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When passions run high: emotions and the communication of intentions in face-to-face diplomacy

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When passions run high: emotions and the communication of intentions in face-to-face diplomacy

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WHEN PASSIONS RUN HIGH:
EMOTIONS AND THE COMMUNICATION OF INTENTIONS IN FACE-TO-FACE DIPLOMACY

Seanon S. Wong

A Dissertation Presented to the
Faculty of the Graduate School
University of Southern California
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
(Political Science and International Relations)

December 2015

Seanon S. Wong
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To my family
Seanon S. Wong
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Abstract

Countries often seek to resolve their disputes through face-to-face diplomacy. When leaders and
diplomats interact, how do they express and assess each other’s intentions?

Extant theories in International Relations either dismiss face-to-face diplomacy as a credible
channel to communicate because talk is “cheap” – and are therefore at odds with its
commonplace in international politics (neorealism and rationalism) – or can benefit from greater
understanding of the interpersonal mechanisms that enable interlocutors to contest the validity of
each other’s claims (normative constructivism and the theory of communicative action).

To break through, I highlight the communicative function of emotions, leveraging insights from
the latest research on negotiations in social and experimental psychology. I argue that when
leaders and diplomats interact, they pay attention not only to what others say, but also to their
emotional cues. One’s choice of words, tone of speech, hand gestures and body language carry
emotive information that reflects how one appraises a situation. Emotions are indices of
intentions because their displays are to a certain extent spontaneous, individuals – and according
to some, practitioners of diplomacy in particular – are able to ascertain an emotion’s authenticity
accurately, and deceit is “deterred” when it is reciprocated with intransigence and mistrust.
Emotions are also signals because diplomatic culture expects practitioners to be more or less
sincere and maintain composure when they interact, and leaders and diplomats are often
acquainted with each other’s emotional tendencies from past encounters. As such, an emotional
signal is more discernable than if such conditions were absent.

Empirically, I demonstrate how different emotions – happiness, fear, anger, disappointment, etc.
– enable leaders and diplomats to overcome the different relational dilemmas they encounter
with thirteen short episodes of face-to-face diplomacy spanning from the Fashoda Crisis between
Britain and France in 1898 to the recent negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. I also provide
two detailed case studies on anger as an expression of resolve based on the face-to-face
interactions between Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Macmillan and other leaders and diplomats from
the onset of the Berlin Crisis in November 1958 to the aborted four-power summit in Paris two
years later. Throughout, I consult memoirs, diaries, correspondence, meeting transcripts and
memoranda, diplomatic cables and other primary and secondary documents for supporting
evidence.

This dissertation represents an important step forward in the literature because it is among the
first to theorize the communication of intentions in diplomatic interactions. As such, it sheds
light on the role that individual agents and relationships play in international politics.
Seanon S. Wong
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 6
Dissertation roadmap .............................................................................................................................. 8
Contributions ......................................................................................................................................... 11
Advancing a theory of diplomacy ........................................................................................................ 11
Advancing a theory of agency.............................................................................................................. 12
Understanding emotions in interpersonal interactions ......................................................................... 15
Reconceptualizing emotions as a positive force................................................................................... 17
Definitions............................................................................................................................................... 18
The actors ............................................................................................................................................. 18
Diplomacy ............................................................................................................................................ 19
Negotiation ........................................................................................................................................... 20
Emotions............................................................................................................................................... 20

Part One: Theory
Chapter 2: The Curious Neglect of Face-to-face Diplomacy in International Relations ..... 25
The “cheap talk” paradigm .................................................................................................................. 26
Neorealism............................................................................................................................................ 26
Rationalism........................................................................................................................................... 28
Constructivism ....................................................................................................................................... 38
Normative constructivism .................................................................................................................... 38
Theory of communicative action.......................................................................................................... 40
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 42
Chapter 3: How and What Emotions Communicate in Face-to-face Diplomacy................. 44
The socio-functional perspective of emotions...................................................................................... 45
The “micro” logic of emotions’ communicative function................................................................... 46
Emotions and the intentions they communicate ................................................................................. 48
Emotions that initiate talks ................................................................................................................... 49
The Sadat-Begin episode (1978)........................................................................................................................50
Emotions that assert position................................................................................................................ 51
The Rice-Putin episode (2006) ..........................................................................................................................53
Emotions that build trust ...................................................................................................................... 54
Emotions that bind................................................................................................................................ 55
The Clinton-Yeltsin episode (1997)...................................................................................................................56
From experiments in the laboratory to diplomacy in real-life .......................................................... 57
The Monson-Delcassé episode (1898)...............................................................................................................59
The Pourtalès-Sazonov episode (1914)..............................................................................................................60
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 61
Chapter 4: The Communicative Logic of Emotions in Face-to-face Diplomacy .................. 62
Emotions as indices................................................................................................................................ 62
Emotional “leakages” ........................................................................................................................... 63
The Baker-Shevardnadze episode (1990) ..........................................................................................................64
The innate ability to authenticate emotions.......................................................................................... 65
“Deterrence” against emotional deceptions.......................................................................................... 68
The Hitler-von Schuschnigg and Hitler-Chamberlain episodes (1938).............................................................70
Emotions as signals ................................................................................................................................ 72
The misconception about deceptions in diplomacy.............................................................................. 73
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Diplomacy as ongoing relationships .................................................................................................... 74
The Clinton-Lavrov episode (2009)...................................................................................................................75
The Baker-Assad episode (1992).......................................................................................................................76
The Kennedy-Dobrynin episode (1962) ............................................................................................................77
The norm of composure in diplomacy.................................................................................................. 79
The Christopher-Sacirbey and Christopher-Izetbegović episodes (1995) .........................................................83
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 85

Part Two: Two Case Studies on Anger
Chapter 5: When a Prudent Display of Anger Pays................................................................ 87
Anger as an expression of resolve: when it pays and when it backfires ........................................... 89
The onset of the Berlin Crisis and Macmillan’s “voyage of discovery” ........................................... 91
The puzzle............................................................................................................................................... 95
Rationalism........................................................................................................................................... 95
Realism ................................................................................................................................................. 97
The “unflappable Mac” lost his cool.................................................................................................... 98
Days 1 to 3: “marriage and honeymoon” ............................................................................................. 99
Days 4 to 6: Khrushchev became angry, but so did Macmillan......................................................... 100
Days 7 to 11: Khrushchev gave in...................................................................................................... 111
Potential challenges to my argument ................................................................................................. 114
The implications of Macmillan’s “voyage” ....................................................................................... 117
Chapter 6: When an Intemperate Display of Anger Backfires ............................................ 119
What the Western leaders made of Khrushchev’s personality from Macmillan’s “voyage”....... 121
Eisenhower’s impression of Khrushchev........................................................................................... 123
The U-2 spy plane incident and the run-up to the Paris Summit.................................................... 133
Khrushchev’s “manners”.................................................................................................................... 136
What was Khrushchev hoping to achieve?........................................................................................ 141
Ramifications of the summit’s failure................................................................................................ 146

Chapter 7: Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 148
Summary of argument......................................................................................................................... 148
Suggestions for future research.......................................................................................................... 151
More in-depth understanding of other emotions ................................................................................ 151
The use of experiments....................................................................................................................... 152
Understanding the emotions recognition ability of diplomats ........................................................... 156

References.................................................................................................................................. 158

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Chapter 1: Introduction

“Mahmud Qaddur, Syria’s Minister of Public Affairs, leaned over to [President Hafez] Assad.
‘Take care,’ he cautioned in Arabic. ‘He’s really angry.’ Assad seemed puzzled. ‘Why is he
angry?’ he asked. ‘We’re negotiating.’ Then he and I made eye contact. He seemed to sense that
he’d reached a certain unhealthy threshold.”
– Former US Secretary of State James Baker on negotiations in October 1991 over a
proposed peace conference on the Middle East (Baker 1995, 507).

From issues of sovereignty to arms control, trade and military-security crisis, countries
often seek to resolve their disputes through negotiations. To secure an agreement, leaders – or
more often, their diplomatic representatives – need to make their intentions clear. But to cut a
better deal, it also behooves them to be less than forthright about what they want, if not to lie
about them. Leaders and diplomats therefore frequently find themselves in what is known as the
“negotiator’s dilemma”: the simultaneous incentives to create value with others by revealing
one’s preferences, and to claim more at the expense of others by misrepresenting them (Lax and
Sebenius 1986). That motives are mixed (Schelling 1960) means that whatever one claims to be
his intentions cannot always be taken at face value. An invitation to talk might be sincere, but it
can also be a scheme to exploit others; an assertion might be heartfelt, but it can also be an
attempt to exaggerate one’s “reservation price”; a threat might be serious, but it can also be a
bluff; an urge to commit might be genuine, but it can also be a ploy to trick others into a deal one
does not intend to honor; and so on.
For instance, in September 2013, the US and Russia concluded an agreement on Syria’s
chemical disarmament after three days of intense bargaining in Geneva. At the outset, the
Americans were suspicious of Russian intentions. Was their proposal to negotiate sincere, or
Seanon S. Wong
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were they trying to buy time for the Syrian regime?
1
The American delegates confided they “had
no guarantee that the Russians were interested in an enforceable deal or willing to conclude one
quickly”. “Gauging… Russian seriousness” was “a major part of the mission”. In the end, the
Americans were not convinced that their counterpart meant business “until they got further into
their talks”.
2

For negotiations to proceed, leaders and diplomats meeting face-to-face must be able to
express, and conversely, assess each other’s intentions. How is that possible?
In this dissertation, I highlight the communicative function of emotions in diplomatic
interactions, leveraging insights from the latest research on negotiations in social and
experimental psychology. In essence, I argue that when leaders and diplomats negotiate, they pay
attention not only to what others say, but also to their emotional cues. One’s choice of words,
tone of speech, hand gestures and body language carry emotive information that reflects how one
appraises a situation, i.e. his intentions. Face-to-face diplomacy is therefore unique as a conduit
between countries because it enables leaders and diplomats acting on behalf of their government
to interact on a regular basis, acquaint with each other’s emotional personality, and expose them
firsthand to emotional cues of intentions that are otherwise lost or distorted if international
communications were conducted through other impersonal or irregular channels. This research
represents an important step forward in the literature because it is among the first to theorize the
communication of intentions in diplomatic interactions. As such, it sheds light on the role that
individual agents and relationships play in international politics.

1
Colum Lynch and Karen DeYoung, “Kerry, Lavrov to meet on Russian proposal after Russia balks at plan for U.N.
action,” Washington Post, September 10, 2013.
2
Matthew Lee, “The Big Story: US-Russia agreement on Syria baked from scratch,” Associated Press, September
14, 2013.
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Dissertation roadmap
This dissertation consists seven chapters.
In the remainder of this chapter, I discuss the contributions the current research makes to
the discipline of International Relations (IR). To ensure consistency and clarity, I also provide
definitions for some of the key concepts and terms used throughout.
Part I – consisting Chapters 2 to 4 – lays out the theoretical foundation of my argument.
Chapter 2 reviews how the relevant schools of thought in IR construe face-to-face
diplomacy and underscores the empirical puzzles they fail to address. In essence, I contend that
they fall short because they either dismiss diplomacy as a channel to communicate intentions
because talk is “cheap” – and are therefore at odds with its commonplace in international politics
(neorealism and rationalism) – or can benefit from greater understanding of the interpersonal
mechanisms that enable interlocutors to contest the validity of each other’s claims (normative
constructivism and the theory of communicative action).
To break through, I introduce in Chapter 3 the socio-functional perspective of emotions
in social and experimental psychology. I present the “reverse appraisal theory” to shed light on
emotions’ “micro” logic in interpersonal interactions. I discuss how different emotions –
happiness, fear, anger, disappointment, etc. – enable leaders and diplomats to overcome the
different relational dilemmas they encounter in face-to-face diplomacy. I anticipate the challenge
that the socio-functional perspective is ill-suited to understand interpersonal interactions in world
politics, since leaders and diplomats are presumably much more inclined to feign or conceal
emotions than in other “natural” settings given the stakes involved. I counter such challenge with
two empirical episodes that IR theorists have previously cited as “least-likely” (George and
Bennett 2005, 121-122) for diplomacy – and even less so for factors as intangible and uncertain
Seanon S. Wong
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as emotions – to matter: crisis bargaining during the Fashoda Crisis (1898) and July Crisis
(1914). They demonstrate that leaders and diplomats are no less willing to express emotions, and
conversely, to read intentions off each other’s emotions, even when the incentive to deceive –
and the incentive to avoid falling victim to deception – are high.
In Chapter 4, I further explain emotions’ communicative logic, using Robert Jervis’
(1970) distinction between indices and signals of intentions. Emotions are indices because their
displays are to a certain extent spontaneous, individuals – and according to some, practitioners of
diplomacy in particular – are able to ascertain an emotion’s authenticity accurately, and deceit is
“deterred” when it is reciprocated with intransigence and mistrust. Emotions are also signals
because diplomatic culture expects practitioners to be more or less sincere and maintain
composure when they interact, and leaders and diplomats are often acquainted with each other’s
emotional personalities from past encounters. As such, an emotional signal is more discernable
than if any of such conditions were absent.
Throughout Chapters 3 and 4, I provide supporting evidence from eleven more episodes
of face-to-face diplomacy in modern history: the Nazi invasion of Austria (1938), Sudeten Crisis
(1938), Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), Camp David negotiations (1978), First Gulf War (1990),
US-Syria negotiations on the Middle East (1991), negotiations over the Dayton Agreement
(1995), Helsinki Summit (1997), the more recent crisis between Russia and Georgia (2006) and
negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program (2009).
In Part II, which includes Chapters 5 and 6, I take my argument one step forward. Instead
of dwelling on the general claim that emotions communicate intentions, I address the question:
when leaders and diplomats negotiate, why would an expression of anger make a counterpart
yield to one’s demand in some instances but cause him to become more intransigent in others?
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In Chapter 5, I begin with a discussion on the conditions under which expressing anger is
more likely to advance one’s position. In essence, I argue that anger elicits concessions when the
leader or diplomat expressing it is not known to become angry easily. I present as my case study
the Berlin Crisis of 1958-1959, with a focus on British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s role
in convincing Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, to back down on his ultimatum when the
two leaders met in Moscow in February-March 1959.
Chapter 6 puts the corollary of my argument in Chapter 5 to test, i.e. anger causes a
counterpart to become more intransigent if the leader or diplomat expressing it has acquired ex
ante a reputation for intemperate outbursts. I present as my case study Khrushchev’s interactions
with US President Dwight Eisenhower at the aborted four-power summit in Paris in May 1960.
Throughout this dissertation, I consult memoirs, diaries, correspondence, meeting
transcripts and memoranda, diplomatic cables and other primary and secondary documents for
supporting evidence.
In the final chapter (Chapter 7), I summarize my argument, elaborate on the contributions
it makes to the literature, and conclude with three suggestions for research in the future. The first
suggestion concerns the need to develop greater insights – theoretical and empirical – on the full
repertoire of emotions that are at work in face-to-face diplomacy. Methodologically, I suggest
that in addition to more “conventional” case studies (such as those presented in this dissertation),
scholars interested in the subject can consider to use of laboratory experiments to better observe,
measure and ascertain emotions’ communicative function, including their interaction with other
factors of interest when people – including leaders and diplomats – negotiate face-to-face.
Substantively, I discuss how experiments can be designed to answer a wide range of questions in
IR. Finally, I propose one possible method to investigate whether – as the centuries-old literature
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on the “ideal diplomat” discussed in Chapter 4 suggests – practitioners of diplomacy are
particularly adept at emotions recognition. It calls for the distribution of a test on emotions
recognition ability to comparable samples of diplomatic vs. non-diplomatic elites through
“snowball” sampling.

Contributions
This dissertation is an important addition to the IR literature because it improves our
understanding of world politics in four related ways.

Advancing a theory of diplomacy
First, most people would suppose that face-to-face diplomacy is crucial to how countries
manage their relations, and more specifically, resolve crises and disputes (Sharp 2011, 709). But
IR, especially in the American academia, has long neglected the need to make sense of the
practice. As Wiseman (2011) puts it, the literature has shown “little interest in what diplomacy
is, in what diplomats do, and, indeed, in what diplomats should do” (710). The result, as
Melissen (2011) notes, is that “mainstream IR [had] developed in a way that left little room for
those who believed that diplomacy matters” (723). The practice remains somewhat of a “black
box” in the literature.
Diplomacy has received more attention among scholars elsewhere, particularly in Europe.
But this literature remains largely descriptive.
3
Practitioners and diplomatic historians have
produced most of the works, and “[n]either category of authors has been particularly interested in
theory-building” (Jönsson 2012, 16). The literature, as several scholars have pointed out over

3
An exception would be research in the English School tradition, which has long theorized diplomacy as “an order-
creating institution of international society and a process involving rules and practices to facilitate inter-state
relations” (Wiseman 2011, 711). For an earlier review and critique, see Neumann 2003.
Seanon S. Wong
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time, has “a resistance to theory” (Murray 2011, 719; see also Jönsson 2002, 212; Der Derian
1987, 91; and Constantinou 1996). Communication is often considered a raison d'être of
diplomacy that requires limited elucidation. That is notwithstanding the fact that the asymmetry
of knowledge about intentions – and the problems it poses to conflict and cooperation – is a
problematique that has long preoccupied scholars in the social sciences. As a result, “quite what
diplomacy is remains a mystery… [N]either the diplomats nor those who study them provide
much insight into how and why diplomacy works” (Sharp 2009, 1-2).
Inspirations for breakthrough, as Melissen (2011) suggests, can be sought by “look[ing]
beyond the IR/political science horizon” (724). In doing so, this dissertation joins the rank of a
nascent literature that has adopted an “extra-disciplinary” approach to study diplomacy.
4

Specifically, by focusing on the communicative function of emotions, it aspires to produce – at
least in part
5
– a theory of communication in face-to-face diplomacy.

