The Middle East, the Back Channel, and the Summit of 1972

The number of volumes per presidential term in the Foreign Relations series, having been increased substantially to accommodate World War II and the early Cold War, has remained relatively stable since that time, ranging from 62 for Eisenhower's eight years to 59 for the Kennedy-Johnson administrations and to 57 for the Nixon-Ford era. Happily for the scholar, however, the quality of editing and coverage in these series has significantly improved in the course of their publication, largely in response to the vigorous lobbying of SHAFR historians since the late 1980s. To be sure, only 41 of the 57 Nixon-Ford volumes are “print volumes,” but the compensating news is that the electronic volumes are being carefully done and that all of the 16 print volumes and 9 electronic volumes published to date are quickly and fully accessible at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon. Five of the Nixon-Ford “print volumes” are focused on relations with the Soviet Union, and of these, four document the Nixon years, including the two reviewed here (Volumes XII and XIV). Yet the terminology is somewhat misleading, because, as the editors note, American relations with the entire world during this period were viewed and shaped through the lens of the Cold War. Thus, such separate volumes as those on Germany and Berlin, arms control, economic relations, South Asia, and Vietnam are both supplemental and indispensable to the specifically Soviet volumes, which serve as a kind of “guidepost to fuller coverage of topics where U.S.-Soviet interests intersect” (Vol. XII, p. iv)

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