Original subtitles

ARCHIVE - CARTOON NARRATION: Once upon a time there lived two neighbors.

One of them bought a shotgun.'

Ah ha!', thought the other.

'Alright. I'll buy myself a bigger gun!'

'What could this mean?' thought the first neighbor.

'I'll buy myself something bigger!'

NARRATION: By the end of the 1960s, the Soviet Union

seemed likely to match America's nuclear arsenal.

The two superpowers faced a choice -

slow down their competition -

the process that would be called détente -

or continue an arms race that could end in all-out war.

Richard Nixon had new ideas

about how to make the Cold War less dangerous.

He was ready to accept the Soviet Union

as America's nuclear equal.

When President Nixon came into office,

the conventional wisdom of all the media

and the people who thought of themselves as intellectuals

was that he was a war monger

and that they had to moderate him.

And we were under enormous pressure to start

negotiations on trade, on SALT,

on a whole complex of things.

This was not a foreign policy politician,

particularly in his early years.

He had gained notoriety and power, as you know,

on the wave of the great Red scare,

the great McCarthy period in American politics.

He also knew - and this was very important -

the bureaucracy.

He knew that often

the most difficult belligerent powers with which he

had to deal were not the Soviet Union or China

but the Department of State,

the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon -

the Department of Defense-

those belligerents arrayed along the Potomac.

NARRATION: Although Nixon wanted to revise America's Cold War strategy,

his first priority was to get American troops

out of the war in Vietnam.

By 1969,

this war had cost the lives of thirty thousand Gls

and there was still no end.

When I became Secretary of Defense,

there were five hundred and fifty thousand men

on the ground in Vietnam,

another million two hundred thousand in Asia,

in the Navy and the Air Force supporting this operation.

It was a big war.

NARRATION: America's ally President Thieu of South Vietnam

met Nixon on Midway Island.

Nixon told Thieu he planned to pull out American troops

and hand over the ground war to the South Vietnamese.

"Vietnamization" was the term

that I coined in order to get people thinking about the

responsibilities that the Vietnamese had there.

So we came in and said,

"That's fine, as long as, you know,

you leave behind a well-trained South Vietnamese army

and equip us so that we could take care of our own destiny".

NARRATION: In July 1969,

the first American troops were pulled out.

ARCHIVE - AFN RADIO ANNOUNCER: the Third Brigade of the 82nd Airborne

ARCHIVE- CHEERING GLS: Hurrah!

Both Nixon and Kissinger knew what it was doing

to our society, the controversy, the distractions,

the financial cost, the cost - the terrible human toll

in terms of lives lost and wounded -

not only of Americans but Vietnamese and others.

And also the distractions

from other foreign policy initiatives.

It's one reason that Nixon and Kissinger

wanted to open up with China and to improve relations

with Russia: partly to try to bring pressure

on the Vietnamese to negotiate a settlement,

partly to show a dramatic forward movement in

our foreign policy, that we were not crippled

and paralyzed by the Vietnam war.

NARRATION: But Hanoi put on its own pressure

with a new offensive in the South.

American generals proposed bombing North Vietnam's

bases in neutral Cambodia.

Nixon agreed to the bombing

but insisted the raids in Cambodia be kept secret.

ARCHIVE -VOICES: Bomb doors open at Thirty PG!

Coming up at Thirty PG!

- I see it coming up. - Roger!

Stand by to release- ready, ready, now! Bombs away!

Impact time- ready, ready, now!

[ Bomb explodes]

I was all for bombing the sanctuaries in Cambodia

but I could not tell the President of the United States,

the Secretary of State

or the National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger,

that I could keep it secret.

And I thought it would be a very bad thing

if that came out at a later time.

And I knew it would - because we had twelve thousand people

that had all that information and you just can't keep secrets.

NARRATION: Laird was right.

Anti-war demonstrators protested.

CROWD VOICES: US out of Vietnam!

US out of Vietnam!

DEMONSTRATOR: James Hutton, Illinois!

DEMONSTRATOR: Dennis Hyland, Colorado!

NARRATION: They called out the names of soldiers killed in Vietnam.

Richard Nixon could look out the window

of the White House and see a mob of people marching

in the street protesting the war in Vietnam, for instance.

He could take a three-by five card out of his pocket

and take a look.

And the polls showed him with the confidence of 70-75%

of the American people.

And he'd say, "|'m not going to let those people

in the street make foreign policy for this country".

And so tonight- to you,

the great silent majority of my fellow Americans-

I ask for your support.