Advancing a theory of agency
A theory of communication in face-to-face diplomacy, in turn, illuminates the role that
individual leaders and diplomats play in world politics. As I explain in the next chapter, the
dominant theories of IR – neorealism, rationalism and even constructivism – are primarily

4
For instance, Cross (2006) contends that the European diplomatic corps have served as a transnational network of
experts or “epistemic community” among the European states; Pouliot (2008) argues that diplomatic practices can
be better conceptualized through Pierre Bourdieu’s “logic of practicality” than the other logics of social action that
have dominated IR; Neumann (2012) presents an “ethnography of diplomacy” – hence answering the questions of
“what diplomats do and how they came to do it” (1) – through fieldwork at a European foreign ministry; Hall and
Yarhi-Milo (2012) shed light on the “personal touch” that often characterizes diplomatic relationships; Holmes
(2013) puts forth a similar problematique as that of this dissertation, but instead taps into discoveries in
neuroscience for answer; and Rathbun (2014) explains how negotiation outcomes are often a function of certain
psychological attributes of the leaders and diplomats involved.
5
When people interact, they also rely on other nonverbal cues – including cues that are not explicitly emotional – to
infer intentions (Ambady and Weisbuch 2010; Knapp, Hall, and Horgan 2013). For example, certain gestures
(leaning forward and affirmative head nods) elicit trust and cooperation more readily than others (arms crossed, face
touch and leaning backward) (DeSteno et al. 2012). This dissertation therefore does not claim to account for all that
goes on when leaders and diplomats communicate at close range.
Seanon S. Wong
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interested in the causal power of structural factors, material (e.g. economic and military) or
ideational (e.g. norms and rules). Ignored, then, are how interpersonal dynamics and the
behaviors and personalities of individual agents can influence the larger trajectory of events and
change in international relations.
6
IR theory, as Hudson (2005) notes, “provides much more
insight into structure than agency” (4).
But our understanding of the world cannot be complete without accounting for the impact
of those in power and the personal relationships they have developed with each other (Byman
and Pollack 2001). In Hudson’s (2005) words, “[i]f our… theories contain no human beings,
they will erroneously paint for us a world of no change, no creativity, no persuasion, no
accountability” (3). “Because personalities differ,” as Byman and Pollack (2001) argue, “it is
entirely possible that variance in the traits of individuals explains differences in international
relations” (112). Or, as Jervis (2013) notes, structural constraints of the Cold War meant that “the
range of foreign policy views” that a leader could hold “was narrowed than it is now, but even in
the previous period temperaments and styles could vary considerably” (160). Leaders, “like the
rest of us, presumably have distinctive personalities and styles that can affect behavior” (161).
Practitioners would readily agree. “[A]s a professor,” Henry Kissinger once remarked, “I
tended to think of history as run by impersonal forces. But when you see it in practice, you see
the difference personalities make” (quoted in Byman and Pollack 2001, 108). Anatoly Dobrynin,
the Soviet ambassador to the US whose tenure spanned the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson,
Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan, recalled that “[a]ll these leaders were quite different in their
temperament and in their knowledge and ability to deal with affairs of state”. One of the lessons

6
However, it should be noted that it is only with the rise of the structural variant of realism in the last three decades
– especially since the publication of Kenneth Waltz’s works (1979; 2001) – that agency assumed lesser importance
in the realist canon. Classical realists such as Hans Morgenthau have underscored the ability of leaders to manage
international relations proactively. As Lebow (2003) observes, “power was the starting point – but by no means the
end point – of his [Morgenthau’s] analysis of international affairs. He believed that successful foreign policy
depended more on the quality of diplomacy than it did on military and other capabilities” (217).
Seanon S. Wong
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of his long career is “how profoundly human nature and indeed human relations affect the
outcome of events; diplomacy, after all, is not just a public and professional skill but also a very
private and individual one” (Dobrynin 1995, 4-5). Hillary Clinton provides the latest testimony
to such current disconnect between theory and reality. She wrote in her memoir as the US
Secretary of State: “Relations between nations are based on shared interests and values” – an
allusion to the factors that realism and constructivism are wont to emphasize – “but also on
personalities. The personal element matters more in international affairs than many would
expect, for good or ill” (Clinton 2014, 207).
For sure, the call for IR to take individual leaders and diplomats seriously is not novel
(Byman and Pollack 2001; Winter 2003). But notable exceptions notwithstanding (e.g. Parsons
2002; Rathbun 2012; 2014), progress has been slow, and the reason may in part be of the subject
matter’s inherent difficulty. A “good” individual-level account – especially in view of the
dominance of structural theories in IR – requires scholars to show that the individual-level
factors under scrutiny do not simply illuminate some minor “variances” that are left unexplained
by structural forces; they need to have a meaningful impact on larger international outcomes.
This dissertation takes up that challenge. In addition to the general claim that emotions
communicate intentions in face-to-face diplomacy, I argue – particularly in Chapters 5 and 6 –
that how leaders and diplomats behave, what they make of each other’s emotional expressions,
and how they react in response are often mediated through their personalities and preexisting
relationships, i.e. how they have interacted emotionally in the past. Personal compatibilities can
bring adversaries together (e.g. the friendship between Reagan and Gorbachev [Hall and Yarhi-
Milo 2012, 567-571]), while clashes can alienate allies (e.g. the current acrimony between US
President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and antagonize
Seanon S. Wong
15

adversaries even further (e.g. Khrushchev and Eisenhower, as I explain in Chapter 6). As Byman
and Pollack (2001) put it, “personal relationships among leaders often overcome systemic
dynamics or other factors” (139). They are “at times the only thing standing between war and
peace” (Boyer et al. 2009, 25). Hence, research on emotions and emotional relationships, in
Crawford’s (2000) words, “may lead to a fundamental reconceptualization of agents and agency
in world politics” (156).

Understanding emotions in interpersonal interactions
This dissertation also contributes to the burgeoning literature on emotions in IR. Most
importantly, it shows how emotions matter at the “micro” level of face-to-face diplomacy, where
interactions are too momentary and personal to be illuminated with the literature’s extant
frameworks and methods.
For a long time, IR has overlooked emotions. “[P]olitical scientists rarely talk about
affect”, Jervis (2001) wrote at the turn of the century (294). Finnemore and Sikkink (1998)
commented almost two decades ago that “affect and empathy have been swept under the
carpet… The result is politics without passion or principles which is hardly the politics of the
world in which we live” (916). Scholars have shown greater interest in emotions more recently,
particularly since Crawford’s (2000) seminal article over a decade ago. Most studies, however,
are concerned with conceptualizing emotions as a group, intergroup or systemic phenomenon.
7

7
For instance, Lebow (2008) explores the vicissitude of emotionally-driven motives as a cause of war in the longue
durée, and in a follow-up study (Lebow 2010), demonstrates how they were responsible for conflicts in modern
history; Hall (2011) theorizes a “state-level display of anger” (521) based on the 1995-1996 Taiwan Straits Crisis;
Eznack (2011) looks at affective relationships among allies; Kaufman (2001), Petersen (2002) and Ross (2013)
illuminate the role of emotions in ethnic and international conflicts; Sasley (2011) contends that the literature lacks
“a broader theoretical framework” to understand “how states (and also other group actors) can be said to have
emotions or to act emotionally” (453), and develops one based on intergroup emotions theory; Solomon (2014)
theorizes the affective underpinnings of a country’s soft power; Bleiker and Hutchison’s (2008) call for IR scholars
to adopt “feminist and other interpretive approaches” stems from the alleged need to “assess the broader societal
Seanon S. Wong
16

As Hall and Ross (2015) recently wrote, “[m]uch of what interests IR scholars occur at the level
of the state and other corporate actors” (10). Meanwhile, whenever individual leaders and
diplomats are the subject of inquiry, particularly in the subfield of foreign policy analysis, the
focus has been on how the intrapersonal experience of emotions influences decision-making and
beliefs (e.g. Marcus 2000; Hymans 2006; McDermott 2004; Mercer 2010; 2013; Michel 2013;
Mitzen and Schweller 2011; Hall and Ross 2015, 3-10; Renshon and Lerner 2012)
8
rather than
the role of emotions in interpersonal interactions (Odell 2013, 385; Odell and Tingley 2013, 171-
172).
9
The extant literature is therefore ill-equipped to illuminate the practice of face-to-face
diplomacy.
But no explanations for how diplomacy “works” – and by extension, how countries
manage their relations – can be complete without factoring the dynamics of emotions at the
interpersonal level. As Alisher Faizullaev (2006), a longtime practitioner-turned-scholar,
suggests, “emotions play a significant role in diplomacy… [They] have a pervasive effect on
negotiation behavior and outcomes, especially when negotiators are both motivated and able to
act on the information available in the opponents’ emotions” (513). As the top Soviet envoy to
the US throughout much of the Cold War, Anatoly Dobrynin (1995) wrote: “We saw many
conflicts emerge and saw them resolved, but not without strained negotiations, claims and
counterclaims, and emotional debates” (5). Similarly, James Baker (1995) asserts in his memoir

dynamics through which emotions help to shape the constitution of community, and thus the context within which
politics… takes place” (122); in his critique of Wendtian constructivism, Ross (2006) looks at the “[c]irculation of
affect”, which “cut[s] across individual subjects and forge collective associations from socially induced habits and
memories” (199); and finally, a number of authors have examined humiliation and the desire for vengeance as
drivers of foreign policy, such as Gries (2004) on China, Saurette (2006) on American response to 9/11, and
Löwenheim and Heimann (2008) and Fattah and Fierke (2009) on conflict in the Middle East. More recent works
that fall under this category include Hall 2015; Hall and Ross 2015; and Mercer 2014. For a partial review, see
Hutchison and Bleiker 2014.
8
For a review, see Stein 2013, 377-386.
9
Such preoccupation with the intrapersonal effects of emotions is in large part symptomatic of how emotions have
been studied in psychology, from which IR scholars have borrowed many of their insights. I elaborate on this point
in Chapter 3.
Seanon S. Wong
17

that among other advantages, diplomatic meetings facilitate the exchange of tone and body
language (460). Madeleine Albright (2003) claims that “[i]nterpreters play a vital but overlooked
part in diplomacy” and the best ones are those who can “translate not only words but also points
of emphasis and tone, and are careful to ensure that idiomatic expressions are not
misunderstood” (254). In Hillary Clinton’s most recent memoir as the Secretary of State, there
are numerous instances in which she relied on the gestures, inflections, tones and body language
of her foreign counterparts as evidence about their intentions (Clinton 2014, 88, 209, 273, 212).
Practitioners of diplomacy have made the case that emotions matter in what they do; it is the
scholar’s job to explain why and how.

Reconceptualizing emotions as a positive force
Finally, this dissertation also calls into question the belief that emotions play no
constructive role in world politics. Emotions have been conventionally portrayed in IR as
“epiphenomenal at best and a source of irrationality at worst” (Mercer 2006, 288). The more
recent works cited in the section above have strived to do away with the former characterization
by demonstrating emotions’ centrality in explaining many phenomena of interest. Yet emotions
are still largely seen as a force for bad, either because they interfere with “rational” beliefs and
decisions, or because they constitute the psychological impulses for aggression and conflict.
But as Lebow (2008) puts it, IR “has stressed… [the] negative influence [of emotions]…
on behavior. The time is long overdue… to acknowledge and study the positive contribution of
emotions, harnessed to reason, order and cooperation” (515). Recent advances in psychology
have shown that emotions are critical to social engagement and cooperation. More
fundamentally, they call into question the long-held view that when people negotiate, emotions
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18

should be purged and suppressed because they are anathema to sound judgments and proper
relationships (Van Kleef and Sinaceur 2013). “If two parties have a difference of opinion but
neither has an emotional reaction,” Van Kleef, De Dreu, and Manstead (2004a) remark, “there
will be no negotiation” (57). Without the back-and-forth of emotions, people – including leaders
and diplomats – would find understanding each other a lot more elusive.

Definitions
Before I present my argument in detail, a clarification on some of the key terms and
concepts used throughout this dissertation is necessary.

The actors
First, the current research is concerned with how leaders and diplomats – acting on behalf
of the countries they represent – communicate intentions through face-to-face interactions. As
Jervis (1970) puts it, “[t]he attitudes and behavior of an individual can constitute an index to a
state’s intentions if it is a sample of the characteristics of those in power” (32). As such, my “unit
of analysis” encompasses a rather wide range of actors, including not only national leaders (e.g.
heads of governments and states at summit meetings) and those formally delegated the
responsibility of diplomacy (US Secretary of State, foreign ministers, ambassadors, career
diplomats, etc.), but also others who practice diplomacy in an unofficial capacity. Some
prominent examples that fall under the latter category would be Henry Kissinger as National
Security Advisor during Richard Nixon’s first term as US President and Robert F. Kennedy
acting on behalf of his brother during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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19

Diplomacy
Another term that requires clarification is “diplomacy”. “Diplomacy” is often used in
academic and popular discourses to refer to a strategy of foreign policy, i.e. the resolution of
international conflicts through peaceful means as opposed to the use of force. My focus,
however, is on diplomacy as a practice – that is, the profession, activities and skills involved – in
the management of international relations. My review of the literature therefore excludes works
that have “diplomacy” as their subject matter, but whose meaning are more in line with the
former understanding of the term (e.g. Art and Cronin 2003).
But what does the practice of diplomacy actually entail? Leaders and diplomats are
responsible for an array of international activities, from the promotion of trade and culture to the
protection of nationals abroad. But the most critical activity of all – and certainly the most
pertinent to the current research – is the advancement of national interests through international
negotiations, face-to-face or otherwise. In Harold Nicolson’s ([1939]1988) words, diplomacy is
“the art of negotiating agreements between Sovereign States” (7). The Oxford English
Dictionary similarly defines diplomacy as “the management of international relations by
negotiation”. In fact, “[a] very substantial portion of the diplomat’s time”, Reychler (1979) wrote
after extensive interviews with the diplomatic corps in the US, “… consists of bargaining and
persuasion designed to convinced foreigners and fellow nationals alike to take some action,
cooperate in some venture, or see a problem in a certain way” (5). It would not be an
exaggeration to claim that practitioners of diplomacy are first and foremost international
negotiators.

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20

Negotiation
What, then, is a negotiation? Following Pruitt and Carnevale (1993), a negotiation can be
defined as “a discussion between two or more parties aimed at resolving incompatible goals. The
parties involved may be individuals, groups, organizations, or political units such as countries or
the UN Security Council. When there are incompatible goals, a state of social conflict exists.
Hence, negotiation is a way of dealing with social conflict” (xv). In IR, Odell (2000) has
provided a similar definition: a negotiation is “a sequence of actions in which two or more
parties address demands and proposals to each other for the ostensible purposes of reaching an
agreement and changing the behavior of at least one actor” (4). As I explained in the opening
paragraph of this chapter, the parties concerned are often under both the incentives to cooperate
and to compete. They have mixed motives. It is such “negotiator’s dilemma” – in diplomacy or
other realms of social interaction – that makes the communication of intentions a problematique
that requires illumination (Pruitt and Carnevale 1993, 18, 24).

Emotions
Finally, at its core, this dissertation argues that emotions communicate intentions in face-
to-face diplomacy. But what are emotions?
Emotions are in fact as intuitive a concept to most people as they are impossible to be
defined in a way that satisfies all those who have studied and written about them. At their most
basic, emotions are “the inner states that individuals describe to others as feelings, and those
feelings may be associated with biological, cognitive, and behavioral states and changes”
(Crawford 2000, 123; emphasis original).
10
However, scholars – from disciplines as varied as
philosophy, evolutionary biology, anthropology, sociology, psychology and neuroscience –

10
See the rest of Crawford (2000, 123) for a more elaborate definition.
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21

differ greatly in the assumptions they make about the ontology (i.e. what are they?) and
epistemology (how do we know about them?) of emotions, and the methodologies they use to
study them.
11
The current research is no exception. By suggesting that there is much to learn
from social and experimental psychology, I am aware of the necessity to be forthright about the
assumptions implicit in that literature, contrast it with how IR has conceptualized and studied
emotions in the past, and as such, make explicit both its strength and inadequacy.
As I explain in greater detail in Chapter 3, the psychological approach is premised on the
reverse application of what is known as the appraisal theory of emotions. Under such approach,
an emotion is considered an objective piece of information that an observer can utilize to infer
how its expresser appraises a situation. As a “scientific” approach, it also assumes that a
researcher is able to identify and measure the discrete emotions at work in an interaction,
develop generalizable hypotheses on their communicative function, and subject them to testing
through further observations.
But constructivists – especially “strong” constructivists (Crawford 2000, 128-129) –
might find such approach objectionable, since its positivist assumptions are at odds with their
conviction that an emotional experience can only be understood in context. Psychological
studies, as Bleiker and Hutchison (2008) contend, “fall short of explaining how emotions are
enmeshed in larger socio-political dynamics” (117). As such, they recommend the use of
“various interpretative approaches” from the humanities (126). Fattah and Fierke (2009)
maintain that emotions are “socially meaningful expressions, which depend on shared customs,
uses and institutions” (70). Bially Mattern (2011) similarly argues that emotions are practices
that emerge from and are therefore irreducible to any of its constitutive components: cognitive,

11
In addition to Crawford (2000, 123-129) in IR, see de Sousa 2003 for a comprehensive review of the literature on
emotions across disciplines and Solomon 2003 for a compilation of classic and contemporary writings on emotions.
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22

biological and social (63-69). A practice theory of emotions therefore calls for an
“anthropological empirical research method”, which “requires the analyst to decode the
international social meanings expressed by human bodies-in-action [i.e. emotions] in particular
international social settings” (82).
However, decades of debate among psychologists and cultural anthropologists have led to
the emerging consensus that while context influences emotional experiences through the
imposition of display rules – i.e. the “socially learned, often culturally different… rules about the
management of expression, about who can show which emotion to whom and when they can do
so” (Ekman 2003, 4) – emotions themselves and their underlying appraisal “themes” are innate
and universal.
12
Anger, for instance, signifies dissatisfaction and blame; only in the most
unimaginable context would its expression be motivated or meaning interpreted in the opposite
direction. Emotions are social, but not “all the way down”.
The objective of this dissertation is not to engage in this debate per se. Instead, I follow
the psychological approach and assume that nomothetic knowledge about emotions – for
instance, the observations that ceteris paribus, anger conveys resolve (e.g. Van Kleef, De Dreu,
and Manstead 2004a), but persistent anger decreases interpersonal trust (Filipowicz, Barsade,
and Melwani 2011) – is attainable. That, I argue, is what makes its current introduction into the
IR literature on emotions a timely one. As Sasley (2011) observes in his review of this literature,
“[u]nfortunately, many… of these studies fall within the poststructuralist or critical constructivist
approach to IR, which means that other paradigms are under-represented… [B]ut… emotions
[are not] only… a constructivist or postpositivist ‘thing’…[E]motions are relevant for all IR
approaches” (455). In other words, by adopting a more “positivist” stance in my definition of

12
For an overview of this debate, see Ekman 2003, chs. 1-2.
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23

emotions and how they can be studied, this dissertation brings to IR a more balanced
understanding of emotions.
At the same time, however, I acknowledge that the psychological approach’s claim to
generalizability only goes so far, bearing in mind the constructivist caveat that the expression
and meaning of an emotion may ultimately be bounded by the intersubjective understandings
that interlocutors share. As I demonstrate in Chapters 5 and 6, and particularly in Chapter 4,
diplomatic behaviors do generally conform to the hypotheses that proponents of the
psychological approach have affirmed empirically. Yet often times, what leaders and diplomats
make of their emotional exchanges is mediated through certain display rules specific to the
context of diplomacy.

I now turn to a review of the relevant IR theories and how they have approached face-to-
face diplomacy.
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Part One:
Theory
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Chapter 2: The Curious Neglect of Face-to-face Diplomacy in International Relations

“[I]t is always more advantageous for the practised diplomatist to negotiate face to face, because
by that means he can discover the true intentions of those with whom he is dealing.”
– On the manner of negotiating with sovereigns, François de Callières ([1716]1963, 120).

When leader and diplomats negotiate face-to-face, how do they convey what is in their
mind? On the other hand, how do they discern claims of intentions that are sincere from those
intended to deceive or mislead? From economics to political science, social psychology and
evolutionary biology, scholars in the social sciences have long sought to understand how
individuals and other social groups communicate intentions. In IR, the dominant schools of
thought have put forth their own answers, some more directly than others. Frequently, they
disagree on what constitutes information about intentions and the nature of communication (i.e.
the question of ontology) and how actors learn, construct and update their beliefs about each
other (the question of actor epistemology).
Broadly speaking, the literature can be divided into two camps: those who assume that
face-to-face diplomacy in itself can amount to little more than just “cheap talk” – neorealists and
rational choice theorists (or rationalists) – and constructivists who disagree and argue that
communication can be meaningful because of the intersubjective knowledge that interlocutors
share in an interaction. The latter includes proponents of normative constructivism and the theory
of communicative action. In this chapter, I provide a detailed review of both camps. I argue that
they have produced understandings of face-to-face diplomacy that do not quite match up to –
sometimes even grossly at odds with – the reality of international politics. IR cannot fully
appreciate the practice as a channel of communication between countries without taking into
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26

account the interpersonal dynamics that transpire when leaders and diplomats interact, especially
through the exchange of emotions.

The “cheap talk” paradigm
The “cheap talk” paradigm has dominated IR theory, particularly in the American
academia. Its proponents, including both neorealists and rationalists, assume that by itself, any
act of private communication – including but not limited to face-to-face interactions – cannot be
meaningful. To be credible, some exogenous factors that imply the veracity of a claim or
constrain an actor’s incentive to misrepresent must be present, and these factors are objective
knowledge shared by the parties involved.

