Between Détente and Differentiation: Nixon’s visit to Bucharest in August 1969

President Nixon’s decision to visit Romania in the summer of 1969 demarcated a symbolic turning point in the relations of Washington with Bucharest and the Eastern European communist states in general. This article examines the policies of both sides leading to this historical event and its respective outcomes. It places the opening of Romania to the United States and the latter’s embrace of such a prospect within the broader Cold War context of the time; the policy of differentiation and the imminent détente. Just a year after the invasion in Czechoslovakia, Nixon and Kissinger sought to explore the compatibility of their policy towards the rest of the socialist states with their grand design of the superpower détente with the USSR. Ceausescu’s independent profile within the Soviet bloc constituted Romania a textbook example for such an endeavour.

Richard Nixon’s presidential visit to Bucharest in August 1969 was the first of its kind in Eastern Europe since World War II. This visit was a turning point in the history of the relations between the two states and it demarcated the beginning of the golden era of this peculiar ‘special relationship’ in the 1970s.1
1 The term ‘special relationship’ was used in a memorandum of the National Security Council in 1970. ‘Memorandum from Helmut Sonnenfeldt of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),’ 27 May 1970, Folder European Security Issues, U.S. and Soviet Diplomacy; Box 667; NSC Files, Country Files; Europe, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California (RNPLM).
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The significance of this event lies in the fact that it took place only a few months after the inauguration of the new American president and just a year after the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. Nixon’s decision to pay an official visit to his Romanian counterpart Nicolae Ceausescu could be explained by two sets of reasons.

First, Nixon sought to reward the Romanian leader for a series of actions that were indicative of adopting a more independent stance within the communist bloc, while setting an example of how the new administration’s version of the differentiation policy paid off.2
2 Nixon’s policy of differentiation towards the communist bloc was officially announced in February 1970. However, as argued here, its conception and formulation took place from the early days of the administration onwards. Richard M. Nixon, “First Annual Report to the Congress on United States Foreign Policy for the 1970s, 18 February 1970,” Public Papers of the Presidents: Richard Nixon (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1970), 116–90.
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Second, through this surprising decision to visit Bucharest, Nixon wanted also to check the reflexes of the Soviets. Such a visit to a Warsaw Pact member state could work as a test of the limits to which détente could be extended to the broader communist bloc. In other words, Nixon and Kissinger sought to explore the compatibility of their grand design of the superpower détente with the USSR with their policy towards the rest of the socialist states. On a more practical level, the rationale behind this visit included a third motive too. Due to Romania’s omnidirectional network of political contacts within the communist world (it maintained ties with the USSR, China and Vietnam), the White House intended to explore the possibility of opening new channels of communication with both the Chinese and the Vietnamese. Hence, the opening to Romania was not a clear-cut sign of the imminent détente but rather a means of demonstrating Washington’s intentions and checking the Kremlin’s flexibility at the same time.