Nitze, Paul Henry

▪ 2005

      American military strategist (b. Jan. 16, 1907, Amherst, Mass.—d. Oct. 19, 2004, Washington, D.C.), played a vital role in shaping U.S. nuclear-arms strategy during the Cold War era. In 1950 he was appointed head of policy planning at the Department of State and wrote the famous NSC-68 document that described Soviet aspirations of world domination and called for a massive defense buildup. NSC-68 became the basis for U.S. policy regarding the Soviet Union for much of the Cold War. During the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Nitze served in high-level Department of Defense positions and expanded the U.S. military presence in Europe. He was disappointed when he was not given a key position in the administration of Pres. Jimmy Carter and became a vocal critic of Carter's arms-control efforts. Under Pres. Ronald Reagan (q.v. (Reagan, Ronald Wilson )), Nitze served as the chief nuclear-arms negotiator. In a 1982 meeting in Geneva, with his Soviet counterpart Yuly Kvitsinsky, Nitze negotiated a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles. The events of the negotiation were dramatized in the Broadway play A Walk in the Woods. While neither nation accepted the proposed treaty, it established a framework for future arms-control agreements. In 1985 Nitze was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian honour.

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