Neorealism
According to neorealists, the lack of a higher authority under international anarchy means
that “[s]tatesmen and diplomats are rarely punished for lying” (Mearsheimer 2011, 9). As such,
there is very little reason to take what they say to each other seriously. One’s proclaimed
intentions may be intended to deceive. But even if he is speaking his mind, there is no way for
others to know for sure. In Mearsheimer’s (2006) words, “[l]eaders may say that their intentions
are benign, but talk is cheap” (123). Communication, in other words, is “irrelevant” in neorealist
thinking (Majeski and Fricks 1995, 625) because at the end of the day, intentions are private
information. Neither do leaders and diplomats rely on an opponent’s track accord for honesty to
gauge the credibility of a claim, since “they can never be sure that they will not be duped by a
state with good reputation” (Mearsheimer 2011, 89).
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Hence, the only reliable proxy for intentions is material power, because it leaves no doubt
in the mind of an observer (Mearsheimer 2003; Press 2005). It is “much easier… to count and
assess another country’s military capabilities, which are tangible assets that can be seen by the
naked eye”, Mearsheimer (2011) argues. “Intentions, on the other hand, are ultimately in the
minds of policymakers, making them impossible to observe and measure” (29). As such, a leader
or diplomat who proposes to cooperate at the negotiation table should not be trusted if he is
powerful enough to defect without much consequences. Conversely, he could threaten to punish
his counterpart if a demand is not met. But he should not expect others to take him seriously if he
lacks the power to back his threat. Diplomacy does not add much to what one is already able to
infer from the prevailing balance of power. As Rathbun (2007) notes, “[p]ower is what resolves
conflicts, not signaling resolve… [P]ower speaks for itself in realism” (540).
Paradoxically, Mearsheimer (2011) concludes that misrepresentation is more the
exception than the norm in international politics. The general impression might be that “interstate
lying is routine behavior among statesmen and diplomats”. But “I had difficulty finding those
cases”, he continues. “I was especially surprised by how difficult it was to find evidence of states
attempting to bluff each other in bargaining situations” (Mearsheimer 2011, 13). “[P]olitical
leaders and their diplomatic representatives tell each other the truth far more often than they lie”
(25). Simply put, lying is uncommon, “including arms-control and war-termination negotiations
on the security side and international debt, trade, and monetary dealings on the economic side”
(40-41).
This might sound counterintuitive given realism’s association with the Machiavellian
practice of diplomacy. But it is logical; in fact, it cannot be otherwise if the theory is to remain
consistent. “[W]hen it comes to important matters of state,” Mearsheimer (2011) argues, leaders
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28

and diplomats “are unlikely to trust pronouncements by another government unless they can
verify them” (28). Since intentions are ultimately “in the minds of policymakers”, any attempt to
communicate them – truthfully or otherwise – can only fall on deaf ears. Hence,
misrepresentations are rare not because leaders and diplomats are honest, but because they do not
expect others to be trusting enough to fall for them. A corollary of such reasoning is that
whatever leaders and diplomats are wont to say to each other must be very likely to be true, yet
so self-evident that they hardly convey anything one does not already know or cannot readily
verify. Through diplomacy or otherwise, communication is epiphenomenal, if not redundant. As
the historian A. J. P. Taylor (1954) puts it, “wars make the decisions; diplomacy merely records
them” (246).

Rationalism
But the school of thought that has spilt the most ink on the communication of intentions –
and thus dominated IR’s understanding of face-to-face diplomacy – is rationalism. Like the
neorealists, scholars in the rational choice tradition have also dismissed diplomacy as a channel
to communicate.
Writing on the particular context of international military-security crises, Fearon (1995)
argues that there are three major reasons why cooperation often fails: issue indivisibilities,
commitment problems, and the most relevant for our purpose, “private information about relative
capabilities or resolve and incentives to misrepresent” (381-382; emphasis original). Ideally,
leaders and diplomats should be candid about such information, because doing so enables them
to identify possible ways to settle the dispute in question rather than prolonging it. But any
rational actor would want a better cut of the deal, and is thus predisposed to ask for more than
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29

what is minimally acceptable. The incentive to misrepresent – or more aptly, the perception that
others are predisposed to misrepresent – means that leaders and diplomats would find it difficult
to discern the credible from the incredible. Behind closed doors, an actor may say that he is
sincere about cooperation, resolute about his position, serious about a threat or committed to an
agreement, but so may someone who is insincere, irresolute, bluffing or uncommitted. Private
communication is so much “cheap talk” (Fearon 1994, 579). By itself, the act of talking confers
no credibility to what one claims to be his intentions. Logically, then, leaders and diplomats
“cannot always use quiet diplomatic conversations to discover mutually preferable settlement”
(Fearon 1995, 400; emphasis added).
Rationalists, in other words, concur with the neorealists that intentions are in the end only
privately known. They differ, however, on the issue of actor epistemology; that is, they make
different assumptions about how willing are actors to take risk given the uncertainty of private
information. While both assume “objective evaluation of information in an anarchic setting of
asymmetric and incomplete information about the intentions of other states, they make different
predictions about how states cope with that challenge” (Rathbun 2007, 538). Since caution is
paramount in the neorealist worldview, claims of intentions are discredited. On the other hand,
rationalists assume that leaders and diplomats remain receptive to what others say, and update
their beliefs about each other following Bayesian logic (Rathbun 2007, 542-543).
Under such logic, the credibility of a claim is established when it is communicated in a
way that allows others to infer that the speaker means what he proclaims, i.e. he is not an
“imposter”. As Jervis (2001) puts it,
[T]he only behaviors that are informative are those that distinguish among actors who
will react differently, or, to use the term now often employed, actor “types”. If I am to
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30

figure out whether another state is bluffing or not, or whether its apparent hostility is
rooted in fear or expansionism, or whether a potential ally will come to my assistance if I
am attacked, I should look only at behavior that discriminates between the alternative
possibilities. Thus I should pay no attention to the things that both a bluffer and a serious
state would do, to a posture that both a fearful state and an aggressor would assume, or to
a promise that both a trustworthy and an untrustworthy ally would make (296-297).
Specifically, a claim carries weight if the speaker is expected to suffer should he turns out
to be disingenuous, i.e. the claim is accompanied by actions, expressed in a manner, or puts the
speaker in a position that are potentially “costly”. Echoing Schelling (1960), Fearon posits that –
among other types of “costly signals” (e.g. mobilization of troops in a military-security crisis
[Fearon 1994, 396]) – credibility is established when a leader or diplomat is willing to state his
intentions publicly. Since his domestic constituency and international allies (i.e. his “audience”)
are expected to punish him if he backtracks on his statements aboard – because they care about
their country’s “loss of credibility, face or honor” – he is considered more credible than if
communication were conducted privately. To put simply, if he is willing to express himself
through “forceful public speeches” (Fearon 1994, 581), chances are that he means what he says.
Fearon’s thesis has spawned a prodigious body of works over the past two decades exploring the
dynamics of so-called “audience costs” in world politics or whose arguments are premised on the
“audience costs” logic (e.g. Guisinger and Smith 2002; Tomz 2007; Smith 1998; Schultz 2001a;
2001b; Slantchev 2006; Clare 2007; Weeks 2008; Brown and Marcum 2011; Uzonyi, Souva, and
Golder 2012; Weiss 2013).
13

Recent research, however, has called into question if “audience costs” are at all
empirically relevant. By the turn of the century, this rationalist literature was “still largely

13
This literature is vast. For a review, see contributions in Security Studies 21(3), 2012.
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31

theoretical” (Powell 2002, 1). Such observation is still more or less true today. As Gartzke and
Lupu (2012) note more recently, “[n]otwithstanding the absence of a compelling empirical case
for or against audience costs, much of the discipline has grown fond of Fearon's basic
framework” (391). Moreover, the “audience costs” argument does not appear to hold water upon
process-tracing of historical cases. “[D]omestic audience costs mechanisms rarely play a
significant role,” Snyder and Borghard (2011) conclude after examining a number of crises since
World War II, “let alone the ‘crucial’ one that Fearon… claims” (437). Similarly, Trachtenberg
(2012) concludes from his case studies that “the audience costs mechanism is not nearly as
important as Fearon and many other scholars have assumed” (38). Better operationalization of
variables has also cast into serious doubt the validity of the quantitative studies in this literature
(Downes and Sechser 2012). Finally, experiments have shown that leaders do not suffer from
audience costs if new information indicates that backing down from a statement is sensible
(Levendusky and Horowitz 2012).
Most critically, however, it appears that under the influence of this literature, mainstream
IR has come to accept the premise that public statements are “costly”, and with it,
unproblematically assumed that its converse – that is, private communication is “cheap” – is
empirically accurate (Johnson 1993).
14
As scholars focus on public communications that
occurred during any historical event, they rarely investigate if the leaders and diplomats involved
actually learned anything from the behind-the-scene exchanges that almost invariably took place
in parallel, or even point out their occurrence. Interstate communications are as a result reduced

14
That talk is “cheap” and a claim of intentions must be costly to be credible have assumed wide currency beyond
the more “traditional” realm of security studies in IR. For instance, in the literature on terrorism, Kydd and Walter
(2006) contend that “verbal statements are often not credible, because actors frequently have incentives to lie and
bluff… Because talk is cheap, states and terrorists who wish to influence the behavior of an adversary must resort to
costly signals” (57-58).
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32

to a game of “costly signaling” in which the role of individuals, personalities and interpersonal
interactions is more or less dispensed with.
For instance, rationalists have argued that at the height of the Fashoda Crisis (1898), it
was Lord Salisbury’s “public speeches” (Fearon 1994, 582) and his deliberate attempt to stoke
outrage in the public (Schultz 2001b, 186-187) that enabled Britain to signal resolve and
convinced France to back down. Rarely mentioned are the numerous meetings he had with the
French ambassador in London, and between the French foreign minister and the British
ambassador in Paris, as the two governments sought to negotiate their way out of imminent
conflict (Brown 1970). Likewise, during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), it was President
Kennedy’s “televised speech” demanding the Soviets to back down (Fearon 1994, 582) and the
capacity of American democracy to generate “audience costs” vis-à-vis the oligarchic Soviet
Union (Brown and Marcum 2011) that explained the course of the crisis. Overlooked, then, is the
“principal private channel to Moscow” established between the US President’s “closest
confidant… his brother Robert Kennedy”, and the Soviet ambassador in Washington, Anatoly
Dobrynin. During the crisis, the two had “almost daily conversations” (Dobrynin 1995, 75-77),
the last of which – according to Dobrynin (Lebow and Stein 1994, 126) – was “critical” to the
crisis’ resolution.
15

Theoretical parsimony may be justified if explanatory power is gained in return. But, as
Lustick (1996) argues, “[i]f social scientists test their theories against historical episodes by
selecting those accounts of the episodes which are organized and presented according to the
categories and propositions of the theories they are testing, then it will be no great surprise to
learn that the theories receive ‘empirical’ support from the exercise” (610). Such is what has
happened in the audience costs literature. To borrow Thies’ (2002) words, scholars oftentimes

15
These two crises will be discussed in greater detail in subsequent chapters.
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33

“stylize their theory, then stylize the ‘facts’ to fit the theory… [T]he result is a closed circle”
(364).
Unfortunately, the dominance of neorealism and rationalism – and with them, the “cheap
talk” paradigm – have resulted in a curious neglect of face-to-face diplomacy in IR. Such neglect
is curious because diplomacy is an ever-present feature of international relations. As Jackson
(2000) notes, “negotiation by diplomacy is as common as conflict itself” (324). According to his
tally, there were at least 295 violent international disputes from 1945 to 1995. Among them, 171
(or 58%) experienced negotiations. The total number of negotiation attempts pertaining to these
disputes was 1,154, and 47% of them had successful led to a dispute’s resolution (329-311). He
concludes that in a dispute, “when neither party is prepared to meet face-to-face… this increases
the chances of misperception and miscommunication” (Jackson 2000, 338). An earlier study by
Holsti (1966) similarly revealed that of the 77 international conflicts the occurred between 1919
and 1965, there were 47 attempts to resolve them through negotiations. Diplomatic negotiations,
in short, are “recurrent, widespread, and important… [They are] far more pervasive than war,
fortunately, yet far less studied” (Odell 2000, 4).
In fact, practitioners have long recognized that the best way to gauge an opponent’s
intentions is to meet with him in person, as de Callières’ quote at the beginning of this chapter,
written three centuries ago, suggests. “[I]t is impossible to form a just notion of the true character
of things except by first-hand acquaintance”, he also wrote (de Callieres [1716]1963, 47-48).
Leaders and diplomats in the modern days would agree. “I was to find throughout my years as
[US] Secretary [of State] that travel was an efficient use of time”, Madeleine Albright wrote in
her memoir, “because face-to-face meetings were action-forcing” (Albright 2003, 277).
Similarly, Condoleezza Rice wrote: “it’s much easier as secretary of state to drive the agenda
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34

when you’re abroad… [W]ith all the technological possibilities of phone and video, diplomacy is
best practiced in person” (Rice 2012, 291). “[P]hysical presence trumps electronic presence”,
Colin Powell also proclaimed (Powell 2014, 56). Finally, in one of the ten “Parting Thoughts for
America’s Diplomats” he offered upon his retirement, William Burns, a 33-year veteran at the
US Department of State, admonished his colleagues to “[m]aster the fundamentals”. “In today's
world of digital and virtual relationships, there is still no alternative to old-fashioned human
interactions – not in business, romance, or diplomacy”. Quoting an advice that another respected
diplomat put forth over half-century earlier, Burns continued: “The really critical link in the
international communications chain is the last three feet, which is best bridged by personal
contact – one person talking to another” (Burns 2014).
In fact, it is the intimate – and therefore private – setting of diplomacy that practitioners
appear to appreciate most, since it enables them to express themselves more freely than if they
were to interact in the public eye. As Hillary Clinton commented with reference to the Action
Group on Syria convened in June 2012:
The public portion of international meetings like this is typically scripted... and it can be
rather boring. The action generally starts when the cameras leave. That’s what happened
here… We left the ceremonial hall and crowded into a long rectangular room… Emotions
ran high; at one point Ministers were shouting at one another and even pounding the
table. Eventually the commotion settled into a running argument between me and
[Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov (Clinton 2014, 386).
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35

In short, leaders and diplomats often go to great lengths – quite literally
16
– to meet with each
other, often behind closed doors, exchange conversations outsiders may never be privy to, and
expect to learn something about each other’s intentions.
But how can we reconcile such commonplace of face-to-face diplomacy and the value
that leaders and diplomats apparently see in it with its dismissal that is implied under IR’s “cheap
talk” paradigm?
For sure, the “elephant in the room” of private communication has not gone unnoticed.
As one rationalist scholar remarks, “the argument regarding the incentive to misrepresent puts
scholars in the uncomfortable position of believing that direct ‘cheap talk’ diplomacy between
countries at least occasionally… reveals private information… [B]ut no immediate answer as to
why this is possible” (Ramsay 2011, 1003). Tingley and Walter (2011) similarly observe that
“[v]erbal claims about one’s intentions may be costless, but… they appear to influence behavior
in ways we do not fully understand” (997-998). Yet, the arguments that have been offered more
recently to explain “cheap talk” – formally derived
17
or otherwise
18
– are no less problematic.
First of all, their reasoning is no less dependent on costs. If private communication is at all
credible in their models, it is because the information structure is set up in a way that enables

16
The amount of time that leaders and diplomats spend travelling to meet with one another is breathtaking. For
instance, Warren Christopher (2001) logged almost 800,000 miles during his four-year tenure as the US Secretary of
State (192). Powell (2014) travelled to 37 countries and accumulated almost 150,000 miles during his first year as
the US’ top diplomat (55). As his successor, Rice (2012) visited 46 countries and recorded more than 170,000 miles
in just nine months (395). Finally, Hillary Clinton logged nearly one million miles with 87 full days in the air over
her four-year tenure as Secretary (Garber 2013).
17
These scholars argue that private communication can be credible for a number of reasons, such as when a leader
or diplomat is concerned with a country’s international reputation (Sartori 2002; Guisinger and Smith 2002); the
need to maintain secrecy in order to insulate an opponent from adverse domestic consequences should he wishes to
capitulate (Kurizaki 2007); the incentive to avoid public commitment and therefore lock-in of bargaining positions,
even under perfect information (Tarar and Leventoğlu 2009); the disincentive among less resolved states to
misrepresent lest they jeopardize other aspects of a relationship that are more important (Trager 2010); and the
reluctance to forego negotiations when conflicts are obviously undesirable (Ramsay 2011).
18
Yarhi-Milo (2013) contends that secret agreements, if publically disclosed, make the parties involved vulnerable
to domestic punishments. The leverage an adversary holds over the possibility of disclosure thus makes one’s
commitment to an agreement credible.
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36

actors to believe that a counterpart is disinclined to misrepresent himself (i.e. he is expected to
suffer from costs of some sort if he fails to follow through with his words), not because they are
actually able to make anything of the interaction itself. Moreover, most of these works remain
largely theoretical, i.e. they do not offer sufficient evidence to demonstrate their logics’ bearing
on reality. If the rationalist literature is suffering from an “empirical deficit” as its critics often
claim, a proper response would not be to offer yet more abstract theorizing.
But more fundamentally, why should private communications be explained (or explained
away) by adding more auxiliary assumptions about actor incentives to the “cheap talk”
paradigm? Doing so would be progressive if it yields greater explanatory power. But if empirical
evidence departs significantly from what the prevailing paradigm predicts – and I argue that the
ubiquity of face-to-face diplomacy is too significant for scholars to ignore – then perhaps nothing
short of a paradigm shift is required. As Majeski and Fricks (1995) put it, “[b]ecause cheap talk
abounds in international relations and because nation-states do unexpectedly cooperate in
competitive settings, discounting the effects of cheap talk may be unwise” (625).
19

19
Some readers might cry foul against my review of neorealism and rationalism. As a structural theory, neorealism
is concerned with how states as anthropomorphosized actors – rather than particular individuals within them –
perceive each other. It is also concerned with intentions in the long run, not with what one’s counterpart wants over
some particular issue at the negotiation table. Hence, when Mearsheimer (2003) argues that rising Chinese power
potentially threatens the US, he is referring to the uncertainty of Chinese intentions years if not decades down the
road, not – for example – if the Hillary Clinton considered the Chinese Foreign Minister’s “livid” claim of
ownership over the South China Sea is genuine at the ASEAN Regional Forum in 2010 (Clinton 2014, 79) (or, in
the opening example in Chapter 1, if the Americans delegation deemed their Russian counterparts serious about
ridding Syria of chemical weapons). Similarly, the rationalist literature was originally concerned with conflicts
where stakes are high and events fast-changing, such as military-security crises (Fearon 1994; 1995). It is in such
conflicts that payoffs from successful misrepresentation are the greatest and most quickly realized (Lipson 1984).
Presumably, then, the assumption that talk is “cheap” – and with it, that private communication is futile – becomes
less tenable as one’s attention shifts from crisis bargaining to more “mundane” and protracted negotiations, such as
negotiations over sovereignty, arms control, trade, climate change and other issues of “low” politics, since their
participants would be more willing to give each other the benefit of the doubt. It is thus unfair to criticize these
theories for failing to elucidate what transpires when leaders and diplomats meet face-to-face, since they were never
intended to do so. But that is precisely my argument. To clarify where the explanatory power of one theory ends and
another begins is part of the objective of the current research. Neorealism is perhaps most pertinent to understand
how states ascertain intentions over long time horizons under international anarchy, while rationalism is most
applicable to crisis scenarios where talk is in fact “cheapest”. Problems arise, however, when their proponents have
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37

The fundamental problem of the “cheap talk” paradigm is that private communication is
never “cheap” to begin with. Such belief, in fact, is more an inevitable outcome of the
ontological and epistemological assumptions that rationalism makes concerning communication
than an empirical truth. The primary objectives of rationalism are to understand the actions
available to actors given the information structure of their environment and how they would
interact with each other strategically (Lake and Powell 1999, 8-9). As a structural paradigm, it
cannot shed light on the dynamics that occur when actors interact face-to-face. After all, as Odell
(2013) notes, game-theoretical works are “not designed to illuminate explicit negotiator behavior
at the micro level, and typical models do not come with nuanced empirical observations at that
level” (387).
But just as the verbal content of any conversation has been found in social psychology to
carry only a portion of its meaning (Mehrabian 1972), “nonverbal messages or ‘body language’
constitute important aspects of diplomatic communication” (Jönsson and Hall 2005, 84).
20
As
Darwin ([1872]1999) observed long ago, “[t]he movements of [emotional] expression [in the
face and body] give vividness and energy to our spoken words. They reveal the thoughts and
intentions of others more truly than do words” (359). Or, as Watkins and Rosegrant (2001) wrote
in their manual on international diplomatic negotiations, “information gathered at the table
should be subjected to commonsense tests for plausibility, consistency, and congruence with
body language, facial expressions, voice tone, and other signals” (115). In the broader literature
on negotiations, Thompson (2009) wrote that “[f]ace-to-face communication conveys the richest
information because it allows for the simultaneous observation of multiple clues, including body
language, facial expression, and tone of voice” (320). Hence, even if we concede to the idea that

stretched their theories to explain phenomena that are beyond their typological “space” and dismiss diplomacy’s
utility wholesale.
20
For a seminal compendium on nonverbal communication, see Knapp, Hall, and Horgan 2013.
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38

the act of speaking is in and of itself “cheap”, there is still much that goes on when leaders and
diplomats interact at close range the “cheap talk” paradigm has no explanation for.
21
Illuminating
the communicative function of emotions would not yield a complete picture of face-to-face
diplomacy,
22
but it would be a good place to start.
23

Before I embark on such a task, however, a review of constructivism is necessary.

