Veteran journalist gives insider account of Cold War tensions

The "last gasp of detente" described by Don Oberdorfer

By: Alice Lloyd George
   Immediate access to the political inner circle on Air Force One during the Cold War was an illuminating experience, said award-winning journalist Don Oberdorfer in a talk Wednesday at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
   The distinguished journalist in residence and professor of international relations at the university gave a lecture titled "From the Rear of the Secretary’s Plane: A Journalist’s-Eye View of the Cold War," in which he chronicled the events that he covered during the U.S.-Soviet conflict.
   "I had the opportunity to witness the last gasp of detente," he said.
   After joining the Washington Post in 1968, Mr. Oberdorfer covered the Nixon White House, Northeast Asia and U.S. diplomacy until his retirement in 1993, spending a total of 17 years as diplomatic correspondent.
   "The plane was a news venue in itself," said Mr. Oberdorfer, describing the seating plan aboard the Boeing 707, which always held at least 12 seats and a workroom full of typewriters for the journalists in the rear of the plane.
   "Alone among the journalists and officials, I spent hours in my seat scribbling longhand in a private journal," he said. His thoughts gradually developed into 40 spiral-bound journals, and culminated in his 1991 book "The Turn: From the Cold War to the New Era," which presents an insider’s glimpse into the summit meetings, high-level exchanges and behind-the-scenes maneuvers at that time.
   Mr. Oberdorfer stressed that even minor controversies could easily be taken seriously in that politically volatile period, citing the furor and diplomatic storm following the 1979 "discovery" of a supposed brigade of Soviet troops in Cuba, which turned out not to be there.
   "It just didn’t seem possible to me that a Soviet brigade had been there for so many years, and that the U.S. hadn’t heard of it," he said. "Unfortunately, I fell for this story. It all sounded plausible to me. I should have stuck with my first impression."
   Mr. Oberdorfer also covered the nation’s deteriorating relations with Iran later that year. In response to the exiled Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlevi’s admission to the United States for medical treatment, a crowd of about 500 Iranian students seized the American embassy in Tehran.
   "I wrote 17 articles on the Iran issue in the first five weeks. I believed I had little choice in doing so," he said. "Sometimes journalists are just carried along with the times."
   Of the numerous acquaintances and colleagues Mr. Oberdorfer had at the time, he recalled Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin as being remarkably frank. "Although the conversations between us were almost entirely off the record, I learned a lot from him about the inside of U.S.–Soviet relations," he said.
   Mr. Oberdorfer cited Mr. Dobrynin’s comment that "two or three days on the brink of war usually brings people to their senses" — an observation made at the time of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. He also agreed with the ambassador’s remark that had the conflict been in the hands of younger or more energetic people, the danger would have been far greater.
   The former Washington Post correspondent described the all-time low of U.S.-Soviet relations in 1983, spurred by a Soviet fighter shooting down a Korean Air Lines commercial jet. The episode was quickly followed by NATO’s simulation of a coordinated nuclear release against the USSR in November. Code-named "Able Archer," the exercise further highlighted antagonisms.
   Mr. Orberdorfer argued that the advent of former USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev was a positive one.
   "He was a very different leader from any of his predecessors," said Mr. Oberdorfer, noting Mr. Gorbachev’s relative youth and university education as distinguishing attributes. A KGB official once told him "the lord has turned his face to us and given us Gorbachev," Mr. Oberdorfer said — adding that, paradoxically, he heard more candid information from this KGB official than from anyone else in Moscow.
   In October 1986, the two principal leaders met at Reykjavik, Iceland. "Gorbachev and Reagan let their dreams and imaginations take flight," said Mr. Oberdorfer of the historic meeting, where the pair came close to striking a radical arms-reduction deal, but ultimately stalled over President Reagan’s refusal to abandon his Strategic Defense Initiative.
   "My reaction was that this meeting had been a startling diplomatic failure, because we had counted on this meeting to accomplish something," he recalled. "We had thought this was the last chance to work something out. And in our minds that prospect had suddenly vanished."
   He admitted. However, that he felt nuclear disarmament was a political chimera. "As an observer of political affairs, I thought scrapping to be completely impractical," he said, arguing that both militaries would have rebelled.
   Mr. Oberdorfer argued that it was ultimately economic issues, rather than leadership, that spelled the fate of the Soviet Union. "They were stuck in their ideology and they were stuck in their system," he said. "Fundamentally, it was the failure to make the Soviet Union a viable economy and a viable country in a world where information is no longer restricted."
   He compared this assessment to the current situation in North Korea, where he sees information beginning to seep in despite the best efforts of Kim Jong-il and his Worker’s Party. "There cannot be such a thing in this age as a country that is completely medically sealed from others," he said.
   He also described how a colleague recently discovered that a significant number of North Koreans eventually want to go into business. "To me this was most interesting," he said. "Even in this isolated, benighted, threatening country, there is something else besides the preachings of Kim Jong-il — something they want to strive for," he said.
   Mr. Oberdorfer conveyed to the audience the thrill that he experienced throughout his remarkable career. "We reported, analyzed and kept score as the changes emerged," he said. "Whatever the final outcome, one thing is clear — it was a hell of a ride."