ABSTRACT
Following his unsuccessful appeals for a summit meeting in 1950 and 1951, Churchill took up the call for a détente or, in his phrase, an ‘easement of relations’ between East and West, in a major speech to the House of Commons in May 1953. In contrast to earlier failures to initiate a process of accommodation, some progress was made thereafter in the form of East-West negotiations on a number of issues during 1954-55. The international context in 1953 had been transformed by changes of leadership in the United States and the Soviet Union and by the approaching end of the Korean War. In particular, the death of Stalin in March 1953 seemed to herald a new era, and President Eisenhower, despite resistance from the State Department, made a speech the following month in which some conciliatory gestures were extended to the new Soviet leadership. He asked for positive signs that the Soviet leaders recognized the opportunity for a new start in East-West relations. This cautious American response to Stalin’s death was reinforced by the arrival in the United States of Dr Adenauer. In a series of speeches across the United States, the West German Chancellor expressed scepticism about a change in Soviet policy. He, like the Americans, required convincing evidence of a new direction in Moscow.