Constructivism
Constructivism’s assumption about the intersubjective nature of actor epistemology
should make face-to-face diplomacy an obvious subject to theorize about. But I argue that the
relevant literature, including both normative constructivism and the theory of communicative
action, can benefit from greater understanding of the interpersonal mechanisms that enable
interlocutors to contest the validity of each other’s claims, particularly through the exchange of
emotions.

Normative constructivism
For constructivists, just because intentions are ultimately in one’s head and it is “costless”
to misrepresent them do not mean that leaders and diplomats make nothing out of “talking” to
each other. Intentions are informed by the intersubjective meaning of social relations, rather than
what actors are able to infer from the objective distribution of power or information (Rathbun

21
It should be noted that the current critique is not necessarily directed against rationalism’s assumption about actor
epistemology. The socio-functional perspective of emotions discussed in the next chapter is, according to some of its
proponents, consistent with the Bayesian model of learning. Under such model, actors make “probabilistic
predictions” from their counterpart’s “emotion displays… about how [he] is appraising the interaction which, in turn
lead to predictions about [his] intentions” (De Melo et al. 2012).
22
See fn. 5 in Chapter 1.
23
Policymakers seem to be making better progress in this regard. The governments of Russia, Israel and the US, for
instance, have recently invested in programs that study the body movements of foreign leaders, purportedly because
they reveal “a person’s thinking processes and relative truthfulness when matched with what the person says” (Ray
Locker, “Pentagon Body Movement Study will Track Another Leader,” USA Today, March 7, 2014; see also
“Catching Spies: James Bond’s Body Language,” The Economist, January 24, 2015).
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39

2007, 549-552). In particular, shared social structures, such as norms and identities, provide
guidance to actors on what to expect of a relationship, and their invocation in a dialogue
transforms what neorealists and rationalists assume to be “cheap” talk into acts of legitimation
and persuasion (Finnamore and Sikkink 2001, 402-403).
Goddard (2008), for example, contends that by appealing to prevailing rules and norms
about sovereignty, Prussia was able to allay fear in other European powers after its expansion
into the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864. By the same token, Hitler’s invocation of such
norms as collective security, equality, and self-determination in the 1930s was in part responsible
for convincing British policymakers to respond to German aggression with appeasement
(Goddard 2015). Gelpi (2003) similarly posits that when the Americans discovered that the
Soviets were building a naval base in Cienfuegos in 1971, the understanding developed between
President Kennedy and Khrushchev with regard to Cuba’s status nine years earlier constituted a
“normative referent” that bolstered Henry Kissinger’s claim of resolve when he relayed
Kennedy’s ultimatum to Anatoly Dobrynin (112-116).
But if social structures and their implications for how actors update their beliefs about
each other are self-evident, what information does the act of “talking” add to one does not
already know? The invocation of a norm is perhaps less important than the manner in which it is
invoked. Kissinger, for instance, did not simply “remind” his interlocutor of the 1962
understanding matter-of-factly or nonchalantly. Rather, he declared that the Americans viewed
Soviet buildup with “utmost gravity” and “were determined that there would be no Soviet
submarine in Cuba” (Kissinger 1979, 647). Between social structures as the explanatory variable
and actor beliefs as the outcome, there must be mechanisms in between – such as the exchange
of emotions – that enable them to convey their commitment (or lack thereof) to the former. As
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40

Mercer (2006) notes, “[e]motion sustains norms” (298). Absent an account for such emotional
dynamics, constructivism is no better positioned to explain why the invocation of a shared social
understanding can amount to anything more than just “cheap talk”.
Some constructivists have examined how such “microprocesses” as “shaming” allow
actors to demonstrate that they care about a norm, and therefore pressure others to comply (e.g.
Johnston 2007). But in general, the constructivist literature has tended to “overrate the stability
of intersubjective structures” (Widmaier and Park 2012, 124). Scholars often treat social
structures as “scripts” that influence actors, and as a result, pay less attention to how these
structures are in turn sustained and reinvented through interactions between agents. As
Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) note over a decade and a half ago, when “[i]deational
phenomena” are treated as mere “information”, the “result is politics without passion or
principles, which is hardly the politics of the world in which we live.” To better understand the
“[m]icrofoundations for norm-based behavior”, scholars are advised to turn to “studies in
psychology, particularly work on the roles of affect, empathy, conformity, and esteem” (916).
That would be an objective of the current research.

Theory of communicative action
The theory of communicative action has in the past decade or so served as the main
counterpoint against the “cheap talk” paradigm that has dominated IR (Johnson 1993; Müller
2004). Drawing upon the works of Jürgen Habermas, its proponents contend that when actors
communicate, their behaviors do not only follow the “logic of consequentialism” – as rationalists
often emphasize – but also the “logic of arguing”. Much of what goes on in diplomatic
interactions involve the exchange of “validity claims” – in other words, arguments – based on an
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41

intersubjectively constituted rationality, with the aim of reaching consensus for the collective
good. Communication is therefore less about bargaining for the maximization of individual
interests than persuading others – through the medium of a shared language – to submit to the
better argument. By placing front and center the power of argumentation, individual behaviors –
or, in Habermasian language, the interlocutors’ “speech acts” – are construed as fundamental to
how actors come to understand each other. Leaders and diplomats communicating on behalf of
their governments are no less subject to such logic (e.g. Crawford 2009; Lose 2001; Mitzen
2005; Müller 2001; Risse 2000).
But Habermas’ theory and the research it has generated in the broader sociological
literature have been criticized for overlooking the affective basis of communicative action – an
issue that IR scholars have occasionally remarked upon but not sufficiently addressed. As
Johnson (1993) puts it, “suggesting that the validity basis of language works to coordinate social
interaction is not the same as establishing how it does so… [C]ritical theorists lack a persuasive
account of the latter” (82; emphasis original). Specifically, Habermas has failed “to consider that
communication is (or at least can be) more than exchange of symbols and ideas; that it is a
process of mutual affecting in which interlocutors make emotional as well as cognitive appeals”
(Crossley 1998, 46-47). Within IR, Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) note – in reference to research
in psychology – that to bring about persuasion, “both cognition and affect work synergistically to
produce changes in attitudes, beliefs, and preferences” (915). More recently, Crawford (2009)
asserts that “argument and persuasion [are not] simply rational in the broader sense of giving
logical reasons for the validity of claims that one makes and where one’s counterpart… either
accepts those reasons, or challenges them on the basis of better reasons… [W]e will miss
important features of the process if we leave emotion and normative beliefs… out of our
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42

account” (107). Mercer (2010) similarly contends that constructivists have previously
emphasized that persuasion “depends on argument, debate, evidence, logic, and deliberation. It
also depends on emotion” (20).
Emotions are in fact important to the “logic of arguing”, because they constitute a crucial
mechanism through which interlocutors contest the different types of validity claims that
Habermas has identified: that is, in terms of the facts of the situation (“do they warrant the
emotions expressed?”); in terms of an interlocutor’s sincerity – or in Habermasian language,
authenticity (“is his emotional expression sincere or authentic?”); and in terms of the moral
rightness that underlies his claim (“is his relations to the situation such as to warrant his
emotional reactions?”) (Crossley 1998, 50). Simply put, the act of arguing is emotional and
persuasion requires emotions. Any theory of communication that overlooks such fact cannot be
complete.

Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued that neorealism and rationalism generally dismiss face-to-
face diplomacy as a channel to communicate intentions because talk is “cheap”. Given their
dominance, diplomacy is as a result given short shrift in IR. Such an understanding, however, is
seriously at odds with diplomacy’s commonplace in international politics and the value that
practitioners see in it. On the other hand, proponents of constructivism, including its normative
variant and the theory of communicate action, contend that the meaning behind any attempt to
communicate is informed by the intersubjective social structures that interlocutors share. Yet,
their account can benefit from greater understanding of the interpersonal dynamics that enable
interlocutors to contest the validity of each other’s claims, particularly through the exchange of
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emotions. What IR needs is therefore to develop or leverage from other disciplines a framework
to make sense of such dynamics. For inspirations, I turn to some of the latest research in social
and experimental psychology in the next chapter.

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44

Chapter 3: How and What Emotions Communicate in Face-to-face Diplomacy

“For two more hours [Serbian President] Milosevic and [Bosnian Prime Minister] Silajdzic
argued, yelled, and drew wide, sweeping lines on the maps. Translation was almost unnecessary
– the body language, the hand gestures, the emotions told the story.”
– Richard Holbrooke on the Dayton Accords negotiations in November 1995 (Holbrooke
1998, 299)

How do emotions actually communicate intentions at the “micro” level of interpersonal
interactions? What do they convey, particularly in the context of a negotiation? Can insights
concerning emotions’ communicative function, particularly those derived from experiments in
the psychological literature, be extrapolated and applied to face-to-face diplomacy in real-life?
This chapter addresses these questions. I first introduce the socio-functional perspective
to highlight the communicative function of emotions in interpersonal interactions and the social
purpose they serve. Next, I present the “reverse appraisal theory” to explain how exactly do
emotions communicate intentions from one person to another. Based on a framework developed
by Morris and Keltner (2000) and other findings in social and experimental psychology, I then
discuss how different emotions enable interlocutors to overcome the different relational
problems they encounter at different stages of a negotiation. To support my argument, I present
episodes of face-to-face diplomacy during the Camp David negotiations (1978), the recent crisis
between Russia and Georgia (2006), and the Helsinki Summit (1997). Finally, to drive home the
point that emotions’ communicative function is applicable even in the realm of international
politics, where the incentive to feign emotions and the consequence of being deceived are
arguably greater than in other social settings, I discuss two episodes that extant theories in IR
would consider “least-likely” for diplomacy, much less emotions, to matter: the Fashoda Crisis
(1898) and July Crisis (1914).
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45

The socio-functional perspective of emotions
The proposition that emotions communicate intentions in interpersonal interactions traces
its origin to the works of Darwin ([1872]1999), James (1884), and more recently, Ekman (1993).
But perhaps surprisingly, emotions have not received much attention in contemporary
psychology. Up until the 2000s, the literature on negotiations had largely ignored emotions
(Neale and Northcraft 1991, 170; Bazerman et al. 2000, 285; Barry, Fulmer, and Van Kleef
2004, 71). To begin with, this literature sought “to develop and test predictive theory about the
impact of environmental conditions on negotiator (or mediator) behavior and the impact of these
conditions and behaviors on outcomes” (Pruitt and Carnevale 1993, 7). Scholars had not shown
much interest in how individuals might make a difference, including the skills, ability and traits
they bring to the interaction (Barry and Friedman 1998; Fulmer and Barry 2004).
Whenever individuals rather than the environment are the subject of inquiry, however,
scholars focus on cognition.
24
Negotiations had been construed “as a ‘problem’ to be ‘solved,’”
Barry (2008) states in a review, “rather than as a context for human interaction with all of its
social and emotional baggage” (97). It was only after years of focus on the “relatively ‘colder’
cognitive aspects of negotiation” that scholars became more interested in the role of emotions in
recent years (Fulmer and Barry 2004).
Nonetheless, in this relatively nascent literature, emotions are generally presented as an
individual rather than social phenomenon, with the bulk of studies devoted to their intrapersonal
rather than interpersonal effects (Parkinson 1996; Barry, Fulmer, and Van Kleef 2004, 83; Van
Kleef, De Dreu, and Manstead 2010, 46). The latter, however, bears important consequences on
negotiation outcomes as well. As Morris and Keltner (2000) note, “researchers have focused on

24
For a review of research on individual-level differences in negotiations, see Elfenbein 2013.
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46

how individual’s general affective state impacts that individual’s information processing
tendencies”. Such approach, however, “misses the central way that emotions function in
negotiation – that is, one’s emotional expression affects others who observe it.” They offer as an
example Bill Clinton, who seems to be able “to use emotions to negotiate… [his] way out of
seemingly any predicament.” “The key is not how Clinton’s emotions impact Clinton’s
cognition”, they argue, “it is how Clinton’s emotional expressions impact his audience’s
cognitions and emotions” (2).
Some scholars have called into question such slanted conception of emotions, and argued
for the need to better appreciate their role in overcoming the asymmetry of information that
otherwise hinders coordination and cooperation among individuals (Barry, Fulmer, and Van
Kleef 2004, 71). According to the socio-functional perspective, emotions contain information
about one’s objectives, desires and beliefs (Frijda and Mesquita 1994; Keltner and Haidt 1999;
Barry, Fulmer, and Van Kleef 2004). Emotions, as Morris and Keltner (2000) put it, are “other-
directed, intentional (although not always consciously controlled) communicative acts that
organize social interactions… Within these interactions, emotional expression communicates
social intention, desired course of actions, and role-related expectations and behaviors” (13).
Hence, the outward display of emotions should not be construed as epiphenomenal to individual
affect. Emotions’ “social regulatory” function is their raison d'être (Frijda and Mesquita 1994,
76-79).

The “micro” logic of emotions’ communicative function
But how exactly does an emotion communicate intentions from one actor (the
“displayer”) to another (the “observer”)? Some psychologists have proposed to conceptualize
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47

their “micro” logic through the reverse application of what is known as the appraisal theory of
emotions.
25
According to the theory, the emotions an event elicits in an individual are not
predetermined. Instead, they are mediated through his assessment of the event – consciously or
otherwise – along a myriad of cognitive dimensions (or “themes”) with respect to his goals and
beliefs (Roseman 1984, Scherer 1984; Smith and Ellsworth 1985; Frijda 1986). In Ekman’s
(2003) words, an emotion “is a process, a particular kind of automatic appraisal influenced by
our evolutionary and personal past, in which we sense that something important to our welfare is
occurring, and a set of physiological changes and emotional behaviors begins to deal with the
situation” (13).
Scholars disagree on their proper conceptualization, but commonly suggested cognitive
dimensions include “[n]ovelty, intrinsic pleasantness, certainty or predictability, goal
significance, agency, coping potential, and compatibility with social or personal standards”
(Ellsworth and Scherer 2003, 572). For instance, goal attainment makes one happy;
unexpectedness (i.e. high in the cognitive dimension of novelty) engenders surprise; a
combination of low coping potential, uncertainty and unpleasantness leads to fear; and the
attribution of responsibility (i.e. agency) for goal obstruction to oneself, others or the
circumstance determines if one experiences the negative emotions of anger, guilt or sorrow.
If cognitive appraisal gives rise to emotions, then “observing a particular emotion in
another person provides relatively differentiated information about how that person regards the
situation” (Van Kleef, De Dreu, and Manstead 2010, 48). A person who reacts angrily to another
person’s behavior or action, for instance, is an indication that he is dissatisfied with what he had
just experienced. In other words, emotions enable an observer to “reverse engineer” their
displayer’s cognitive process to tap into his underlying intentions (De Melo et al., 2014; Hareli

25
For a review, see Ellsworth and Scherer 2003.
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48

and Hess 2010; Van Doorn, Heerdink, and Van Kleef 2012). In the context of a negotiation,
emotions enable interlocutors to understand how each other is assessing progress at various
stages of their interaction, to realize if a deal is at all attainable, and if so, to identify a possible
range of cooperative outcomes (Keltner and Haidt 1999; Barry, Fulmer, and Van Kleef 2004;
Morris and Keltner 2000).

Emotions and the intentions they communicate
As mentioned, it is the perception that one’s counterpart possesses both the incentives to
cooperate and to compete – i.e. he has mixed motives – that makes whatever he claims to be his
intentions often open to doubt. For confirmation, people look out for each other’s emotional
expressions when they negotiate. Generally speaking, emotions that are congruent with the
meaning of a claim amplify its perceived credibility, while discrepancy reduces it (Kaufman et
al. 2003). Experimentally, Hareli et al. (2009) have found that when a claim presents room for
doubt about its credibility (such as a complaint), “communication that includes an emotional
signal that matches… [its] meaning… [is] perceived as more credible than an identical verbal
message that does not include such a signal” (631). Emotions, in other words, are particularly
informative when negotiators know others have the incentive to misrepresent and are thus
motivated to look beyond a message’s literal meaning for authentication.
But what information do different emotions actually convey? In general, negative
emotions (such as anger and sadness) signify that one should adjust his strategy or behavior,
while positive emotions (such as happy and liking) beckon one to stay on course (Cacioppo and
Gardner 1999). But at a more differentiated level, different emotions – anger, happiness,
embarrassment, frustration, etc. – reveal different intentions as reflected by their respective
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49

appraisal “themes”. As such, Morris and Keltner (2000) have proposed a four-stage framework
26

to understand the different dilemmas – or in their words, “relational problems” – that people
often encounter throughout a negotiation, and suggested some of the emotions responsible for
overcoming them (21-35).

Emotions that initiate talks
First, an actor who claims that he intends to negotiate may or may not be sincere. His
counterpart would therefore need to decide whether or not to reciprocate.
The decision to accept talks can be costly given the time, energy and resources they
demand. Negotiations expose a party to potential harm because certain alternatives are lost – at
least temporarily – such as the forfeiture of opportunities to act unilaterally or to settle with other
parties involved. Negotiations require the revelation of goals, interests and alternatives, which
can undermine one’s bargaining power in current and future interactions. Worse still, a
counterpart may actually be seeking to buy time rather than resolving the dispute cooperatively.
Hence, at the beginning stage of a negotiation, “the dilemma of whether to ‘give it a shot’… can
be called the initiation problem” (Morris and Keltner 2000, 25; emphasis original).
To overcome such problem, actors often display positive emotions such as liking and
interest through the exchange of eye contacts, smiles, head nods, and certain other verbal, hand
and body gestures. Such behaviors often “lubricate and set in motion the process of negotiation”
(Morris and Keltner 2000, 26-27).

26
It should be noted, however, that this framework is more ideal-typical than a rigid description of how most
negotiations unfold. For example, some negotiations may not experience all four stages, while others may not
experience them in the order the framework presents, experience two or more stages simultaneously, or move back
and forth between the stages.
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50

Consider, for instance, the interaction between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during their initial meeting at Camp David in September
1978.
The Sadat-Begin episode (1978)
With President Jimmy Carter as the host and mediator, the two leaders met and
underwent twelve days of secret negotiations at the US presidential retreat in Maryland. On their
agenda were the normalization of relations between the two countries, the sovereignty of the
Sinai Peninsula and the Palestinian territories, Jewish settlements and other important issues
concerning the Middle East. On the third day, the negotiations eventually turned into an
“unpleasant and heated argument”, with neither side willing to budge (Carter 1995, 350).
27
But
in their first meeting the day before, the two leaders went out of their way to establish rapport.
According to Carter (1995), at one point, Begin said “with some emotion” that they needed to
“start a new page and forget past disagreements.” Sadat responded, “Yes, yes”. After some
further discussions, Begin commented that “when the Catholics choose a new pope, they say
‘Habemus Papum’ (We have a new pope). He wanted us to be able to announce, ‘Habemus Pace’
(We have peace).” Sadat replied that “he hoped that the spirit of King David, the great leader of
Israel, would prevail at Camp David” (emphasis original).
Later in the meeting, Sadat made the first move. He presented, in Carter’s words, an
“extremely tough and unacceptable proposal” and requested that Begin not respond to it until he
had the chance to consult his aides. As Sadat was reading his proposal, Carter noticed that Begin
“sat without changing his emotion,” but he could “feel the tension building”. To break the
tension, Carter joked that if Begin would sign the proposal as it was, they could all save time.