I pledged in my campaign for the presidency to end

the war in a way that we could win the peace.

I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me

to keep that pledge.

The more support I can have from the American people,

the sooner that pledge can be redeemed.

For the more divided we are at home

the less likely the enemy is to negotiate.

Nixon believed, I think correctly,

that the opposition to the war was mostly about

the draft and the casualties

and not about the American presence there.

Americans didn't care if we were bombing Hanoi-

they didn't care if there were American airplanes around.

What they didn't like was the fact that young American men

were being drafted, sent to Vietnam and being killed.

NARRATION: The bombing of the communist bases

in Cambodia was no miracle cure.

SFX OVER BATTLE NOISE: GI: OK one zero zero meters away from it now!

I'll get you from there!

NARRATION: American Gls still came under attack in South Vietnam.

ARCHIVE- GPS VOICE: Right, who's wounded?

All right, give me some cover!

[machine gun fire]

OK, can you move him?

OK, try and bring him back here!

Remember to stop the bleeding!

You gotta stop!

[ explosion ]

NARRATION: Nixon now ordered a ground assault into Cambodia.

ARCHIVE- GPS VOICE: Anybody out here?

[rifle gunfire]

ARCHIVE- REPORTER: Do you feel the people are united behind you, Mr. President?

ARCHIVE- NIXON: Er, as far as the people are concerned,

I have no judgment on that.

Er, all that I can say is that I know that I did what

I believe was right and what really matters is as far as the

people are concerned is whether it comes out right.

If it comes out right, that's what really matters.

ARCHIVE - OHIO NATIONAL GUARD OFFICER OVER BULLHORN: Leave this area immediately!

Leave this area immediately!

[crowds shouting ]

NARRATION: Nixon's invasion of Cambodia produced violent protests

on American campuses.

At Kent State University,

National Guardsmen shot four students dead.

ARCHIVE - COMMENTARY: Every year in the early spring and in the late autumn,

the Soviet army gets its new recruits.

The forces are inconceivable without strong,

agile men possessing stamina.

These are fighting men.

NARRATION: Fighting men alone could not guarantee security.

Soviet leaders wanted arms agreements that recognized their

nuclear parity with America.

They also wanted American understanding in their

quarrel with China.

The Communist party chief Leonid Brezhnev

championed relaxation of Cold War tension with America -

the policy that would be called détente.

He was on his way to the very top of Soviet power.

[speaking Russian ]

Brezhnev was a sincere person in many ways.

He had been through the great Patriotic War

from beginning to end.

He returned with the very strong conviction

that he had to do his best to prevent war.

This was illustrated every time he went to a collective farm,

or factory.

He would ask people, "How are things?"

And they would complain but then they would say,

"Well, we can put up with it as long as there is no war."

[speaking Russian ]

Every leader in any country has the need to express

his character and to leave his mark in history.

He wanted to become the leader of the Soviet government.

One of the ways he had of strengthening his position

was making foreign policy his priority.

[speaking Russian ]

American-Soviet relations were always at the center

of our diplomacy.

I would say that, basically,

whether the West believed it or not,

our attitude was to have a more constructive

relationship with the United States.

NARRATION: In Europe, the Cold War showed itself most painfully

in the Iron Curtain that divided the two Germanys.

West Germany's new Chancellor,

the Social Democrat Willy Brandt,

had his own ideas for relations with the Soviet bloc.

The Germans called it Ostpolitik.

[Speaking German ]

We are a people who want to be and will be a good neighbor

in Germany and beyond.

[ Applause ]

[Speaking German ]

The main thing that got the ball rolling

was the decision of the Chancellor

to call East Germany a state.

This was a fundamental change in our position,

which led to fierce criticism from the opposition.

In Moscow, people were all ears.

[speaking Russian ]

In our opinion, there were more sober voices

among the Social Democrats,

those who would seek common points of interests with us -

not similarities in our outlook

but similarities in our interests.

I would like to stress the difference.

If we found points in common which would preserve

a balance of interests,

this could lead relations between the Soviet Union

and West Germany out of a dead end.

NARRATION: Willy Brandt became the first West German Chancellor

to visit East Germany.

[Speaking German ]

NARRATION: Brandfs visit was a triumph.

To ordinary East Germans, he seemed to bring hope of change.

But the Americans were worried.

My first reaction to Ostpolitik

was concern that it would lead to German nationalism,

that if Germany operated on its own vis-a-vis the East,

it would emphasize its own national concerns,

if not immediately then over a period of time.

