Detente Quotes
It is used to demonize domestic critics and alternative media outlets as agents of a foreign power. It is used to paper over the Democratic Party's betrayal of the working class and the party's subservience to corporate power. It is used to discredit détente between the world's two largest nuclear powers. It is used to justify both the curtailment of civil liberties in the United States and U.S. interventions overseas-including in countries such as Syria and Venezuela.
Chris Hedges
They are arrayed against every principle for which we stand. So when the Soviet leaders jail a writer, or a priest, or a doctor or a worker, for the crime of speaking freely, it is not only for humanitarian reasons that we should be concerned. For these acts reveal a regime that is afraid of truth and liberty; it dare not allow its people to enjoy the freedoms we take for granted, and a nation that denies those freedoms to its own people will have few scruples in denying them to others. If detente is to progress then it ought to mean that the Soviet authorities relax their ruthless opposition to all forms and expressions of dissent.
Margaret Thatcher
Detente sounds a fine word. And, to the extent that there really has been a relaxation in international tension, it is a fine thing. But the fact remains that throughout this decade of detente, the armed forces of the Soviet Union have increased, are increasing, and show no signs of diminishing.
Margaret Thatcher
If you will give your representative similar instructions, there is no reason why we should not be able to complete these arrangements and announce them to the world within a couple of days. The effect of such a settlement on easing world tensions would enable us to work toward a more general arrangement regarding "other armaments," as proposed in your second letter which you made public. I would like to say again that the United States is very much interested in reducing tensions and halting the arms race; and if your letter signifies that you are prepared to discuss a detente affecting NATO and the Warsaw Pact, we are quite prepared to consider with our allies any useful proposals.
John F. Kennedy
War is inevitable because superpowers exists and because imperialism exists. And we are not the only ones who think this way; in every part of the world today, many people are convinced that war will break out in the 1980s. The next ten years will be very, very dangerous. They're terrifying. We should never forget this, because this is the only way we will prevent war from breaking out immediately; this is the only way we can defer it. Not by chatting about peace and detente. Westerners have been talking about peace and detente since the end of the Second World War. So has the Soviet Union. But where is this peace, where is this detente? Year to year, if not day to day, the hot spots are growing; the factors that will lead to World War Three are increasing; and still they talk about detente and peace.
Deng Xiaoping
We regard the improvement of Soviet-American relations not as an isolated phenomenon, but as an integral - and very important - part of the wider process of radically improving the international atmosphere. Mankind has outgrown the rigid "cold war" armor which it was once forced to wear. It wants to breathe freely and peacefully. And we will be happy if our efforts to better Soviet-American relations help draw more and more nations into the process of détente - be it in Europe or Asia, in Africa or Latin America, in the Middle or the Far East.
Leonid Brezhnev
