Six Decades of US-Russia Citizen Dialogue: Past Lessons, Future Hopes

By Philip Stewart

The Dartmouth Conference was born in the turmoil of the Cold War between the two major powers left standing after World War II: the US and the Soviet Union. While government officials from the US and (now) Russia occupy the public stage, Dartmouth is a distinct and innovative form of citizen diplomacy that takes place—more quietly and often successfully—behind the scenes, between highly experienced, influential citizens from both nations. This brief book highlights the stories of Dartmouth's work during its first 60 years and suggests an agenda for its future efforts.

About Kettering Foundation

The Kettering Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit operating foundation rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research. Kettering’s primary research question is: What does it take to make democracy work as it should? Kettering’s research is distinctive because it is conducted from the perspective of citizens and focuses on what people can do collectively to address problems affecting their lives, their communities, and their nation. For more information about Kettering research and publications, see the Kettering Foundation’s website at www.kettering.org.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kettering Foundation
• Release date: Nov 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781945577567

Book preview

PREFACE

Dartmouth: Looking Forward

by David Mathews

PHIL STEWART, THE DARTMOUTH VETERAN who has participated in every conference for more than a half-century, gives us a lucid and compelling account of what happened and what can be learned from this joint venture. Somewhat like what happens on the space station where there are crews from both countries, Dartmouth doesn’t have an American voice or a Russian voice; it has a blended voice all its own.

Dartmouth is not an organization with offices and a website. It is all the people who participate now and those who have participated in the past 60 years. I am pleased to share the chair of the US delegation with Ambassador James Collins, and we are fortunate to work with very able Russian cochairs, Yuri Shafranik and Vitaly Naumkin, for whom we have genuine respect even when we don’t always agree. The other participants have included leading American and Russian citizens from all major sectors of the two societies. Among them have been former diplomats and scholars with considerable knowledge about the issues being discussed.

In this piece, I want to look to the future. Recently, Dartmouth has turned more to the public. Two examples will explain what I mean. In the last four years, seeing the collapse of many of the people-to-people exchanges, Dartmouth has encouraged new joint ventures around similar and common problems confronting people in both countries. Under the Dartmouth umbrella, there are now two exchanges on health challenges, a collaboration between US and Russian libraries, a new student exchange, and an emerging exchange among religious institutions of all faiths. These have not detracted from the long-term focus on strategic matters but rather complemented the discussions of critical issues, such as avoiding another arms race. And in 2019, Dartmouth addressed the public directly by issuing its first press release, which was based on a jointly prepared statement with recommendations for nuclear policy. Both of these examples responded to what an earlier US cochair—a former assistant secretary of state, the late Harold Saunders—had urged for some time, which was to build constructive relationships between whole bodies politic, not just governments.

The Kettering Foundation is a research institution that studies, among other subjects, nongovernmental, or citizen, diplomacy. In all of its research, the foundation pays particular attention to public attitudes in the United States on major policy issues, both international and domestic. The findings from these studies have become more relevant as Dartmouth addresses the public directly. One thing stands out in this research: People are deeply concerned about their safety and fear a nuclear holocaust that could destroy the world. They are aware that no rational nation would deliberately start a nuclear war, but they aren’t sure all nations will act rationally.

Going forward shouldn’t mean discarding what past Dartmouth Conferences have contributed. One of the major characteristics of the Dartmouth talks has been a focus on the quality of the relationship between Russia and the United States. In the conferences, the relationship is a third party, and it has to be kept as constructive as possible. Dartmouth has also made a contribution by keeping in mind how the relationship between the two countries affects the rest of the world. That awareness has been an incentive to see what can be accomplished by cooperating in areas where the interest should be mutual—the global environment, for example. Dartmouth has more than a legacy to appreciate; it has a future of possibilities to imagine.

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CHAPTER ONE

Citizens Meeting

the Challenges of a

Relationship in Crisis

Russian participants in the first Dartmouth Conference flank Dartmouth College president John Sloan Dickey (front row, fourth from left) 1960

CHAPTER ONE

Citizens Meeting the Challenges of a Relationship in Crisis

THE DARTMOUTH CONFERENCE is a distinct and innovative form of citizen diplomacy. For over 60 years, it has developed a unique experience and a unique methodology for involving Russian and American citizens in the process of finding political solutions and compromises to the issues that divide them and threaten world peace. This is what has determined the relevance of the conference in these turbulent times.