[Speaking German ]

The response we got from Nixon

and Kissinger was one of doubt and suspicion.

Had we thought about everything?

I had informed Kissinger shortly before

we got into office what we planned to do.

He asked a lot of questions.

We reached the point where I said,

"I am not here to consult but to inform."

This was a tone unheard of in Washington.

While the danger that we feared was real the best

way to avert it was not to fight it and then

be accused of being the cause of permanent German partition,

but rather to help guide it in a direction that was compatible

with Allied policy.

And so we established another back channel to

Brandt through his associate Egon Bahr

and to the Soviets via Dobrynin and Falin.

And we insisted that before anything could

be concluded with respect to Germany,

absolute assurances had to exist with respect

to our position in Berlin.

NARRATION: Brandts next destination was Moscow.

He hoped to remove Russia's fear of its old German enemy.

Brandt was willing to recognize Europe's post-war borders

and the division between East and West.

[Speaking German ]

The Moscow accords were the key to our bi-lateral treaty system

with the East.

The Federal Republic ceased being excuse

for the Soviet Union to keep the Eastern bloc in line.

The treaty signing was a signal from Moscow that there was

a readiness for change.

NARRATION: Willy Brandt flew to another old German enemy.

GERMAN NEWSREEL NARRATIONI

NARRATION: Brandt had come to recognize Poland's western border

carved out of territory seized from Nazi Germany in 1945.

The German Chancellor visited the site of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Words failed him; he knelt at the memorial to

Jewish fighters who resisted the Nazis.

[Speaking German ]

Brandt was a stroke of luck for German history.

For the Americans he symbolized reliability-

he had proved himself the defender of Berlin

against the menace of the East.

And for the East, he was a resistance fighter

against the Nazis- without any doubt.

NARRATION: In a divided Germany,

these steps towards detente

brought welcome cracks in the Berlin Wall.

Families and friends separated by the Wall

could see each other once again.

ARCHIVE- NIXON: OK, fine, fine, we'll call you later!

NARRATION: The architects of America's new approach

to the Cold War were Richard Nixon

and his National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger.

JOHN EHRLICHMAN: Henry was very temperamental,

very bright, very territorial, very insecure.

You could say the same thing about Richard Nixon.

And they complemented one another a lot of the time.

At the same time they were rivals.

They fought with one another.

They fought not with one another but behind one anothefls backs -

they were devious.

NARRATION: The two men preferred to work in secret.

Through secret back channels, they setup summit meetings

in Beijing and Moscow.

ARCHIVE - KISSINGER: We have a variety of independent sources.

ARCHIVE - NIXON: I know, I know! None of them reliable.

ARCHIVE- KISSINGER: None of them totally reliable.

ARCH IVE- NIXON: That's right!

NARRATION: Nixon and Kissinger wanted the summits in China

and the Soviet Union to help America get out of Vietnam.

They also hoped to bring China into their diplomatic game.

The principal reason for seeking an

approchement with China was to

restore fluidity to the overall international situation.

If there are five players and you can't deal with one of them,

this produces rigidity.

Secondly, we wanted to demonstrate to the American

public that Vietnam was an aberration,

that we had ideas for the construction of

peace on a global scale.

NARRATION: Soviet leaders were alarmed after Kissinger,

and then Nixon returned jubilant from China.

ARCHIVE- NIXON: Not only have we completed a week of intensive talks

at the highest levels,

we have set up a procedure

whereby we can continue to have discussions in the future.

We have demonstrated that nations with very deep

and fundamental differences can learn to discuss those

differences calmly,

rationally and frankly without compromising their principles.

[speaking Russian ]

It was a great scare for our leaders who decided that

an anti-Soviet coalition was being formed,

which included not only America and NATO but also China.

We felt we were being surrounded.

The Moscow reaction was that a summit which

we had tried to achieve before the trip to China,

and in which they had been stone-walling us

and trying to use it to - well, to put it kindly -

blackmail us into untoward concessions,

or concessions we thought were untoward,

suddenly they agreed to the summit

and it unfroze our relationship.

NARRATION: In March 1972,

North Vietnam launched a new offensive in the South.

Nixon responded with more air attacks.

Would the Soviets receive Nixon in Moscow

while his planes were bombing their North Vietnamese ally?

The general debate that took place in the

White House situation room-

and I was in many of these-

was: which is more important -

the Vietnam front or the Moscow front?

And Nixon was the only important person

that I can recall who said, "We can have both.

I'm wilting to lose the Moscow Summit

but I predict the Russians will go ahead

even if we bomb Hanoi and mine Haiphong...