27
For day-to-day accounts of the negotiations, see Quandt 1986, chs. 8-9, and especially Carter 1995, 319-403. For
a secondary account, see Wright 2014.
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51

Carter, however, was “surprised when everyone broke into gales of genuine laughter… All of a
sudden both men seemed happy, friendly.” After agreeing to meet again the next day, they
“parted in good spirits, everyone patting each other on the back. It was the high point in feeling
until the final hours, many days later” (Carter 1995, 344-346).
According to rationalist reasoning in IR, in order to establish a strong bargaining position
upfront, leaders such as Sadat and Begin would be inclined to articulate their resolve to fight
rather than settling their differences through negotiations (Fearon 1994, 395-401). To
demonstrate any sign of goodwill would suggest an eagerness to make peace, and as such,
undercut one’s position. As Morris and Keltner (2000) note, “[f]rom a purely rational standpoint
it is puzzling why negotiators insist that cooperativeness be displayed in the opening rounds
when they are more forgiving of competitiveness in later phases of the negotiation” (25). To
make sense of such exchange of positive emotions that are palpable not only in the case of Sadat
and Begin but also in many other episodes of face-to-face diplomacy, we need to understand the
relational problem they serve to overcome. These emotions, as Morris and Keltner (2000) put it,
“have the primary role of conveying a party’s general intentions and character”, which
“establishes a climate for the negotiation” (25).

Emotions that assert position
After a negotiation has begun, the interlocutors often enter the stage of “contention and
positioning”, in which they stake their claims over the disputed issues. According to rationalist
logic, they would be inclined to claim more than their true “reservation price” so that their
payoffs are maximized if an agreement is reached (Fearon 1995). But such incentives can also
cause talks to break down, since they might lead to the false conclusion that no mutually agreed
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settlement is possible. The “relational problem” that negotiators often find themselves at this
stage is therefore the need to credibly establish one’s position on the one hand, and conversely,
to ascertain if a counterpart is bluffing (Morris and Keltner 2000, 27-28).
The exchange of emotions such as anger and contempt enables interlocutors to overcome
such problem, since they “provide important information about… preferences, positions, and
concerns” (Morris and Keltner 2000, 31). In general, an angry counterpart is more likely to
extract concessions (Sinaceur and Tiedens 2006). In a series of experiments conducted over the
past decade, Van Kleef and his colleagues demonstrate that subjects who negotiate with an angry
opponent in a mixed-motive game tend to make greater concessions, because anger conveys
higher limit for an acceptable proposal. Such emotional display reveal one’s “reservation price”,
and as such, allow the observer to maximize his claim without overreaching and jeopardizing an
agreement altogether (Van Kleef, De Dreu, and Manstead 2004a; 2004b; Van Kleef et al. 2006;
Van Kleef and Côté 2007; Van Beest, Van Kleef, and Van Kijk 2008; Steinel, Van Kleef, and
Harinck 2008; Lelieveld et al. 2011; Lelieveld et al. 2012; Wang, Northcraft, and Van Kleef
2012; Sinaceur et al. 2013).
28
Pertinent behaviors include “aggressive glaring stares”, “thrusting
back-handed gestures”, and certain tone, volume, postures and gestures that evince dominance
and assertiveness (Morris and Keltner 2000, 28-30).
The use of such “dominance” emotions to establish one’s position is ubiquitous in
diplomacy. Leaders and diplomats are wont to recall the heated debates they often have with
each other. In the Sadat-Begin episode just discussed, congeniality gave way to impassioned
exchanges the following day. As the two leaders proceeded to argue over Sadat’s opening

28
Having said that, anger’s ability to elicit concessions is contingent upon a number of factors, such as whether the
displayer has in the past projected an impression for being emotionally manipulative. Absent such factors, a show of
anger may backfire instead. I elaborate on anger as an expression of resolve with two detailed case studies in
Chapters 5 and 6.
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53

proposal, they volleyed angry words, tones and gestures at each other (pointing of fingers,
pounding of the table, etc.). As Carter (1995) recalled, “[a]ll restraint was now gone. Their faces
were flushed, and the niceties of diplomatic language and protocol were stripped away” (351).
Another case in point is James Baker’s angry “eye contact” during his negotiations with Syrian
President Hafez Assad – cited at the opening of Chapter 1 – to make the latter realize that he had
“reached a certain unhealthy threshold”.
A more recent – and no less dramatic – example comes from Condoleezza Rice’s tenure
as the US Secretary of State.
The Rice-Putin episode (2006)
In late-October 2006, Rice visited Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin and
other senior Russian officials. The main issue on their agenda was North Korea, which had
shocked the world with the testing of a nuclear device two weeks earlier. There were, however,
other “sticky issues” to address, notably the “real storm clouds concerning Georgia” (Rice 2012,
531). Since September, Georgia had detained several Russian officers on spying charges. In
return, Russia imposed economic sanctions and withdrew its embassy from Tbilisi. Relations
between the two countries were deteriorating dramatically.
At one point during their meeting, Rice asked that she and Putin talk privately. Their
conversation started off “cordially”. But when Rice switched topics to Georgia, a test of wills
ensued. As she recalls,
I… said that I had a message from the [US] President. “We are concerned about the
rhetoric toward Tbilisi and the embargo,” I said calmly. “Any move against Georgia will
deeply affect U.S.-Russian relations.” In an instant Putin stood up, peering over me. “If
[Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili wants war, he’ll get it,” he said. “And any
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54

support for him will destroy our relationship too.” It was a physical posture clearly meant
to intimidate. So I stood up too and, in my heels, rose to five feet eleven over the five-
foot-eight or so Putin. I repeated the President’s message. For a distended moment we
stood there face to face – well, almost (Rice 2012, 532).
In essence, the two leaders were attempting to get across the message that they were willing to
put their bilateral relations on the line for the sake of Georgia, and it is in the other side’s best
interest to back down first. To be credible, they “supplemented” their claim with postures (and
perhaps tone and volume) that were meant to dominate emotionally, consciously or otherwise.

Emotions that build trust
At some point after the parties to a negotiation have attempted to establish their positions,
trust-building is required if a deal is to be salvaged, especially if they have overreached with
their demands in the previous stage. They are, in the language used in the literature on
negotiations, to switch from a phase of distributive bargaining, which focuses on claiming value
for oneself, to integrative bargaining, during which negotiators seek to identify possible
negotiated outcomes that would make all parties better off than if there were no deal at all. The
“pivotal moment that enables many negotiations to transition from escalating aggressive
positioning towards problem-solving discussion”, Morris and Keltner (2000) suggest, “may be a
brief expression of embarrassment” (emphasis added). Another emotion that negotiators might
exhibit is rapport. Nonverbal cues that express the former include “averted gaze, slight
shrugging, subtle bowing, self-conscious smiling, and blushing”, and “nodding, leaning, and
gesturing” for the latter (31-33).
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Experiments have shown that the combined use of both negative and positive emotions is
one reason why negotiators are able to discover integrative agreement to a dispute. In Pietroni et
al. (2008), subjects are instructed to negotiate over two issues of distributive consequences (i.e.
one’s gain over each issue is another’s loss). But unbeknownst to them, the negotiation has
integrative potentials: one party considers an issue more important, while the other party sees
greater value in the other. Since the rational strategy is to maximize claim on both issues,
“parties may be reluctant to explicitly exchange information about preferences and priorities, and
readily suspect ulterior motives behind their partner’s communications” (1444). However,
persistent expression of anger is a sign that one cares about an issue, while happiness reveals
relative complacency. Repeated rounds of exchanges enable subjects to realize that one’s higher
priority issue may actually be the other’s low priority issue, and vice versa, and arrive at an
outcome that maximizes payoffs in the issue they care about most respectively (1448). The
authors conclude that “[a]ccurate recognition of particular patterns of emotional expression may
thus help negotiators to revise their fixed-pie perceptions and discover mutually satisfying win-
win agreements” (1451). Such insight can perhaps explain why leaders and diplomats often
manage to identify opportunities for issue linkages, such as the quid pro quo over missiles in
Cuba and Turkey during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Emotions that bind
Finally, at some point, negotiators need to forestall additional demands and convince a
counterpart that whatever is on the table is the best that they can achieve. Hence, the relational
problem they need to overcome at the end of a negotiation is, in Morris and Keltner’s (2000)
words, “to lock in or bind the opponent to a deal” (33).
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Negotiators could express goodwill to secure a commitment. But doing so could also
invite a counterpart to renew his effort to claim values. The display of emotions such as pain,
exasperation and indignation confer credibility to the claim that one has already reached his
limit. Painful expressions, such as “winching or holding one’s head in hand”, suggest that “one
has made all possible concessions”. On the other hand, signs of exasperation and indignation at a
counterpart’s “indecision or eleventh-hour demand… obliquely convey an accusation of ‘bad
faith’ or betrayal” (33-34). Moreover, experiments have shown that expressions of
disappointment elicit concessions (Van Kleef, De Dreu, and Manstead 2006), with their effects
moderated by the level of mutual identification the negotiators enjoy, because a show of
disappointment evokes guilt in a counterpart (Lelieveld et al., 2013).
Bill Clinton’s interaction with Russian President Boris Yeltsin at the Helsinki Summit in
1997 demonstrates how a show of some of these emotions can convince a counterpart to back
down.
The Clinton-Yeltsin episode (1997)
In mid-March 1997, the two leaders met in Helsinki to negotiate, among other economic
and security issues, the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the
prospect of a NATO-Russia charter. At one point, Yeltsin asked for a “private assurance” that
NATO would not bring in as members the former Soviet republics in the Baltics – Estonia,
Lithuania and Latvia – to which Clinton refused. According to Madeleine Albright, who
accompanied Clinton at the talks:
When Yeltsin pressed his request, Clinton got irritated and raised his voice. “Come on,
Boris, even if I went into a closest with you and told you what you want to hear,
Congress would find out and pass a resolution invalidating the NATO-Russia Charter. I
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just can’t do it. I can’t make commitments on behalf of NATO, and I’m not going to be in
the position of vetoing any country’s eligibility, much less letting you and anyone else do
so.”…Yeltsin retreated but would not give up. He asked our assurance that former Soviet
republics wouldn’t be admitted “in the first rounds.” The President said he wouldn’t do
anything to revive old stereotypes or make it seem as if Russia and NATO hadn’t
changed. After what appeared to be a heated exchange between Yeltsin and his own
team, the Russian leader turned to Clinton and shrugged, “Okay, Bill, but I tried”
(Albright 2003, 255).
In his memoir, Yeltsin (2000) wrote: “From my many meetings with Clinton, I knew he was a
lively, open person, though he can turn on the chill and be stern when necessary” (348). His was
perhaps referring to his interaction with the US President at Helsinki.
In short, emotions are integral to how individuals engaged in a negotiation develop ideas
about what each other wants, how they appraise their ongoing interactions, and the prospect of
resolving the disputes in question. Different emotions are responsible for solving the different
relational problems they encounter, so that a negotiation can proceed from beginning to end.
29

From experiments in the laboratory to diplomacy in real-life
Skeptics in IR – neorealists and rationalists in particular – might be tempted to challenge
my argument on two related grounds. First, as Druckman (2011) puts it, “[k]knowledge about
negotiation and mediation… [has come] primarily from laboratory experiments” (413). The
extrapolation of findings in the laboratory to how people behave in real-life – including leaders

29
But the communicative function of emotions is not always linear. The psychological literature has identified
important structural-, dyadic- and individual-level factors that moderate or even reverse an emotion’s impact on the
behavior of its observer. I present a more nuanced discussion on one particular emotion, anger, in Chapters 5 and 6.
For more detailed reviews, see Van Kleef et al. 2008; Van Kleef, De Dreu, and Manstead 2010, 71-79; and Van
Kleef and Sinaceur 2013, 108-115.
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and diplomats in the realm of international politics – might therefore be problematic, as
experimental psychologists have acknowledged repeatedly (e.g. Barry, Fulmer, and Van Kleef
2004, 88; Barry 2008, 103; and Carnevale and de Dreu 2005, 62). Specifically, the settings of a
laboratory lack what experimentalists call the “mundane realism” (Druckman and Kam 2011;
McDermott 2011b) necessary for subjects to experience the stakes involved in real-life.
Negotiations over the sales of a car or business contract typically used as scenarios in
experiments would be “child’s play” compared to bargaining over nuclear disarmament or
resolving a military-security crisis. The consequences of misreading intentions can be grave
under international anarchy – certainly much graver than losing several dollars worth of reward
that are typically used as incentives in experiments. Moreover, even if leaders and diplomats
were willing to give each other the benefit of the doubt, the incentive to fake or repress emotions
for strategic purposes would nullify their communicative function.
But such skepticism is unfounded. Otherwise, leaders and diplomats might as well remain
emotionless when they negotiate (since any attempt to influence others would be futile), or if
emotions were displayed, their observer would be unwilling to make much of them (since they
might be feigned). The several episodes discussed thus far demonstrate that neither supposition
holds.
Skeptics, however, might counter that these episodes are concerned with negotiations that
are ongoing (e.g. NATO’s relationship with Russia), rather than during times of crisis escalation
(as the rationalist literature often focuses). Since the stakes involved in the latter scenario are
much greater, leaders and diplomats would presumably be a lot more inclined to misrepresent
themselves emotionally, and to therefore discount each other’s emotional cues as indicator of
intentions.
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But consider the following episodes, both of which concern diplomacy in times of
military-security crisis, which would render them “least-likely” cases for face-to-face diplomacy
– and much less the emotions exchanged in the process – to play a role (George and Bennett
2005, 121-122). In fact, they have both been cited as prima facie evidence for the futility of
diplomatic communication.
The Monson-Delcassé episode (1898)
During the Fashoda Crisis of 1898, Edmund Monson, the British ambassador in Paris,
met frequently with French foreign minister Théophile Delcassé. As troops from both sides
amassed in the Upper Nile, Monson visited Delcassé on September 30 to assess French
willingness to back down. During the opening minutes of their meeting, Delcassé “sensed that
the British ambassador was carrying a written ultimatum in his coat. In an effort to prevent the
document from being delivered, [he]… quickly declared that France would go to war rather than
swallow ‘such an insult to the national honour.’ ‘I am able to sacrifice material interests,’ the
agitated Foreign Minister continued, ‘but in my hands the national honor will remain intact. It is
not from the minister before you that you can expect a capitulation.” Monson “immediately
grasped the reality behind Delcassé’s bombastic show of patriotism.” In his report to London
afterwards, he opined that Delcassé “was definitely not ‘bluffing’ and that ‘he thoroughly meant
what he said’” (Brown 1970, 99). Consistent with the socio-functional perspective, emotions
were integral to how Delcassé’s expressed his intentions, and to how Monson assessed what he
claimed.
Realists have previously cited Britain’s power advantage (Layne 1994, 28-30) and
rationalists underscored prime minister Lord Salisbury’s “public speeches” (Fearon 1994, 582)
and his deliberate attempt to stoke outrage in the public (Schultz 2001a, 186-187) as
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explanations for why Britain prevailed in the crisis. As Trachtenberg (2012) notes, the crisis is
“of special interest from the point of view of the audience costs theory, and indeed, to the extent
that any historical evidence is given to support the theory, that support comes largely from an
analysis of this episode” (15). But the fact that Monson was convinced of Delcassé’s “costless”
claim of resolve confounds any explanation borne out of the “cheap talk” paradigm. The two
governments were in fact in constant, behind-the-scene negotiations throughout the crisis, not
only between Monson and Delcassé but also between Lord Salisbury and the French ambassador
in London (Brown 1970). They would not have bothered to meet had they not expect to learn
something about each other.
The Pourtalès-Sazonov episode (1914)
Monson’s reaction was not an anomaly. On July 21, 1914, during the run-up to World
War I, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Sazonov told Count Pourtalès, the German ambassador
in St. Petersburg, that “Russia would not be able to tolerate Austria-Hungary’s using threatening
language to Serbia or taking military measures.” According to Fearon (1995), “[s]uch verbal
statements had little effect on German leaders’ beliefs… since they knew Russian leaders had a
strategic incentive to misrepresent” (397). But what transpired in a follow-up meeting several
days later flies in the face of such logic. According to Pourtalès’ memorandum that day, Sazonov
was “enraged” by the suggestion that Russia remain neutral and “vented his feelings in boundless
accusations… declaring with the utmost resolution that Russia could not possibly admit that the
Austro-Serbian differences should be settled between the two parties alone.” Sazonov’s outburst
clearly affected the ambassador, who, according to witnesses, was “agitated and distraught when
he emerged from [the] hour-long interview”. Later that day, he confided in his diary that “war
with Russia seemed unavoidable unless Austria backed down” (Lebow 1984, 128).
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It is perhaps correct to argue that war ultimately broke out (and almost so in the Fashoda
Crisis) in part because the decision-makers in their home capitals could not ascertain from afar if
others were bluffing or serious, but it would be hasty to suggest that no one in their diplomatic
establishments could. Through regular and face-to-face interactions, leaders and diplomats on the
ground were able to develop rather accurate assessment of their opponent’s intentions.

Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued that emotions are social and presented the “reverse
appraisal theory” from psychology to shed light on their “micro” logic in the communication of
intentions in interpersonal interactions. I have also discussed how different emotions facilitate
interlocutors to overcome different relational problems in a negotiation. I provided two empirical
episodes – pulled straight from the rationalist and neorealist playbook – to counter the
anticipated challenge that stake are too high in international politics for face-to-face diplomacy –
let along factors as intangible, subtle and uncertain as emotions – to matter. These episodes
demonstrate that even under conditions where talk should be the “cheapest”, leaders and
diplomats are no less inclined than negotiators in the laboratory or other “natural” settings to
express emotions on the one hand, and on the other hand, to make something of them.
But what prevents emotions from being exploited for strategic purposes, and as a result
(and paradoxically), losing their communicative function? I answer this question in the next
chapter.

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Chapter 4: The Communicative Logic of Emotions in Face-to-face Diplomacy

In this chapter, I contend that while leaders and diplomats may be occasionally tempted
to fake or suppress emotions in order to mislead or deceive, such incentive does not do away
with emotions’ communicative function in face-to-face diplomacy. To explain why, I borrow
Jervis’ (1970) distinction between indices and signals of intentions. To support my argument, I
discuss episodes of face-to-face diplomacy during the Nazi invasion of Austria (1938), Sudeten
Crisis (1938), Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), Gulf War (1990), US-Syria negotiations on the
Middle East (1991), and negotiations over the Dayton Agreement (1995) and Iran’s nuclear
program (2009).

Emotions as indices
According to Jervis (1970), indices are “statements or actions that carry some inherent
evidence that the image projected is correct because they are… inextricably linked to…
capabilities or intentions” (18). Emotions are indices for several reasons. First, emotional
displays are to a certain extent spontaneous and irrepressible. “Leakages” of emotions from an
individual thus inform an observer about his intentions. Moreover, people – and according to
some, practitioners of diplomacy in particular – are able to assess the authenticity of an emotion
with much accuracy. They therefore do not have a complete “free hand” to manipulate their
emotions. Finally, emotional deceit or even suspicions of being emotionally insincere often
makes a counterpart more intransigent and mistrustful. People are thus to a certain extent
“deterred” from using emotions strategically.

