ABSTRACT
Between 1962 and 1979 there was a certain improvement in relations between the NATO powers and the Soviet Union. In a process known as Détente, a series of agreements were signed which seemed to place their relationship on a more permanent and stable footing. Many of these were the fruits of the Ostpolitik, or eastern policy, pursued by Willy Brandt, the leader of the German Social Democratic Party (SDP; Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD), and Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; Bundesrepublik Deutschland, BRD) from October 1969 to May 1974. Before then, he had been Mayor of West Berlin between 1957 and 1966, and maintained excellent relationships with the Western powers during the whole of the 1958-1962 crisis. In November 1966 he led the SPD into the ‘Grand Coalition’, in which it governed in alliance with the conservative CDU (Christlich Demokratische Union), in which he became foreign minister.
