Marquardt, APSA 2005 (Aug. 23, 2005)
arms control.
The failure of discussions and the subsequent onset of a major arms
race, the panel concluded, “could create conditions for victory in the cold war” because
the U.S.S.R. would eventually come to realize that it could neither afford to arms race
with nor prevail in a war against America.
This outcome, they continued, would in turn
produce fundamental change in Soviet foreign policy, thereby vindicating America’s
containment strategy. The president went with the idea of proposing an aerial
observation regime – and the Panel’s view that, with or without it, Open Skies would be
a useful tool in the Cold War competition for security.
In response to the American proposal, the Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov,
a Stalin protégé, declared that the Soviet government would give Open Skies serious
consideration.
When he later informed Eisenhower that his country had rejected Open
Skies, Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin said that “the present international situation”
between the two countries precluded a cooperative system of aerial observation.
Soviet reaction to Open Skies,” Vladislav M. Zubok observes, “was of course justified by
the existing rules of the Cold War: the United States would have gained from aerial
intelligence much more than the Soviet Union…”
11
“Letter From the Chairman of the Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel (Rostow) to the President’s
Special Assistant (Rockefeller). Summary of Recommendations: Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel,”
United States Department of State, FRUS, 1955-57 Vol. 5 (Washington, D.C., 1988), pp. 216-20.
12
“Letter from the Chairman of the Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel (Rostow) to the President’s
Special Assistant (Rockefeller),” June 10, 1955, United States Department of State, FRUS, 1955-
57 Vol. 5, p. 217.
13
Unbeknownst to Stassen and the Panel’s members, Eisenhower had already authorized the
development of a new, high-altitude spy plane – the U-2 – to obtain intelligence of Soviet military
matters. Indeed, the testing of the plane began around the time of the Summit and flights over
the U.S.S.R. would begin a year later.
14
Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to Six Cold War Presidents (Seattle:
University of Washington, 2001), pp. 37-38. According to Dobrynin, who would later be appointed
the Soviet ambassador to the U.S., Khrushchev brought Eisenhower’s proposal before the
leadership of the Communist party and urged the Politburo to call the president’s bluff, but the
Politburo would have none of it.
15
“Letter from Premier Bulganin to the President,” February 1, 1956, in Department of State
Bulletin vol. 34, n. 874 (March 26, 1956), p. 517.
16
Vladislav M. Zubok, “Soviet Policy Aims at the Geneva Conference, 1955,” in Gunter Bishof and
9
Convention