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Emotional “leakages”
To begin with, emotional displays are to a certain extent beyond an actor’s conscious
control. Their “leakages” thus enable an observer to infer with a certain level of confidence that
an expression is reflective of one’s underlying intentions. At the interpersonal level, as Jervis
(1970) argues, “much behavior is taken as an index because it is thought to be essentially
unplanned and uncalculated. The display of anger, grief, joy, etc. is often thought to be
spontaneous” (63). In social psychology, proponents of appraisal theories argue that emotions
flow “naturally” from cognition, with or without an actor’s conscious knowledge of the process.
As opposed to mood, emotions are directed towards specific external stimuli, and are innate
biological reactions to one’s milieu.
In fact, the involuntary nature of emotions is thought to serve important evolutionary
functions (Keltner, Haidt, and Shiota 2006). From a strictly rational point of view, an actor might
under certain circumstances prefer to keep his emotions and their outward display in check (such
as a show of sympathy, guilt or fear), since doing so might compromise his immediate payoff.
But in the long run, emotional expressions enable us to overcome problems of commitment, and
as such, to cooperate with each other. Emotions are conducive to social engagement (Frank
1988). Expressivity, defined as “the accuracy with which an individual displays/communicates
his or her emotions”, is predictive of trustworthiness and facilitates communication and
coordination (Boone and Buck 2003, 164). Emotional exchanges are adaptive from an
evolutionary point of view.
The argument here is not that individuals – leaders and diplomats included – can never be
emotionally aloof or maintain a “poker face” with the goal of concealing or misleading others.
But as one student of IR puts it, “[s]uppose… that diplomats, much like poker players, have
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‘tells’. Then if we… introduce the assumption that there is a small but non-zero probability that a
state inadvertently reveals its true type when communicating with its opponent, regardless of the
actual content of their statement, then diplomacy would reveal information, but it would be
essential that diplomacy takes place in person” (Arena 2012). All that is required for emotions to
be informative – at least occasionally – is that their genuine expression cannot be suppressed.
In international politics, there are plenty of examples in which a leader or diplomat thinks
he had gotten a glimpse of a counterpart’s mind by virtue of an unwitting “leakage” of emotions.
The following interaction between James Baker and his Soviet counterpart, Eduard
Shevardnadze, at the outset of the Gulf War was one of such occurrences.
The Baker-Shevardnadze episode (1990)
Coincidentally, Baker was meeting Shevardnadze in Siberia when they both first learned
of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Before the meeting, Soviet intelligence had
assured Shevardnadze that no invasion was in sight. In any case, Shevardnadze thought that
Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader, would have at least consulted the Kremlin before action. So
when Baker broke the news in his face, Shevardnadze was furious. According to Baker, the
Soviet leader was “thunderstruck, embarrassed for being misled by his own intelligence services
and enraged by the lunacy of the deed itself.” The implication behind Shevardnadze’s surprised
reaction was not lost on Baker: the Soviet Union was ready to sever relations with its long-
standing client. “Shevardnadze’s fury”, as Baker (1995) reminisced in his memoir, “…worked to
the advantage of American diplomacy throughout the entire crisis” (5-6).

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The innate ability to authenticate emotions
But even if emotions are perfectly manipulatable, an actor might be “deterred” from
attempting deception if people are able to discern authentic from feigned emotions, and
insincerity invites punishment. Research indicates that people are to a certain extent endowed
with such ability. Ekman (2003) contends that lies can be detected with considerable accuracy
based on the physical attributes of an emotional display. Decades of research has led to the
discovery of what he has called “micro expressions, very fast facial movements lasting less than
one-fifth of a second” that reveal “an emotion a person is trying to conceal.” As such, a “false
expression can be betrayed in a number of ways: it is usually very slightly asymmetrical, and it
lacks smoothness in the way it flows on and off the face” (15). People share common facial and
bodily expressions that can be read and understood instinctively, and subtle and fleeting
differences are often sufficient for an observer to judge correctly whether or not an emotion is
sincere.
Furthermore, psychologists have posited that some individuals are more sensitive to and
better at discerning emotions than others. Van Kleef, De Dreu, and Manstead (2004b) show that
individuals with lower need for cognitive closure are more receptive to emotional cues and
utilize them to guide their behavior in negotiations. Researchers have also found that people
differ in emotional intelligence (EI), i.e. the ability “to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings
and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking
and actions” (Salovey and Mayer 1990, 89).
It has been hypothesized that in negotiations, EI facilitates cooperation and value creation
because they enable interlocutors to better understand each other’s position through more
accurate emotional recognition (Fulmer and Barry 2004). When motives are mixed, the key to a
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successful outcome is the identification of possible outcomes in which all parties can accept and
are better off, i.e. to realize the potential for integrative bargaining. As such, “an emotionally
intelligent negotiator’s ability to pick up on subtle emotional cues provides an advantage by
providing insights into additional issues and opportunities for cooperation, logrolling, and other
approaches” (Barry, Fulmer, and Van Kleef 2004, 81). In the words of Elfenbein et al. (2007),
“[e]ffective negotiating requires parties to develop an understanding of their counterparts’
interests and preferences, in a context in which such information may be explicitly hidden but
implicitly revealed. For these reasons, the ability to attend to subtle communication signals may
be beneficial to negotiators, and could help guide or impede potential settlement” (210).
Experimental works are only at an early stage, but they have already produced some evidence for
the positive impact of EI on negotiations (e.g. Foo et al. 2004; Jordan and Troth 2004; Boland
and Ross 2010; Mueller and Curhan 2006; Elfenbein et al. 2007).
While students of diplomacy do not write in the terminology of psychology, the ability to
“read” others – affectively or not – has been a longstanding theme in the literature on the “ideal
diplomatist”. For a long time, it has been thought that the practice of diplomacy requires certain
special skills and abilities. In his seminal treatise on diplomacy published three centuries ago, de
Callières ([1716]1963) avers that “God having endowed men with diverse talents, the best advice
that one can give is to take counsel with themselves before choosing their profession. Thus he
who would enter the profession of diplomacy must examine himself to see whether he was born
with the qualities necessary for success” (18). Among other “qualities”, diplomacy requires “a
widespread understanding and knowledge, and above all a correct and piercing discernment” (9).
When a leader or diplomat is involved in a negotiation, he “must… possess that penetration
which enables him to discover the thoughts of men and to know by the least movement of their
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countenances what passions are stirring within, for such movements are often betrayed even by
the most practiced negotiator” (19).
Nicolson ([1939]1988) similarly wrote that historically, as diplomacy became more
important as a way to manage the relations among the city-states of ancient Greece, “it was
found that the art of negotiation entailed qualities of a higher level than those possessed by the
town-crier” (20). It calls for “a combination of certain special qualities which are not always to
be found in the ordinary politician, not even in the ordinary man” (55). One of such qualities is
what he has labeled “psychological alertness”. Satow (1932), in his Guide to Diplomatic
Practice, asserts that among other “essential qualities”, the “perfect diplomatist” is one who
“easily detects insincerity”. One of the “distinguishing characteristics of a success negotiator” is
the “knowledge of men, which enables one to interpret looks and glances” (122). The writings of
de Callières, Nicolson and Satow have since their publication become classic readings among
many world leaders and are still used in the recruitment and training of diplomats worldwide.
To my knowledge, the proposition that practitioners of diplomacy are particularly adept
at “reading” others (say, compared to the general population or other non-diplomatic elites) has
not been systematically evaluated.
30
But an early exception and anecdotal evidence suggest such
possibility. In their study on emotions recognition, McClelland and Dailey (1972) find that high-
performing American diplomats scored significantly higher than their average colleagues in a
test on sensitivity to a conversation’s emotional content. Among other personality traits, what
differentiates the former is their ability to “‘tune into’ others’ feelings” (Spencer and Spencer
1993, 7). More recently, observers have attributed success over Iran’s nuclear negotiations to the

30
Such lacuna is understandable given the confluence of several scholarly trends already discussed: the lack of
interest in diplomacy in IR, and among psychologists, the emphasis on structural over individual-level determinants
of negotiations and more traditional conceptualizations of intelligence (e.g. cognitive) over emotional intelligence.
As these research priorities have shifted in recent years, time is ripe to rethink the role of personality, including
emotional intelligence, in diplomacy. I return to this point and propose a method to study the subject in Chapter 7.
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high degree of “emotional intelligence” exercised by Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s
top diplomat and primary broker of the deal.
31
As Jervis (1970) notes, “[w]hen an actor is able to
directly observe one of his adversaries he will… scrutinize those presumably uncontrollable
aspects of personal behavior that are indices to the adversary’s goals, estimate of the situation,
and resolve… The desire to obtain information in this way… is strengthened for many decision-
makers by their belief that their rise to power was partly dependent on a keen ability to judge
others” (32-33). Alisher Faizullaev (2006), with years of experience as an ambassador, observes
that “experienced diplomats develop professional sensitivity and can detect even minor
emotional changes in their counterparts” (513). IR scholars are beginning to investigate if certain
individuals have come to assume their role as international negotiators because they bring to the
table certain traits that are conducive to successful outcomes, such as their level of patience and
ability to think strategically (Hafner-Burton et al., 2014), and their need for cognitive closure and
social value orientation (Rathbun 2014). It is also possible that leaders and diplomats are selected
– or have selected themselves – into their position because of their ability to emotionally connect
with others.

“Deterrence” against emotional deceptions
If people possess a certain ability to recognize and discern authentic expressions from
those intended to mislead, then leaders and diplomats would be “deterred” from attempting
deception if it is generally excepted that doing so has consequences, such as damage to one’s
reputation and character, and in more immediate terms, the stiffening of position by one’s
negotiation counterpart. Such expectation provides an additional layer of confidence that

31
Ian Traynor. “Iran nuclear talks: Lady Ashton’s Geneva triumph takes center stage,” The Guardian, November
24, 2013.
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whenever an emotion is expressed in diplomacy, it more likely reflects a person’s underlying
intentions than otherwise.
Experiments have shown that actors who are perceived as emotionally earnest are
considered more trustworthy and credible (Kaufmann et al. 2003, 21). Trust, in turn, is a
prerequisite for such emotions as disappointment to have a behavioral impact on their observer in
a negotiation (Van Kleef, De Dreu, and Manstead 2006). Moreover, those considered
emotionally insincere are less likely to be reciprocated with cooperative gestures. Experimental
subjects exposed to counterparts displaying authentic smile in trust games and games of
prisoner’s dilemma report a higher rate of cooperation than those assigned to counterparts with
an inauthentic smile, with trustworthiness being the mediating factor (Krumhuber et al., 2007;
Johnston, Miles, and Macrae 2010). Subjects are more likely to yield to a counterpart who is
considered respectable than someone who is not (Pietroni, Van Kleef, and De Dreu 2008, 39-42).
In a recent series of experiments (Côté, Hideg, and Van Kleef 2013), subjects are asked to
negotiate with confederates who display no emotion, “surfaced acted” (feigned) or “deep acted”
(genuine) anger. In the “surfaced acted” group, confederates are instructed to “remain
emotionally neutral inside but express anger in their faces” (455), while those in the “deep acted”
group (i.e. using “method acting”) are asked to “recall an event that had truly made them feel
angry” and then channel their emotions into the current interaction (459). Subjects who negotiate
with a “deep acting” confederate are more likely to yield to the latter’s demands, while those
who are exposed to feigned anger are more likely to consider their opponent untrustworthy and
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become intransigent, even compared to the control group in which no emotional treatment is
given.
32

In short, emotional insincerity could do more harm than good to one’s bargaining
position. Beyond immediate terms, insincerity could also erode one’s trustworthiness and the
willingness of a counterpart to read anything off his cues in the future. In the next section, I
elaborate on the importance of upholding a reputation for being trustworthy in diplomacy. In
Chapter 6, I further demonstrate the argument that feigning anger could backfire with an in-depth
study of Nikita Khrushchev, who was known for his frequent and intemperate outbursts, and how
the impression that he liked to manipulate his emotions to threaten others had impacted his
relationship with his contemporaries, particularly Eisenhower.
Nevertheless, skeptics might be tempted to cite one notorious master of deception –
Hitler – as evidence against the argument that emotions can be reliable indices of intentions. But
a closer look at Hitler’s interactions with his foreign adversaries during the run-up to World War
II actually strengthens rather than weakens my claim.
The Hitler-von Schuschnigg and Hitler-Chamberlain episodes (1938)
On February 12, 1938, Hitler met with his Austrian counterpart, Kurt von Schuschnigg,
to negotiate over Austria’s incorporation into Nazi Germany. Von Schuschnigg, on the other
hand, was hoping to avoid the takeover with a direct appeal to Hitler. When the Austrian visitor
was hesitant to accept the demands Hitler had put forth, the latter “lost his temper, flung open the
door, and, turning Schuschnigg out, shouted for General [Wilhelm] Keitel”, the Supreme High
Command of the German Armed Forces. When Keitel arrived to ask for orders, “Hitler grinned

32
Note, however, that the generation of an emotion through “deep acting” in the laboratory is at best attempts to
simulate genuine anger. The role of anger would presumably be more acute in real negotiations, since real stakes are
involved.
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and said, ‘There is no orders. I just wanted you here.’” (Bullock 1964, 424, cited in Jervis 1970,
45-46).
Hitler repeated his ploy in September the same year in his even more infamous meetings
with Neville Chamberlain. In their first meeting, as Lebow (1984) notes, “[a]n agitated Hitler
impressed upon Chamberlain his intention to go to war if German demands were not met”. But
the British leader was convinced as much of Hitler’s threat as his suing for peace. Chamberlain
believed that Hitler’s claim that Germany had no territorial ambition beyond the Sudetenland
was uttered “with great earnestness” (36).
33
Skeptics might contend that if anything, Hitler’s
success in deceiving both von Schuchnigg and Hitler shows that emotions are easy to feign, and
that even the most seasoned leaders and diplomats fall victim to their strategic use.
But the case of Hitler might be better construed as an exception that proves the rule than
the rule itself. As Crawford (2000) suggests, “the fact that individuals feel it advisable to display
emotion for some instrumental purpose highlights the perceived utility of the display. Even the
‘manipulator’ believes that others think emotions are important and is constrained by emotion to
a certain extent” (155; see also Hall and Ross 2015, 15). Conversely, Hitler’s opponents paid
dearly for falling for his ruse, but they would not have done so had they not assumed that
something was to be learned from his emotional appeal, and that such appeal is to be expected of
in face-to-face diplomacy. Given the grave consequences, the fact that they relied on their
personal impression of Hitler as an indication of German intentions is all the more remarkable,
and certainly inexplicable under the “cheap talk” paradigm (Hall and Yarhi-Milo 2012; Holmes
2013). Plus, Von Schuschnigg and Chamberlain would presumably be extremely mistrustful of
Hitler had they had the chance to meet again. But by provoking World War II, Hitler clearly

33
See also Hall and Yarhi-Milo 2012, 564-567 and Holmes 2013, 848-850 on how Chamberlain was convinced of
Hitler’s sincerity.
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never intended to have to deal with them again as equals. His blatant attempt to deceive had
burned the bridge in his relationships with these leaders, especially Chamberlain, which, as I
discuss in the next section, is – to put it mildly – rather atypical of how leaders and diplomats
manage their relationships in world politics.

Emotions as signals
The communicative effectiveness of emotions is derived not only from their nature as
indices of intentions; they are also signals.
Given the dominance of the “cheap talk” paradigm, IR has generally come to assume that
“costless” signals are not credible. But in Jervis’ (1970) original conceptualization of the term,
signals are “statements or actions the meanings of which are established by tacit or explicit
understandings among the actors” (18). What this implies for emotions as a mechanism to
communicate intentions is that even if they are perfectly manipulatable and unverifiable – i.e.
they are through and through “cheap”, and contrary to the argument put forth earlier, they can in
no way be indices of intentions – their expressions can still be meaningful if a social context
enables them so.
In this section, I argue that three features of face-to-face diplomacy underpin emotions’
signaling effectiveness.
34
First, there is a “display rule” against deception, emotional or
otherwise. Second, diplomatic relationships are often ongoing, and hence leaders and diplomats

34
But there are more to the “repertoire” of signals – including behaviors are not necessarily emotional – that is at the
disposal of leaders and diplomats to communicate intentions, and it is beyond the scope of the current research to
document them all. For instance, interjecting a counterpart as he speaks, using languages that are considered
“undiplomatic”, and refusing to shake hands with a counterpart, signal displeasure. One could argue that they
constitute credible signals because they are “costly” (i.e. “if a counterpart is willing to suffer the ‘costs’ that such
behaviors bring about, such as damages to the reputation of one’s character and the relationship in question, he
probably means business”). But their meaningfulness, and a counterpart’s willingness to make something out of
them, appears to derive no less from the fact that their undertaking deviates from what is considered “normal” in the
diplomatic context. The memoirs, correspondence, memoranda and other primary materials produced by leaders and
diplomats reveal many such instances. For examples from two recent US Secretaries of State, see Rice 2012, 248,
265, 388, 465 and 517, and Clinton 2014, 320-321 and 337.
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are acquainted with each other’s emotional “track record”. Such knowledge facilitates actors to
interpret the meaning behind an emotional signal. Finally, leaders and diplomats are generally
expected to remain calm and composed when they interact in person. An emotional signal is as a
result more discernable than if such “display rule” were absent.

The misconception about deceptions in diplomacy
To begin with, contrary to popular beliefs, leaders and diplomats are expected to be more
or less sincere in their dealings with each other, especially in person. As Jervis (1970) suggests,
“reliance may be placed on messages delivered personally by a high official of one country to the
leaders of another. It is one thing to lie in a written document; it is another to lie to a person’s
face” (92). Moreover, emotional expressions are more likely to be genuine, and be construed as
such, if it is common knowledge that deception despoils a code of honor that all deem vital to
diplomacy’s integrity as an international institution. Again, in Jervis’ (1970) words, “[t]he fact
that states send and pay attention to signals indicates that statemen feel they are more apt to give
true than false information… [T]here must be some restraints on lying… [States] all have a stake
in the collective honesty of the signaling system” (71).
Nicolson ([1939]1988) traces the misconception about diplomatic duplicity to
Machiavelli’s writings on the perils of keeping faith in politics, which, in his view, have
promoted the “incorrect impression that such principles, rather than honesty and good sense,
were… the root of all international negotiation and were those which any aspiring diplomatist
was bound to observe” (46). Such misconception has persisted into the modern days. After
having interviewed dozens of leaders and diplomats involved in some of the most critical
negotiations in recent memory, Watkins and Rosegrant (2001) conclude that it is a “persistent
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fallacy” to think that the “expert negotiators’ repertoires consist of a grab bag of tactical tricks
and ploys, bluffs, and psych-outs” (xii).
In other words, the realists have been right about diplomatic honesty, but for the opposite
reason. Leaders and diplomats do not see much value in deception not because mistrust renders
its successful use unlikely, but because the damage that deception does to one’s trustworthiness
can be irreversible. As de Callières ([1716]1963) writes, “[i]t is a capital error, which prevails
widely, that a clever negotiator must be a master of the art of deceit… No doubt the art of lying
has been practiced with success in diplomacy; but… a lie always leaves a drop of poison
behind… Even if deceit were not as despicable to every right-minded man as it is, the negotiator
will perhaps bear in mind that he will be engaged throughout life upon the affairs of diplomacy,
and that it is therefore his interest to establish a reputation for plain and fair dealing so that men
may know that they can rely upon him” (31-32). In a similar vein, Jönsson and Hall (2005)
remark three centuries later that “there are obvious restraints on lying in diplomatic
communication, the most important of which is the loss of reputation should the deception fail”
(76). The time-honored display rule against insincerity means that leaders and diplomats are
more willing to make something of their interactions – including through the exchange of
emotional signals – than the nihilistic view that realists tend to portray.

