The Policy of Containment and East-West Exchanges, 1955-75

1955年日内瓦首脑会议后，艾森豪威尔政府着手实施东西方交流，作为遏制苏联扩张主义的重要手段1958年达成的美苏文化协议应在此背景下理解。艾森豪威尔总统假设，美国对苏联社会的文化渗透可以促进苏联体制内的演变，使之成为一个不那么敌视和对抗美国的政权。尽管20世纪60年代肯尼迪和约翰逊政府面临的主要外交政策问题是古巴、柏林、核军备控制和越南，但历届政府都遵循了这一路线。他们稳步执行美苏交流。美国在越南不断深化的军事介入激怒了勃列日涅夫政府，给交流项目蒙上了一层长长的阴影。苏联政府确实暂停了其中的一些项目。尽管如此，约翰逊总统仍然坚持。他后来有充分的理由夸耀他在这一领域取得的令人印象深刻的成就。1964年的领事公约和1966年的民用航空协定尤为重要。到1968年夏天，两国关系已经足够好，可以开始战略军备限制谈判。虽然很难判断交流在多大程度上达到了所说的目的，但它们确实在推动苏联走向缓和和逐步扩大与西方的交流方面发挥了从属但重要的作用。尽管如此，如果没有越南战争，约翰逊政府几乎肯定会输送更多的资源来推动美苏交流，作为一种有用的遏制工具。在这一外交政策领域，美国也为在越南犯下的可怕错误付出了代价。

Following the Geneva summit held in 1955, the Eisenhower Administration embarked on implementing East-West exchanges as an important means of containing Soviet expansionism The US-Soviet cultural agreement concluded in 1958 should be understood in this context. President Eisenhower assumed that America's cultural penetration of the Soviet society could promote evolution within the Soviet system toward a regime that would become less hostile and antagonistic against the US. The successive administrations followed this course.Although the major foreigu policy issues facing the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations in the 1960s were Cuba, Berlin, nuclear arms control, and Vietnam. they steadily executed the US-Soviet exchanges. The deepening military involvement of the US in Vietnam angered the Brezhnev Administration, casting a long shadow over the exchange programs. The Soviet government did suspend some of these programs. Still, President Johnson persisted. He had good reason to boast later of his impressive achievements in this field. The consular convention of 1964 and the civil air agreement of 1966 were especially significant. By the summer of 1968, the relationship between the two nations had become good enough to start the strategic arms limitation talks.While it is difficult to judge to what extent the exchanges attained the stated aim, they did play, a subordinate yet important part in moving the Soviets toward detente and gradual expansion of exchanges with the West. Nonetheless, without the Vietnam War, the Johnson Administmtion could have almost certainly channeled more resources to further the US-Soviet exchanges as a useful tool for containment. In this foreign policy area too, the US paid a price, for its terrible mistakes in Vietnam.