The Perils of Failed Diplomacy 1983 and the Year of Living Dangerously

Abstract

This chapter looks at the Freeze campaign in 1983. Having been pushed into the limelight, the Freeze campaign pursued a more moderate and mainstream approach to one of the most controversial issues of the early 1980s: the deployment in Western Europe of intermediate-range Pershing II and cruise missiles (the INF, or Euromissiles). By offering only minor opposition to such a divisive issue, the campaign sowed the seeds of division, both internally and among the broader peace movement. Weak allied support, along with continued efforts for a congressional freeze resolution, left the campaign vulnerable to vicious attacks. The Reagan administration and its conservative allies would attempt to link the campaign to the Soviet Union, but when these attacks failed, the administration consciously crafted a strategy to counter perceptions that they were more likely to lead the nation into a full-scale nuclear war. The decision to pursue missile defense led to a continued decline in US–Soviet relations.