Diplomacy as ongoing relationships
Second, what leaders and diplomats make of each other’s emotional cues is mediated
through their impression of each other, because relationships are often ongoing. As Crawford
(2000) puts it, “the perceptions of others and the attribution of their motives will depend on
actors’ preexisting emotions, and emotional relationships among actors” (Crawford 2000, 119;
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emphasis added). Or, in Jervis’ (2001) words, “how I perceive your signal is strongly influenced
by what I already think of you” (16). In diplomacy, relationships are rarely a tabula rasa.
Interlocutors are often acquainted with each other from previous encounters, and they make as
much of an emotion per se as its contrast and consistency with its displayer’s behavior in the
past. Consider the following episodes.
The Clinton-Lavrov episode (2009)
When US President Barack Obama, his National Security Advisor Jim Jones and Hillary
Clinton presented to their Russian counterparts evidence of an undisclosed uranium enrichment
facility in Iran at a meeting in September 2009, the Russians, according to Clinton (2014), was
“shocked”. “It was the only time in the four years I served as Secretary”, she recalled, “that I can
remember seeing the steely [Sergei] Lavrov appear flustered and at a loss for words” (356). The
Russian Foreign Minister’s reaction was to her an index of intentions, because she interpreted it
as a genuine expression of surprise and unease. She also read it as a signal of intentions, because
she deemed it exceptional given her impression of Lavrov as – as she put it elsewhere in her
memoir – a “normally cool and restrained diplomat” (478).
Moreover, as I explain further in the next section and demonstrate in greater depth with a
case study of Harold Macmillan in Chapter 5, a display of anger from someone who has in the
past behaved with much equanimity constitutes a stronger signal than one who has projected an
image of either unable or unwilling to keep his emotions in check. In the example of the
Monson-Delcassé relationship discussed earlier, the British ambassador was receptive to the
French foreign minister’s outburst perhaps because his interlocutor “remained calm” in most of
their previous meetings (Brown 1970, 115).
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James Baker’s recollection of his negotiations with Syrian President Hafez Assad over a
proposed peace conference on the Middle East is another case in point.
The Baker-Assad episode (1992)
The former US Secretary of State takes pride that in his fourteen years of public service,
he had only lost his composure once – during his emotional farewell speech at the Department of
State in the summer of 1992 (Baker 1995, 27). But he did “lose his cool” on at least one other
occasion. By the spring of 1991, he had met with Assad several times. When the two reconvened
in Damascus on May 11, Baker learned that the Syrian President planned to renege on two
important compromises. As a “matter of principle,” Baker explains in his memoir, “I’d insisted
on sitting through Assad’s interminable soliloquies in each of our previous four meetings, no
matter how pedantic or irrelevant to the topic at hand. But now he’d crossed the line”. Finding it
difficult to maintain composure, Baker “slammed [his] portfolio shut with all the intensity [he]
could muster”, announced his intention to leave, and continued: “We’ve exhausted the subject.
We’re back where we started from. I would not be human if I did not tell you I am disappointed.
Because of your insistence, there will be no peace negotiations. But I thank you for your time. I
hope to see you again sometime.” Baker’s performance was hardly “diplomatic”, but it was
because so that his effort to protest made a mark on his otherwise unyielding interlocutor. “For
the first time,” he recalls, “Assad seemed a trifle defensive” (Baker 1995, 460-462).
Conversely, and as I explained in the previous chapter, ending a history of angry
exchanges with signs of anxiety conveys seriousness in striking a deal (Morris and Keltner 2000,
31-34). Take, for instance, the Kennedy-Dobrynin relationship during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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The Kennedy-Dobrynin episode (1962)
The rationalist literature has in the past highlighted the US’ ability to generate costly
signals relative to that of the Soviet Union as explanation for how the crisis unfolded. Fearon
(1994), for example, suggests that it was President Kennedy’s “televised speech” demanding the
Soviets to back down that made his signal of resolve credible (582). On the contrary, Brown and
Marcum (2011) argue that Khrushchev was more constrained by “audience costs”, since he was
more vulnerable to punishment from other members of the Soviet Presidium than Kennedy was
from the American public.
Ignored in these interpretations, however, is the “principal private channel to Moscow”
established between the US President’s “closest confidant… his brother Robert Kennedy”, and
the Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin. During the crisis, the two had “almost daily
conversations” (Dobrynin 1995, 75-76). To maintain secrecy – in other words, they want their
exchanges to remain private – they usually met after midnight (Dobrynin 1995, 82). In their final
meeting late in the evening on October 27, Kennedy made clear to Dobrynin that the US was
ready to take out the Soviet missiles in Cuba by force. At the same time, he relayed the
President’s pledge to not to invade Cuba and to secretly remove the Jupiter missiles in Turkey
within months. According to Dobrynin (1995), his “report of this conversation” was what
“turned the tide in Moscow” (88).
But why – from a “cheap talk” perspective – should his words be taken seriously
(Tingley and Walter 2011, 997)?
In his memoir, Dobrynin remembered Kennedy as someone “who often lost his temper”
(Dobrynin 1995, 61). In another important meeting earlier on during the crisis, Kennedy was “in
a state of agitation”. The ambiance was tense, and “[t]his tension was accentuated by the fact that
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Robert Kennedy was far from being a social person and lacked a proper sense of humor… [H]e
was impulsive and excitable” (Dobrynin 1995, 81-83). In that fateful meeting on October 27,
however, the attorney general behaved very differently. Dobrynin wrote in his telegram to
Khrushchev immediately after: “R. Kennedy was very upset; in any case, I've never seen him
like this before. True, about twice he tried to return to the topic of ‘deception’ (that he talked
about so persistently during our previous meeting),” accusing the Soviets for their secret build-up
in Cuba. But this time round, “he did so in passing and without any edge to it. He didn’t even try
to get into fights on various subjects, as he usually does, and only persistently returned to one
topic: time is of the essence and we should not miss the chance” to come to an agreement
(Dobrynin 1962). Such detailed description of Kennedy’s emotional state is all the more
remarkable considering the fact that diplomatic cables are usually concise and “to the point”,
focusing on reporting the “cold” facts of what was and was not communicated rather than the
personal dynamics that transpired in an interaction.
Dobrynin reckoned that his dispatches throughout the crisis “obviously reached him
[Khrushchev] and had their intended effect, because some are cited vividly in his memoirs” (76).
Indeed, in his account of this “culminating moment” of the crisis, Khrushchev (2007) described
Kennedy as “[i]n a state of great nervous tension… [and] kept appealing for prudence and good
sense” (339). Kennedy’s behavior made a lasting impression. He “was very nervous throughout
our meeting,” Dobrynin recalled three decades later. “It was the first time I had seen him in such
a state” (Lebow and Stein 1994, 138). As Lebow and Stein (1994) note, “[p]rior meetings… had
sometimes degenerated into shouting matches. On this occasion… the attorney general kept his
emotions in check and took the ambassador into his confidence in an attempt to cooperate on the
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resolution of the crisis” (524). Kennedy’s emotional turnabout clearly made a mark on the
Soviets.
The argument here is not that emotions singlehandedly account for how the Cuban
Missile Crisis was resolved, or to put it differently, that the Soviets would not have agreed to the
deal without Kennedy’s emotional appeal. Other factors were also at play.
35
But Dobrynin – and
by extension, Khrushchev – would probably not be as convinced of Kennedy’s otherwise
“costless” pledge had he not observed the latter’s emotional turnabout up close. After all,
Khrushchev had advised another of his emissaries to Washington, Georgi Bolshakov, earlier on
during the crisis: “Yov’ve got to take note of everything – the tone, gestures, and conversations”
(Taubman 2003, 556).

The norm of composure in diplomacy
Finally, the meaning of an emotional signal depends not only on what leaders and
diplomats are accustomed to receiving at the “dyadic” level (i.e. from their past interactions), but
also on the amount of “noise” in the system.
Different organizations, cultures and institutions often contain norms that either constrain
or encourage actors to express emotions. In the case of diplomacy, emotions are often considered
anathema to diplomatic best practice. For instance, the US Department of State (2013) stipulates
thirteen “dimensions” of personality traits it considers “essential” to the work of a diplomat. At
the top of the list is “composure”. The diplomat needs to “stay calm, poised, and effective in
stressful and difficult situations” and to “maintain self-control”. Composure is in fact a time-
honored “display rule” in diplomacy. As de Callières ([1716]1963) wrote three centuries ago,

35
An alternative viewpoint suggests that Khrushchev had already decided to back down before Dobrynin’s report on
his meeting with Kennedy (see Fursenko and Naftali 2006, ch. 19).
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“[a] man who is master of himself and always acts with sang-froid has a great advantage over
him who is of a lively and easily inflamed nature… [I]n order to succeed… one must rather
listen than speak; and the phlegmatic temper, self-restraint, a faultless discretion and a patience
which no trial can break down – these are the servants of success” (35-36). Later, Nicolson
([1939]1988) wrote that “[t]he quality of calm, as applied to the ideal diplomatist, should express
itself in two major directions. In the first place he should be good-tempered, or at least he should
be able to keep his ill-temper under perfect control. In the second place he should be quite
exceptionally patient” (117). Echoing de Callières, Bull (2002) posits that the diplomat is “to
ensure that the interests of rulers triumph over their passions, and not their passions over their
interests.” As a representative abroad, he is to be “governed by his reason rather than his
passions,” and is expected to “subordinate the latter to the former in the conduct of foreign
policy” (163).
Leaders and diplomats in the modern days would agree with the classicists’ admonition.
They are, in the words of Jönsson and Hall (2005), “by training and experience experts at
weighing words and gestures with a view to their effect on potential receivers” (72). As
discussed earlier, James Baker (1995) claimed that he rarely lost his composure as a public
servant (27). “On a professional level,” Dobrynin (1995) wrote, “I should be excessively
cautious in action or expression” (6). In his memoir, Colin Powell (2014) wrote: “I’ve worked
hard over the years to make sure that when I get mad, I get over it quickly and never lose control
of myself” (9; emphasis original). Similarly, Condoleezza Rice (2012) reminisced that “[a]s
secretary, I rarely let my emotions show” (616). Hillary Clinton (2014) commended that William
Burns, one of most distinguished career diplomats of the US, “is among the calmest and steadiest
people I’ve ever met, qualities that we desperately needed at the negotiating table” (90). Alisher
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Faizullaev (2006) argues that diplomats are “well-known for their ability to control the emotional
aspects of their behaviour” (513). In short, emotions should be purged and suppressed, lest they
get in the way of sound judgment and proper relationships.
But the display rule of composure appears to pay dividends not only when it is observed,
but also – paradoxically – when it is violated on occasion. As Nicolson ([1938]1988) notes,
diplomatic language “maintains an atmosphere of calm, while enabling statesmen to convey
serious warnings to each other which will not be misunderstood” (123). I argue that the same
goes for emotional expressions. Leaders and diplomats are normally self-restrained. But they do
occasionally “lose their cool” in order to get a point across, and their credibility derives as much
from the inherent forcefulness of an emotional signal as from its departure from what is
considered acceptable behavior. Counterfactually, an actor who operates in a system replete with
emotional outbursts would find his signal overwhelmed by “noise”. At the personal level, those
burdened with a track record of “squandering” emotions would find their credibility much
diluted. As Jervis (1970) puts it, “[d]ebasing” of a signal “occurs… when [it] is given to a large
number of actors” and “also when [it] has been repeatedly given to one actor” (107). Just like the
boy who cries wolf often should not expect others to take him seriously, the norm of composure
in effect amplifies emotions as a signal whenever they are displayed.
Warren Christopher, the US Secretary of State during Bill Clinton’s first term as
President, is arguably the paragon of a composed diplomat, but whose very occasional show of
emotions resulted in a maximum impact on those who witnessed it. Conscious of it or not, he
clearly understood that an effective emotional signal requires caution against “debasing” it in the
first place.
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Former Vice President Al Gore once described Christopher as having a “quiet,
consistently thoughtful demeanor”.
36
He was so polite and restrained that Bill Clinton once joked
that he was “the only man ever to eat Presidential M&M’s on Air Force One with a knife and
fork”.
37
Richard Holbrooke (1998) wrote that Christopher was “adept at concealing any
annoyance or impatience that he might be feeling” (80). Upon his death in 2011, the New York
Times remembered him as having a “quiet, consistently thoughtful demeanor”, “widely admired
for his even-handedness and equanimity” and “usually reserved and unemotional”.
38
Christopher
was clearly aware of the image he had projected. In his memoir (2001), he reasoned that “[m]y
career, reputation, and effectiveness had derived from, and depended upon, my being a private,
discreet, reserved, and sometimes modest person” (189). He attributed his self-control to his
father – also sparing in emotional expressions – who taught him that one “do[es] not have to
make a public display of compassion to be a compassionate person” (11).
An implication of such emphasis on maintaining an impassive façade is that whenever an
emotion is expressed, it would be difficult to miss or misread it. According to Madeleine
Albright (2003), “Christopher was a lawyer’s lawyer… Both his body and his statements were
spare. Observing him, I came to identify a raised eyebrow as evidence of high emotion” (165).
Similarly, Holbrooke (1998) suggested that during the strained negotiations on the Bosnian War
that eventually led to the Dayton Accords in 1995, “[b]ecause he was normally so soft-spoken,
Christopher was especially effective when he raised his voice or showed emotion” (145).

36
Robert D. Hershey Jr., “Warren Christopher, Lawyer, Negotiator and Adviser to Presidents, Dies at 85,” New
York Times, March 19, 2011.
37
Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration. 1996. Public Papers of the
Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, Book II, 2089-2091.
38
Robert D. Hershey Jr., “Warren Christopher, Lawyer, Negotiator and Adviser to Presidents, Dies at 85,” New
York Times, March 19, 2011.
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The Christopher-Sacirbey and Christopher-Izetbegović episodes (1995)
On September 26, 1995, an agreement that paved the way for negotiations over a peace
accord among the warring parties in the Bosnian War was within reach in New York after days
of shuttle diplomacy by the Americans. The Bosnians, however, were backing out at the last
minute. That morning, Christopher and Richard Holbrooke asked Bosnian President Alija
Izetbegović over the phone to defer the question of direct elections until formal negotiations.
According to Holbrooke, Izetbegović agreed. But shortly after, Muhamed Sacirbey, the Bosnian
Foreign Minister in attendance, refused to accept the agreement. Christopher “lost his cool”,
Holbrooke recalled:
Warren Christopher was famously a polite man who almost never raised his voice or
showed personal discourtesy of any sort. But we were about to see an amazing sight.
Sacirbey walked in smiling, and said, “Hello, Chris,’” and stretched out his hand.
Christopher ignored it, holding his own arms stiffly at his side. “What the hell is going on
here?” he said in a voice barely containing his fury. “I made an agreement with your
President just two hours ago.”
Sacirbey was “[t]aken aback by Christopher’s anger”, Holbrooke’s account continued. He
“tried to explain that the Bosnian government had overruled Izetbegovic, but the more he
talked, the more resistant Christopher became.” Later, as Christopher was about to leave for
other meetings at the United Nations, he was “[s]till furious” and told Sacirbey that “the
situation would have to be cleared up right away if Sarajevo wanted to avoid serious
consequences to its relations with the United States.” That afternoon, after Sacirbey called
Izetbegović and relayed Christopher’s “ultimatum”, the Bosnians relented (Holbrooke 1998,
182-183).
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Christopher repeated the same strategy later at the climatic moment of the negotiations in
Dayton, but this time directed at Izetbegović himself. By the evening of November 20, 1995,
after nineteen days of intense negotiations, the Bosnians were presented a final offer that was not
at all disagreeable but nevertheless required them to give up more land. As the Americans
debated among themselves whether or not to keep on negotiating, Christopher decided to give
the Bosnians an “ultimatum”: either accept the deal or the talks will be shut down. At 10:30pm,
he and Holbrooke proceeded to see the Bosnian President. According to Holbrooke:
Christopher’s famous politeness and patience finally ran out, and he delivered the
ultimatum in a tone that conveyed genuine anger. “Mr. President, I am truly
disappointed,” he said, “at the fuzzy, unrealistic, and sloppy manner in which you and
your delegation have approached this negotiation. You can have a successful outcome or
not, as you wish. But we must have your answer in one hour. If you say no, we will
announce in the morning that the Dayton peace talks have been closed down.”
(Holbrooke 1998, 305).
As Christopher (2001) recalled with regard to that particular meeting in his memoir, “I was
barely able to contain my usually very containable self” (221). His final show of displeasure,
rather atypical of him, was in part what drew the parties finally together. As one of his aides
recalled, “for all Richard Holbrooke’s showmanship [at Dayton], the talks would not have
succeeded without Christopher’s tireless patience – and occasional, strategic bursts of anger”.
39

Bill Clinton remembered that “the force of his [Christopher’s] will finally convinced the Balkan
leaders to give into the logic of peace”.
40

39
James Gibney. “Warren Christopher, Mr. Diplomat,” The Atlantic, March 19, 2011.
40
Ibid.
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Conclusion
In this chapter, I have made the case that emotions are integral to how people
communicate in interpersonal interactions, and their communicative logic becomes apparent
once we understand how they serve as both indices and signals of intentions. Leaders and
diplomats, as agents negotiating on behalf of their countries, are not exempt from such dynamics.
In Part II, which consists the next two chapters, I synthesize the arguments made thus far
and demonstrate them further with two detailed case studies on one particular emotion: anger.
Instead of dwelling on the general claim that emotions communicate intentions and result in
change in behavior in face-to-face diplomacy, I address the question: when leaders negotiate,
why would an expression of anger make a counterpart yield to one’s demand in some instances
but cause him to become more intransigent in others?

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Part Two:
Two Case Studies on Anger
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Chapter 5: When a Prudent Display of Anger Pays

“[B]efore our second meeting with Milosevic, I met with [Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Robert] Frasure and Rudy Perina, the senior American diplomat in Belgrade… I said that I
‘planned to throw a controlled fit’ to make clear to Milosevic that what he was doing was
unacceptable.”
– Richard Holbrooke’s recollection of his negotiations with the Serbian President on
August 18, 1995 to end the Bosnian War (Holbrooke 1998, 5).

In the second part of this dissertation, I elaborate on the communicative function of one
particular emotion: anger. In this chapter, I demonstrate how anger can be a powerful expression
of resolve when it is displayed prudently. I present a case study on the Berlin Crisis of 1958-
1959 – or the “deadline crisis” as it is often called (Schick 1971) – with a focus on the role of
Harold Macmillan, the British Prime Minister, in convincing Khrushchev to back down on his
ultimatum for the West to leave West Berlin when the two leaders met in Moscow in February-
March 1959. In Chapter 6, I put to test the corollary of the argument advanced in this chapter –
i.e. an intemperate display of anger can backfire and cause an opponent to stiffen his position –
with a second case study: Khrushchev and his outbursts at US President Dwight Eisenhower at
the aborted four-power summit in Paris in May 1960.
This chapter continues as follows. First, I lay out a set of propositions on anger as an
expression on resolve. These propositions, I argue, constitute the theoretical underpinnings to
make sense of the behaviors of the protagonists described in the two case studies, and ultimately,
how the inferences they made concerning each other’s intentions influenced immediate policy
outcomes, if not the larger trajectory of the Cold War.
In the second section, I begin my first case study with an overview of the Berlin Crisis. It
began with Khrushchev’s unexpected declaration on November 10, 1958, demanding the
Western powers of the US, Britain and France to end their occupation of West Berlin within six
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months, and in the meantime, negotiate a peace treaty that would in effect confer the German
Democratic Republic (GDR), or East Germany, diplomatic recognition. The crisis abated three
and a half months later when after Macmillan’s visit, Khrushchev retreated from his ultimatum,
and contrary to his earlier position, accepted negotiations at the foreign ministers’ level instead
of a summit meeting.
Third, I discuss how Khrushchev’s concessions are inexplicable under the “cheap talk”
paradigm in IR. A covert deployment of medium-ranged ballistic missiles in East Germany – and
the favorable balance of power it brought about as a result – was in part what motivated
Khrushchev to initiate the crisis. His high-profile declarations of resolve to follow through with
his ultimatum – including a public speech delivered in the midst of Macmillan’s visit – also
meant that any retreat would be costly to his standing at home and abroad. That he backed down
under such circumstances flies in the face of realist and rationalist predictions.
In the fourth section, the core of this chapter, I unfold in detail the personal dynamics that
transpired between the two leaders during Macmillan’s visit. In particular, I contend that
Khrushchev’s change of mind can be explained in part by the British leader’s claim of resolve
through a prudent display of emotions. Macmillan, who had acquired a reputation for being
unflappable over the years, kept his emotions in check as he communicated Western firmness on
Berlin. When Khrushchev attempted to turn up the heat with an “anger offensive”, however,
Macmillan reasserted Western position with a surprising show of anger. The display made a
mark on the Soviet leader, and convinced him of the likelihood of war if he were to persist on his
ultimatum.
Fifth, I explain and respond to two potential objections to my reading of the crisis,
namely that the extant record on the meetings between the two leaders might have overstated
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Macmillan’s contributions, and that it was internal lobbying by the “doves” in the Soviet
Presidium – not Macmillan – that compelled Khrushchev to retreat.
In the final section, and in preparation for my second case study in Chapter 6, I discuss
briefly the legacy of Macmillan’s visit, particularly its impact on Khrushchev’s subsequent
interactions with other Western leaders.