Nixon and Henry Kissinger played sort

of good cop/bad cop with the Russians particularly.

Kissinger would see Anatoly Dobrynin,

the Russian Ambassador,

frequently and I mean like almost daily.

And his line was -

'Look, I work for this crazy man.

There's no telling what he might do.

So, Anatoly, you and I as reasonable men must

work together to an accommodation

between our countries'.

NARRATION: Kissinger was uncertain

whether Moscow would allow the summit to go ahead.

[speaking Russian ]

I went to see Kissinger.

He was nervous but tried to hide it.

He said jokingly, "OK, let's have a bet!"

Because he knew I had a piece of paper

with the official Soviet reply.

He said, "Let's bet whether I can guess the answer!"

So we bet a crate of champagne.

I asked him,

"So what do you think the Soviet answer is?"

He was convinced that the summit had

been postponed to a later date.

In fact the official Soviet reply was -

the summit is going ahead as planned.

NARRATIONI May 22nd 1972 -

Richard Nixon became the first sewing American President

to be received in the Kremlin.

The summit reached agreements to limit offensive

and defensive nuclear weapons,

and it laid the foundation of détente.

For Brezhnev and Nixon,

this was the most dramatic proof yet of

the new relationship between their two countries.

But first the Soviets had to make their point on Vietnam.

President Nixon, Dr. Kissinger,

myself and one other officer, four of us,

went out to Brezhnevs country dacha.

And there we saw Brezhnev, Kosygin,

Podgorny and the national security adviser on their side-

four on four.

We sat for three hours in the dacha,

in which each of the Russian leaders took an hour to blast

the United States for its Vietnam policy,

absolutely attacking Nixon and the United States.

Nixon knew what they were doing, namely,

they were writing a transcript to send to Hanoi.

So he listened patiently,

didn't get overly argumentative, basically just took it.

After three and a half hours of Soviet diatribe,

sort of a tag-team match among the Soviet leaders,

we then went upstairs for dinner and the entire mood changed.

Brezhnev broke out the vodka.

There was singing and jokes and toasts.

And then later that evening, Kissinger went back -

I believe with Gromyko - and did some more negotiating

on arms control.

ANATOLY DOBRYNIN: [speaking Russian ]

The atmosphere was very good, even friendly.

We were quite aggressive in view of

Nixon's actions on Vietnam,

but we made sure it didn't overshadow the summit,

because the issues that Nixon was going to raise had already

been agreed through the confidential channel.

These were very important nuclear issues.

All the members of the Politburo knew that the text of

the treaty had already been agreed.

Nixon knew that too from Kissinger.

So if we gave in to our emotions we would ruin everything that

had already been achieved.

ARCHIVE- SERGEANT-AT-ARMS: The President of the United States!

[ Applause ]

NARRATION: The American Congress gave Nixon a hero's welcome.

Last Friday in Moscow

we witnessed the beginning of the end of that era

which began in 1945.

We took the first step toward a new era

of mutually agreed restraint and arms limitation

between the two principal nuclear powers.

With this step, we have enhanced the security of both nations.

We have begun to check the wasteful and dangerous spiral of

nuclear arms which has dominated relations between our two

countries for a generation.

We have begun to reduce the level of fear by reducing

the causes of fear,

for our two peoples and for all peoples in the World.

NARRATION: Two weeks after Nixon's return from Moscow,

five men working for his re-election campaign were

arrested for breaking into the Washington headquarters

of the Democratic Party.

It was the start of a major scandal-

Watergate.

As election day approached,

Kissinger returned from one of his many negotiating rounds

with the North Vietnamese.

He told Nixon he at last had a deal on Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duo Tho

presented to Dr. Kissinger a draft agreement

on restoring peace and ending the war in Vietnam.

And the first thing he said when he presented that document

to Dr Kissinger was,

"You are in a hurry, are you not?"

And I recall Dr. Kissinger nodding affirmatively

when Le Duo Tho made that statement.

We knew that Kissinger

had met with the North Vietnamese side

in Paris on October 9th.

So when he came on October 19th and gave us the text -

in English, mind you - and he asked us, well

we've got four days to sign

and of course we politely said, "Well, you know,

this is the first time we have been given this text,

so we would like to have time to study it.

By the way, you know, where is the Vietnamese text?"

When I see the widows, the orphans,

when I see so many tombs, so many sacrifices

for the freedom and liberty of Vietnam,

I reaffirm again that the whole people of South Vietnam

will resist again any peace which demand the rendition of

South Vietnam and which will give South Vietnam

to the communist aggressors!

