Andrei Kolesnikov
During the Cold War, few senior Soviet officials understood the dynamics of Soviet relations with the West as well as Valentin Falin. A diplomat and adviser to several Soviet leaders, Falin was instrumental in improving relations between the Soviets and West Germany in the early 1970s. It was part of the détente that culminated in the Helsinki Accords, the breakthrough agreement that finally, 30 years after the end of World War II, stabilized relations between the Western alliance and the Soviet bloc. Looking back on his experiences, Falin wrote that “confrontation is not fate, but choice.”
As he saw it, in the global face-off between superpowers, confrontation happened because one or both sides chose to fight; détente happened because they chose not to fight. In every case, he felt, what happened resulted from an absolutely conscious decision on the part of the respective leaders.
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