In the mid-20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union recognized that neither could achieve security on its own. Trying to go it alone has led only to costly and dangerous arms races. Negotiated limitations on arms, especially nuclear weapons, have played a critical role in preventing war. Even though these two nations often seem at odds on the world stage and citizens of both often view each other with mistrust, they do hold shared interests, such as climate change, pandemics, and the fight against terrorism.

The question is not whether to have a relationship with Russia. We have one and, today, early in the 21st century, it is a very difficult and dangerous one. When official relations limit the ability of our governments to address issues that divide us or explore the potential for cooperation, citizens have a special obligation to engage in dialogue between our nations. Through this dialogue, participants seek knowledge of and understanding by each side about what motivates the other, the values and objectives of each, and how each side sees issues of importance and its global role. The Dartmouth Conference is a forum for open, creative thinking about how to address matters important to each country and to the world, to identify opportunities to cooperate where our interests coincide, and to suggest strategies for managing the differences or disputes that challenge our capacity for constructive interaction.

Both the Russian and US governments have always welcomed the jointly developed ideas, insights, understandings—and, at times, the proposals—that emerge from each session of this dialogue. This brief book tells the story of Dartmouth’s work during its first 60 years and suggests an agenda for its future efforts.

The policies of nations are conducted largely through governmental institutions, but it is the human beings in those institutions who give form and shape to aspirations for these policies. Conflict among states arises when the interests, policies, and actions of one or more states, as shaped and interpreted by the human beings leading them, is perceived by other states as threats to their interests, power, or policies. For 60 years, the participants of the Dartmouth Conference worked in a very turbulent world. Soviet-US relations reached a dangerous point during the Cold War and required enormous efforts on both sides to make the situation safer and more predictable.

Now, despite the past years and accumulated experience, relations between the United States and Russia have deteriorated again. The world is no safer either. It is full of various conflicts—both interstate and internal—complicated by foreign interference. Among them are conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, the Caucasus, Africa, and Latin America. All these conflicts are very difficult to resolve. In this book, we argue for a more productive way to deal with conflicts.

The Idea Was Born

Norman Cousins, editor for 35 years of the Saturday Review, a founder of the antinuclear SANE movement (officially, the National Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy), and a committed believer that world peace could be achieved only through world government, was the creator and strongest proponent for the idea of a conference that would bring together high-level citizens from the two antagonists of the Cold War. His concept was simple, if grand: to engage citizens from the two major nuclear powers in a conversation on how to prevent a nuclear war.

Building upon a personal relationship with President Dwight D. Eisenhower dating from the late 1940s, Cousins traveled to Moscow with Eisenhower’s blessing in May 1959 and proposed his idea to the Soviet Peace Committee. While his humor evoked laughs, coolness met his harsh criticism of many aspects of Soviet policy, particularly regarding nuclear testing and human rights. While promised a response, Cousins could not have left Moscow with much reason for hope. As long-time Russian interpreter and conference coordinator Alice (Alla) Bobrysheva reported in her own memoir, since this would be the first meeting organized by the Peace Committee with Americans who were not pro-Soviet, the committee leadership was deeply skeptical that this invitation would be accepted.¹ Nevertheless, the request was routed through the Central Committee’s International Department, to whom the Peace Committee reported. One can only imagine, then, the surprised reactions when, in October 1959, the Peace Committee received approval to move ahead with this meeting. Bobrysheva is convinced that this decision was possible only through the personal intervention of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Cousins’ subsequent personal meetings with Khrushchev, as well as a second meeting held just six months after the first, took place at the Crimean resort reserved for high-level party officials. The fact that the resort was located next door to Khrushchev’s own villa indicates the very high level of Soviet interest.

Norman Cousins

In the spring of 1960, as preparations advanced for the first meeting, to be held at Dartmouth College in Hanover,