I have great sympathy for Thieu and, at the same time,

I have great sympathy for our problem.

We faced sixty-five Congressional resolutions

in the year 1972 alone that were urging unilateral withdrawal

from Vietnam.

And Mr. Kissinger said,

"Well, if you sign this, we're going to bring peace

and we'll be- South Vietnam will be developed,

people will be happy."

At which President Thieu said,

"Listen, you know,

we have the interests and the future of our country.

We are not looking for Nobel Prize."

NARRATION: South Vietnam refused to sign.

With his deal facing collapse,

Kissinger hastily reassured Hanoi

America still wanted an agreement.

We believe that peace is at hand.

[ Cough ] We believe that a an agreement is within sight.

[cough]

It is inevitable that in a war of such complexity

that there should be [ cough] occasional difficulties in

reaching a final solution.

NARRATION: This latest setback in the Vietnam peace talks

did not damage Nixon.

He was easily re-elected for a second term.

Back in Paris, Kissinger had to put Thieu's objections

to the North Vietnamese.

KISSINGER: How do I get outta here?

REPORTER: We thought you weren't having a meeting today, sir.

Well, we do something surprising!

REPORTER: It's getting to be difficult to have

a secret rendezvous in Paris.

It certainly is!

REPORTER: Will you be meeting again tomorrow, sir?

Er, we expect to, yes.

JOHN NEGROPONTE: One day we were on the verge of finalizing the text.

The next day, there were suddenly ten or twelve different

issues that popped up and were unresolved.

And then Le Duo Tho said that he had to go back to Hanoi

for consultations.

NARRATION: Le Duo Tho left Paris and the talks broke down.

Nixon ordered air raids on North Vietnam,

hoping to bludgeon Hanoi into agreement

and at the same time bolster the South.

Over twelve days, Hanoi and Haiphong

came under the most sustained bombing campaign of the war.

The bombing served its purpose.

North and South Vietnam were ready to agree

to the deal that Kissinger put together.

Under the peace accords,

American troops would leave Vietnam;

the Saigon government would remain in power

but North Vietnam's troops would stay in the South.

Nixon called it, "Peace with honor".

It so happened that with Mr. Kissinger,

who had wanted to play the triangular,

to do the détente,

Vietnam had to go in order for détente to happen.

This is my own analysis and then that unfortunately, you know,

was not very good for the South Vietnamese people.

Good evening.

The biggest White House scandal in a century,

the Watergate scandal, broke wide open today.

The Attorney General, Richard Kleindienst,

has resigned because - in his own words -

he had close personal and professional associations

with people who may have broken the law.

The two closest men to the President,

HR. Haldeman, his Chief-of-Staff,

and John Ehriichman, his Chief Domestic Adviser,

have resigned.

Last week both men were fighting hard

to keep their jobs.

We had a great staff system in the White House

for dealing with crises.

We didn't apply that system to Watergate.

I think part of the reason was we didn't consider it a crisis.

It was a very small potatoes episode.

I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in.

I neither took part in nor knew about any of the subsequent

cover-up activities.

I neither authorized nor encouraged subordinates to

engaged in illegal or improper campaign tactics.

That was and that is the simple truth.

NARRATION: Regardless of Watergate,

the process of détente continued.

Brezhnev came to America for a second summit with Nixon.

In California,

the Soviet leader partied with Hollywood film stars.

The Russians were still keen to

deal with the American President.

ARCHIVE- BREZHNEV: [speaking Russian ]

Good bye!

Do svidanya!

NARRATION: In spite of Nixon's denial of guilt over Watergate,

he was accused of obstructing justice and faced impeachment

by Congress.

In August 1974, Richard Nixon,

the man who took America into détente,

gave up the fight and resigned.

His successor was Gerald Ford.

The Soviet leadership was astonished by Nixon's downfall.

[speaking Russian ]

They thought, "How could the most powerful person in the

United States, the most important person in the world,

be legally forced to step down

for stealing some silly documents?"

It was so contrary to the mentality of the Soviet leaders

that a person in such a senior position

could be removed by legal means.

They simply couldn't understand it.

[speaking Russian ]

There were various suspicions.

One of those suspicions was that it was done

deliberately by the enemies of rapprochement

between America and the Soviet Union.

[gunfire]

NARRATION: In Vietnam, the 1973 peace accords

had not stopped the fighting.

By April 1975,

South Vietnamese troops were struggling to defend

Saigon against Hanoi's final offensive.

