August 1975: Ford Signs Helsinki Accords, US Conservatives Cry Betrayal

President Ford signs the “Helsinki Final Act,” the final measure of the Helsinki Accords. This set of agreements, negotiated by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, settles issues left standing since the end of World War II. Among other things, the Accords finalize post-war borders of a number of European nations, effectively legitimizing Soviet control over the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. The Accords are signed by 35 nations, including the US, Canada, and every European nation except for Albania and Andorra. American conservatives decry the signing, calling it equivalent to the Yalta agreement of 1945, which they say gave far too much control of Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union after the war. Famed Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn (see Summer 1975) denounces the Accords as “the betrayal of Eastern Europe” and says that “an amicable agreement of diplomatic shovels will bury and pack down corpses still breathing in a common grave.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 76-77]