
On the other hand, Soviet diplomats cleverly fueled De Gaulle’s ambitions with a Mephistophelean touch. As a result, France moved away from the United States, Western Europe’s political unity was shattered, and NATO suffered a heavy blow it may never recover from.
While all this unfolded, the seeds of discontent were harshly suppressed within the Soviet Union. There has been no further talk of new progress in private initiative and decentralization.
To cap off this grim picture, the occupation of Czechoslovakia dealt a severe blow to Czech autonomy and proved that the Kremlin is just as willing as ever to use brute force to maintain control over its satellites. This was further confirmed by the Soviet press publishing a list of guiding principles for coexistence among the nations of the “bloc,” which included the USSR’s right to intervene militarily in countries that diverged from the Kremlin’s doctrinal “right line.”
In short, even those who fully believe in the validity of the conflicts between communist nations and currents (I am among those who do not) are compelled to admit that the West has never been as weak and divided as it is now, at the downturn of the Johnson Administration. In other words, the Soviet Union has never been as powerful as it is now.
Experience has demonstrated that the path to peace does not involve the swamp of systematic and unconditional concessions.
We can only hope that Nixon stays true to his beautiful maxim of seeking peace through firm diplomacy.
[1] Translator’s Note: The United Arab Republic (UAR) was a country in the Middle East from 1958 to 1971. It was initially a short-lived political union between Egypt (including Egyptian-governed Gaza) and Syria from 1958 until Syria seceded from the union following the 1961 Syrian coup d’état. Egypt continued to be known officially as the United Arab Republic until it was formally dissolved by Anwar Sadat in September 1971. It was led by Gamal Abdel Nasser as the Egyptian president. The UAR was a member of the United Arab States, a loose confederation with the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, which was dissolved in 1961. It was a brief pan-Arab union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Republic. (Accessed 9/16/2025).