They could expect little help from the Americans.

The Congress of the United States

refused to supply

the kind of military assistance that was necessary

to keep the South Vietnamese military forces strong.

NARRATION: South Vietnamese who had fought

and worked alongside the Americans against the communists

besieged the US Embassy.

The Americans were getting away -

but they had lost the war and now they could not even save

thousands of their South Vietnamese friends.

The American experience in Vietnam -

and particularly my own -

had been like a B-52 strike from sixty thousand feet up.

Oh, we had done a lot of damage but very seldom did

you have to gaze upon the consequences of that damage.

That last day was like being in a B-52 strike right on the deck.

You saw what our actions had wrought

and the horror and the shame was almost more

than you could bear.

[singing in Russian]

NARRATION: The Soviet Union proclaimed it self-confident.

It believed it was a superpower equal to America

and boasted history was on its side.

This rosy view ignored one problem.

The treatment of Soviet dissidents like the writer

Alexander Solzhenitsyn threatened to derail detente.

ARCHIVE- DOBRYNIN: Mr. Canton...

DEMONSTRATORS: Russian pig, go home!

Never again, never again!

NARRATION: American passions flared over

restrictions on the emigration of Soviet Jews.

[speaking Russian ]

The questions of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union

and of human rights were a very strong irritant.

These issues were raised regularly by the US Congress

and by demonstrations organized by pro-Israeli activists

and sometimes by hooligans.

There was at the outset of course a genuine backlash

in the Congress of the United States

against the policy of détente -

not in the first instance from where one might expect it,

from the right-wing pews of the Republican Party.

It came instead from the traditionally

right-wing Democrats, the hard-line,

of Cold Warrior Democrats like 'Scoop' Jackson.

When we have something we feel strongly about -

and in this case it is civil liberties

and freedom and what this nation was founded upon,

that we should do something to implement international law -

and it is international law now,

the right to leave a country freely and return freely,

that we should put that issue of principle oh the

table knowing that the Russians are not going to agree to it.

The debate about détente took a very curious form,

because some liberals seemed to take the view

that maybe tension wasn't all that bad.

And they suddenly developed theories of the need

to intervene in human rights procedures that we'd never

heard before and that were strenuously rejected before.

NARRATION: In the Soviet Union,

where memorials kept alive remembrance of a terrible war,

detente had few enemies.

Soviet leaders hoped to guarantee their country's status

and security with a treaty to be signed in Helsinki

which would recognize the post-war division of Europe.

But this treaty had a stumbling block -

human rights.

[speaking Russian ]

The members of the Politburo read the full text.

They had ho objections when they

read the first and second articles.

When they got to the third "humanitarian" article,

their hair stood on end.

Suslov said it was a complete betrayal of communist ideology.

Gromyko then came up with the following argument:

the main thing about the Helsinki treaty is

the recognition of the borders.

That's what we shed our blood for in the Great Patriotic War.

All thirty-five signatory states are now saying

these are the borders of Europe.

As for human rights, Gromyko said,

"Well, who's the master of this house?

We are the masters of this house and each time

it will be up to us to decide how to act.

Who can force us?"

NARRATION: After overcoming the doubts of his colleagues,

Brezhnev arrived in Helsinki,

keen to out a figure among leaders for the East and West.

ARCHIVE- BREZHNEV: [speaking Russian ]

NARRATION: Both sides believed they had the agreement they wanted.

GERALD FORD: The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations

did not recognize that the human rights provision

was a time bomb.

We the United States believed that if we could get the

Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations

to respect human rights,

that was worth whatever else was agreed to

in the Helsinki Accords.

ARCHIVE: Three, two, one, engine sequence start,

one zero, launch commence!

We have a lift-off!

NARRATION: Thanks to détente, rockets could now point

the way to co-existence, rather than war.

ARCHIVE: Houston flight to Moskva...

Apollo Houston, I got two messages for you.

Moscow is go for docking!

Houston is go for docking!

It's up to you guys! Have fun!

Less than five meters distance!

NARRATION: Soviet and American spacecraft made history,

docking together one hundred and forty miles above the Earth.

ARCHIVE: Contact! Alright, aha!

NARRATION: In space, co-operation was replacing years

of Cold War confrontation.

ARCHIVE: Glad to see ya!

VALERI KUBASOV: [speaking Russian ]

When we went to the United States for training,

we met the Americans.

I remember one of them saying to me,

"Since this international project I have

begun to sleep better at night.

I am no longer afraid of nuclear war,

because we are working together...