ABSTRACT
Few could have realised in the summer of the Helsinki summit that the 1970s would end with tensions between the superpowers at a level not seen since the early 1960s and that the early 1980s would come to be regarded as a second Cold War. The economic fruits of detente were even more disappointing, particularly to Soviet leaders. Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev did manage to settle the issue of the USSR's wartime lend-lease debt, and a three-year trade agreement signed in July 1972 envisaged Soviet purchases of at least $750m worth of US grain. Growing Soviet and Cuban activism meant that, by 1979, Angola, Ethiopia, Benin, Congo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique had all declared Soviet-style socialism to be their aim, while some other African states were on friendlier terms with Moscow than with Washington. The Soviet forces met limited resistance, agricultural procurement prices were raised and other concessions were made to shore up support for Babrak Karmal.