Anger as an expression of resolve: when it pays and when it backfires
As discussed in Chapter 3, the experimental literature in social psychology has repeatedly
found that anger generally functions to establish one’s position, and as such, elicits concessions
from a counterpart in a negotiation. I have also demonstrated in the preceding pages with
episodes of face-to-face diplomacy that such dynamics are at work not only in the fictional
settings of a laboratory. When leaders negotiate in real life, they also resort to anger as an
expression of resolve, and their counterpart often backs down as a result.
But assuming that leaders always prefer receiving more than less, would they not be
tempted to remain angry all the time in order to extract the most from each other? That, I argue,
is ill-advised, since whether a counterpart responds with concessions or stiffens his position
depends on the preexisting “image” he holds of the leader.
There are several reasons why a leader who has projected an image for being chronically
angry – i.e. he is a “hothead” rather than a “stoic” – may cause a counterpart to become more
intransigent. To begin with, as discussed in the previous chapter, frequent outbursts risk
“debasing” the emotion’s signaling value, because a counterpart would become desensitized to
its expression over time. It is with such consequence in mind that practitioners of diplomacy
often stress the importance of maintaining composure.
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However, there are also more complicated psychological processes that could make the
chronic expression of anger counterproductive.
First, emotions are contagious. There is ample evidence in psychological research that
observing an angry person could by itself arouse anger in the observer, even if the reason for the
former to be angry has no bearing on the latter (e.g. Barsade 2002, Hareli and Rafaeli 2008). In
turn, being angry makes one less willing to yield, more risk-taking and raise higher demands in a
negotiation (e.g. Kopelman, Rosette, and Thompson 2006; Lerner and Tiedens 2006). The
counterpart of a leader who always “loses his cool” is unlikely to remain unaffected.
Second, a counterpart often bases his interpretation of an emotional expression on the
leader’s past behavior. Experiments have shown that subjects negotiating with a happy
counterpart who becomes angry in the process make greater concessions than those with a
counterpart who expresses no emotions, and even greater so than with a counterpart who remains
angry throughout. Subjects in the first condition are more convinced that the emotional turnabout
is attributable to their own action in the negotiation, such as making an offer that is unacceptable
to the counterpart. By contrast, subjects in the last condition are more likely to attribute the
counterpart’s persistent anger to his disposition – i.e. he has a bad temper, or worse, he is
emotionally manipulative (Filipowicz, Barsade, and Melwani 2011).
Being seen as emotionally manipulative, in turn, renders an angry expression more likely
to be interpreted as feigned and directed at the counterpart personally. As I have discussed in
Chapter 4, feigning anger makes a counterpart more intransigent. “Person-directed” anger, on the
other hand, would be more likely to be seen as an attempt to insult than to express resolve, and as
such, makes a counterpart more unyielding (Steinel, Van Kleef, and Harinck 2008; Côté, Hideg,
and Van Kleef 2013).
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To put simply, expressing anger once in a while pays, but being angry too often can
backfire. The contrasting images of a “hothead” and a “stoic”, I argue, explain why Macmillan’s
demonstration of resolve on West Berlin to Khrushchev succeeded (our first case study in this
chapter), while Khrushchev’s attempt to wangle an apology from Eisenhower with angry protests
at the Paris Summit made the latter less inclined to acquiesce instead (our second case study in
the next chapter).

The onset of the Berlin Crisis and Macmillan’s “voyage of discovery”
For many in the Soviet leadership in the late-1950s, the continued division and
occupation of Berlin among the four Allied powers within Soviet-controlled East Germany was
increasingly unacceptable. By late-1958, a confluence of developments finally prompted
Khrushchev to challenge the status quo, and as such, precipitated the most serious crisis of the
Cold War since the blockade of Berlin a decade earlier (Newman 2007, 5). In Khrushchev’s
view, West Berlin had become a launch pad for espionage and other activities subversive to the
GDR. On the other hand, the enclave was also serving as an escape hatch for East German
refugees to West Germany, which was prospering economically. Most critically, the prospect of
a nuclear-armed West Germany alarmed Khrushchev. Ending the Western occupation of Berlin
would therefore provide a convenient “lever” to settle the German question to his liking, since
the Western powers would be forced to recognize the GDR and negotiate a peace treaty with the
two German states instead of a unified Germany.
41

On November 10, Khrushchev announced in front of a large audience of Russian and
Polish communist leaders his intentions to bring the occupation of Berlin to a conclusion. He

41
For more detailed discussions on the origins of the crisis, see Trachtenberg 1991; 1999; Newman 2007, ch. 1;
Gearson 1998, chs. 1 and 2; and Schick 1971, ch. 1.
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demanded the withdrawal of all Western troops in the city, and declared his plan to sign a peace
treaty with the GDR and hand over the Soviet Union’s administrative responsibilities in Berlin to
the East Germans. Such action would in effect force the Western powers to either recognize the
East German regime, or risk provoking a blockade on their access to West Berlin. If “any forces
of aggression” attacked the GDR, Khrushchev declared, the Soviet Union would “rise in
defense” of its ally under the Warsaw Pact.
42

Khrushchev’s attempt to subvert the modus vivendi on Berlin that had been in place since
the Potsdam Conference in 1945 was worrying for the West. In particular, unsettled by
Khrushchev’s unilateral declaration, Macmillan wrote to him on November 22:
I am sending you this personal message to tell you of the anxiety which your recent
statements on Berlin have caused me… The British Government have every intention of
upholding their rights in Berlin which are soundly based. That also I believe to be the
position of our allies as is well known to you… I hope therefore that you will seriously
consider what I say before deciding to proceed to such action (Macmillan 1971, 572).
However, several days later, the Soviets followed up on Khrushchev’s speech with an
official note to the Western powers.
43
The Soviet government had come to regard the existing
arrangements in Berlin as “null and void”, the note declared, and officially demanded that the
occupation of West Berlin be ended within six month.
44
In the meanwhile, the West was to
negotiate with the Soviet Union on transforming Berlin into an independent and demilitarized
“free city”, a “concession” Khrushchev thought the Western powers would seriously consider
(Fursenko and Natfali 2006, 208). If such a period “is not utilized to reach an adequate

42
Washington, DC: General Printing Office. 1959. Documents on Germany, 1944-1959: background documents on
Germany, 1944-1959, and a chronology of political developments affecting Berlin, 1945-1956. 308-312.
43
For American, British and West German reactions to the note, see Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 210-211.
44
Department of State Bulletin, January 19, 1959, 86.
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agreement,” the note continued, “the Soviet Union will then carry out the planned measures
through an agreement with the GDR”.
45
A week later, Khrushchev replied to Macmillan’s letter.
He reiterated the Soviet position proclaimed in the note, and “as a warning or a threat” (in
Macmillan’s words), reaffirmed his commitment to sign a peace treaty with the GDR if an
agreement was not reached before the deadline (Macmillan 1971, 574-576).
Tensions continued to brew. On January 10 the following year, the Soviets sent another
note to the Western powers
46
, which in Schick’s (1971) words, “maintained momentum for their
campaign” (21). The note formally proposed that a conference be held to negotiate on a peace
treaty to be signed with the two German states. Such an arrangement would in effect allow the
Soviet Union to achieve its objectives of conferring the GDR de jure recognition, and thereby
prolonging the division of Germany.
The US responded several weeks later, on February 16, with a note that essentially
affirmed its commitment to Berlin. It stated that as a result of the Soviet government’s “intention
unilaterally to abdicate certain of its internationally agreed responsibilities and obligations”, the
Western powers “have no choice but to declare again that they reserve the right to uphold by all
appropriate means their communications with their sectors of Berlin”.
47
The note only made
Khrushchev more intransigent, and fanned his “desire for a fight” (Fursenko and Naftali 2006,
219-220).
With the crisis looming, Macmillan decided to take upon himself the task of diplomacy.
Seizing on an invitation the Soviets extended to his predecessor, Anthony Eden, after
Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin visited Britain in 1956, Macmillan submitted on January 24 a

45
Ibid., 89.
46
Department of State Bulletin, March 9, 1959, 333-343.
47
Ibid., 333.

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proposal to reciprocate with a trip to the Soviet Union the following month. The Soviets agreed a
week later, and thus the stage was set for Macmillan’s so-called “voyage of discovery”.
But what were they to discover? The British and the Soviets actually had similar motives
in mind. Simply put, when the two leaders met, they were to demonstrate firmness, and in return,
estimate each other’s resolve. “It would certainly help if we could know something of their real
intentions, about which we were still in the dark”, according to Macmillan. “The primary
purpose of my visit to Moscow”, he remarked in his diary, “will… be to try to discover
something of what is in the minds of the Soviet leaders… If I can bring anything useful back
with me in the shape of some insight into their motives this might in fact be of some help to all
of us in setting our line” (Macmillan 1971, 585). According to a brief prepared by the British
Foreign Office ahead of the visit, “the talks [with Khrushchev] was to estimate Soviet policy on
Berlin, Germany and European security, and the readiness or otherwise of the Soviets to
negotiate”. On Berlin, Macmillan was to ascertain whether the Soviets realized “if they and their
East German Allies pursued their intention to the end there is a grave risk of war”. Specifically,
he should find out if Khrushchev was willing to back down from his ultimatum (Newman 2007,
63-64).
The Soviets were well aware of Macmillan’s motives. On February 16, the Central
Committee of the Communist Party produced a brief on how to handle its guest. The British
leader’s objective, it opined, was “to clarify the position of the Soviet leadership… and above all
to test the firmness of the Soviet position on Berlin.” As such, “if Macmillan were to issue
threats on Berlin on behalf of the Western powers, the Soviet side would warn him that such
pressure would not exert any influence on Soviet policy and would lead to serious consequences
for the West” (Newman 2007, 36-37).
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As it turned out, the visit was a victory for Macmillan. After several bouts of heated
exchange between the two leaders, followed by Soviet attempts to mend the relationship, the
visit concluded with two major concessions from Khrushchev. Instead of insisting on a summit
meeting, he accepted a foreign minister’s conference to discuss the German question. More
significantly, he dropped the deadline of his ultimatum, which in substance was not far from
withdrawing his ultimatum altogether.

The puzzle
From the perspective of IR theory, Khrushchev’s concessions are baffling. Why would he
be convinced of Macmillan’s claim of resolve after the two met when, as discussed in Chapter 2,
conventional wisdom in IR dictates that private communications are incredible? In fact, if one
were to examine the crisis through the lenses of rationalism and realism, Khrushchev should be
highly disinclined to retreat.

Rationalism
From a rationalist perspective, Khrushchev had upped the ante considerably, first with his
declaration on November 10 that spawned the crisis, then as I explain below, with a provocative
speech he gave in the midst of Macmillan’s visit that essentially affirmed his commitment to the
ultimatum. Both speeches were highly publicized. The latter, in fact, came like a bombshell for
the Western powers. “[F]rom Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to the lowest stenographer,” the
British delegation “was surprised and stunned”, a newspaper declared the following day. More
importantly, and in partial vindication of the rationalist line of reasoning, the British had come to
regard the statement as a signal of resolve. Khrushchev’s outright rejection of a foreign
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ministers’ conference, according to senior members of the delegation, “makes the crisis over
Berlin in May [i.e. the ultimatum’s deadline] almost certain.” The speech did not actually signify
any substantive change in Soviet position, but “the calculated rudeness of its delivery in the
midst of a friendly visit reveals the Soviet Union as far less amenable to discussion than the
British had been led to think”.
48

The West Germans and Americans had drawn similar conclusions upon learning about
the speech. “Politicians, diplomats, officials” in Bonn, proclaimed one newspaper, “agreed
tonight that Premier Khrushchev had made clearer than ever today the Soviet Union’s
determination to prevent Germany’s reunification except on its own rigid terms… Mr.
Khrushchev was playing about as tough as it was possible to get in the renewed political game
on the German question”.
49
In the US, the State Department immediately called on the Soviet
Union to make a “reasoned reply” to the American note of February 16.
50
Eisenhower’s reaction
is revealed in a letter he wrote to Macmillan immediately: “We are of course aware of
Khruschev’s [sic] apparent rigidity with respect to the Soviet attitude toward Berlin and
Germany”, “This morning,” he continued, “we received cabled extracts from the statement that
he [Khrushchev] made today in Moscow that are seemingly even more belligerent and
unyielding than those he has made in the past.”
51
For Khrushchev, to back down after such high-
profile demonstration of resolve would be damaging to his standing both domestically and
internationally. As his son, Sergei, put it, “[i]f we didn’t carry out our promises or threats… they
[the Western powers] would stop taking us seriously” (S. Khrushchev 2000, 305). In fact, East
German leaders did become skeptical of his ability to stand up to the West on the German

48
“British Visitors Stunned by Talk,” New York Times, February 25, 1959.
49
“Bonn Sees Adamant Stand,” New York Times, February 25, 1959
50
“U.S. Awaits Detailed Note,” New York Times, February 25, 1959.
51
Eisenhower to Macmillan, February 24, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 217).
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question when he eventually retreated from his ultimatum (Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 341).
Given the consequences, rationalism would consider him very unlikely to budge.
52

Realism
Khrushchev’s concessions are also confounding from a realist perspective. As discussed,
it was largely his concern for a resurgent – and potentially nuclear-armed – West Germany that
prompted him to initiate the crisis (Trachtenberg 1999, 251-256). But new evidence from Soviet
sources suggests that the specific timing of the ultimatum’s announcement, and the six-month
deadline that came with it, were motivated by Khrushchev’s perception of a short-term shift in
the balance of power in Germany to his advantage.
As Fursenko and Naftali (2006) put it, “a dramatic development in the Soviet nuclear
posture played an important role in the timing of his explosion” (194). As part of the highly
secret Operation Atom approved by the Presidium three years earlier, the Soviet army was
building special bases to the north of Berlin in the summer of 1958 in preparation for the
deployment of medium-range ballistic missiles. The nuclear warheads were scheduled to reach
the bases later that year, and by the ultimatum’s announcement in November, Khrushchev “could
confidently expect… that the Soviet Union was about to acquire a real nuclear threat to London
and Paris, rather than the hollow boast that he had been using” in the past several years. He “was
increasingly confident of the correlation of Soviet and American forces” (194). It was also with
the timeframe of the missiles’ deployment in mind that Khrushchev decided “to limit the
ultimatum to six months, rather than a year or longer” (Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 208).

52
Rationalist scholars might counter that as the leader of an authoritarian regime, the loss of domestic standing was
not as much of a concern for Khrushchev (e.g. Fearon 1994; Smith 1998; Guisinger and Smith 2002). But as Brown
and Marcum (2011) argue – with none other than Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis as their case in point
– authoritarian leaders are no less subject to “audience costs”, since they are under greater scrutiny and more easily
sanctioned when their political fortune depends on a smaller and closer coalition of domestic supporters (e.g. the
Soviet Presidium).
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Khrushchev, in other words, was hoping that “the general unease created by the ultimatum,
eventually strengthened by the missiles in East Germany, would force the West to embrace the
concept of a free city of West Berlin” (Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 213). Eventually, it was
around the time of his meetings with Macmillan three months later that the missiles became
operational (Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 222).
53
Backing down at that point would squander
whatever temporary advantage Khrushchev through he had that motivated him to provoke the
crisis in the first place. That he retreated when Soviet power was increasing in Germany – albeit
unknown yet to the West at that time – contradicts squarely with realist understanding of the
situation.

The “unflappable Mac” lost his cool
To understand why Khrushchev backed down after his talks with Macmillan, even when
extant theories predict he had all the incentives to stand firm, we need to move beyond the
“cheap talk” paradigm of rationalism and realism. Instead, it behooves us to examine up close
the subtle emotional dynamics that transpired between the two leaders, especially when they
haggled over Berlin and Germany on the fifth and sixth days of Macmillan’s visit. Two
observations are in order. On the one hand, Khrushchev turned aggressive on the fourth day
when he realized his “charm offensive” in the first three days had failed to elicit any concession.
He was caught off guard, however, when Macmillan, who was “usually unflappable” (Taubman
2003, 410), reciprocated with an angry demonstration of resolve. On the other hand, as the two
leaders sought to gain the upper hand in the exchange, Macmillan repeatedly doubted that
Khrushchev’s anger was heartfelt, and as such, sensed that he had successfully called his bluff.

53
For a similar interpretation of Khrushchev’s timing for his ultimatum as borne out of the temporary power
advantage he believed that the Soviet Union enjoyed vis-à-vis the West, see Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 101.
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Days 1 to 3: “marriage and honeymoon”
The relationship between the two leaders was amiable initially. Upon arrival at Moscow
on Saturday, February 21, Khrushchev, according to Macmillan, “struck a friendly note”
(Macmillan 1971, 592). At the state banquet in the Kremlin that evening, the two leaders
exchanged praises and hopes for reconciliation and ending the Cold War. They then drove to a
government dacha and had a brief conversation before retiring for the night.
In the following morning, the two leaders undertook “a variety of diversions, such as
driving in a troika, shooting at clay pigeons, and coasting down an ice mound in wicker baskets.”
The sight of the two statesmen huddling together and sliding downhill marked “a high degree of
intimacy” (Macmillan 1971, 597-598). “Father”, as Sergei Khrushchev noted, “tried to establish
informal, personal contacts and to go beyond the boundaries of official protocol. He
accompanied Macmillan everywhere” (S. Khrushchev 2000, 308).
Throughout the day, they also had the opportunity for some “real discussions”. Most of
the time, Macmillan recalled, “was taken up by Khrushchev on the subject of East Germany and
Berlin” (Macmillan 1971, 597-598). Both stood by their known positions, with no progress made
in terms of breakthrough understanding or concessions. But in Macmillan’s view, the exchange
was “at least helpful in that it was quiet and without emotion” (Macmillan 1971, 598).
Khrushchev, as Macmillan later relayed to his biographer, Alistair Horne, was “in relatively
good humour” (Horne 1989, 123). In a letter sent to Eisenhower that day, Macmillan reported
that “[m]ost of the conversation has been of the nature of friendly courtesies.”
54
One of his aids
similarly described the atmosphere to the press as “extremely relaxed and informal.” The
exchange was “sprinkled with sly jokes on both sides”.
55

54
Macmillan to Eisenhower, February 22, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 214).
55
“Macmillan Talks with Khrushchev on Major Issues,” New York Times, February 23, 1959.
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More talks ensued the following morning, when the two parties had their first formal
meeting in the Kremlin. The talks, Macmillan recalled, “covered much the same ground” on the
German question as the day before, but proceeded “in a rather less relaxed mood.” After more
back-and-forth on disarmament and the prospect of a summit meeting, the two delegations had,
in Macmillan’s words, “a somewhat desultory discussion, in which I suspected Khrushchev of
trying to drive a wedge between us and the Americans.” Overall, though, the talks “ended on a
very friendly note” (Macmillan 1971, 599-601). Over lunch at the British embassy, Macmillan
wrote to Eisenhower: “Khrushchev treated me to a diatribe about mistakes which the West had
made in the past and about evil intentions which it had nurtured towards Russia.”
56
So far, both
sides had mostly restated their positions and sought to justify them. But Macmillan felt that “the
talks, although still in general terms, had been conducted in most favorable atmosphere.” The
first three days, he recalled, “had more than satisfied our expectations” (Macmillan 1971, 602-
603). As he wrote in his diary, “Saturday night, Sunday and Monday – everything was smiles.”
They marked a phase of “marriage and honeymoon” (Macmillan 2011, 200-201).
Days 4 to 6: Khrushchev became angry, but so did Macmillan
However, “the honeymoon began to disintegrate” on the fourth day (Horne 1989, 124).
Against the opinion of his advisors, Khrushchev “decided to be ‘churlish’ with his guest”
(Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 222). His shift in tactics was perhaps borne out of his frustration
with Macmillan’s refusal to budge thus far. “The warm reception” on the first three days, as
Sergei Khrushchev remarked, “had no effect on the negotiations” (S. Khrushchev 2000, 308).
But it was also a calculated move. Philip de Zulueta, Macmillan’s private secretary, reckoned
that in retrospect, Khrushchev’s aggressive turn could in part be explained by his “Russian
spontaneity”. Yet there was “also an element to see if this new Prime Minister who appeared to

56
Macmillan to Eisenhower, February 23, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 214).
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be ready to make concessions could be broken down” (Horne 1989, 127). He was, in Gearson’s
(1998) words, seeking to test “the British stiff upper lip” (70).
Khrushchev, as Beschloss (1986) notes, “knew that of all the chief Western leaders,
Macmillan was the most eager for a summit and some compromise on Berlin” (174). After all,
Macmillan had proposed a non-aggression treaty with the Soviet Union just a year ago – only to
back-pedal on it under pressure from his allies (Newman 2007, 68-69). Among the Western
powers, the British public was the most averse to confront the Soviet Union, sympathetic to its
security concerns with regard to a resurgent Germany, and ready to yield to Soviet demands.
Moreover, a general election was coming up in less than ten months in Britain. Macmillan’s
outreach – or in John Foster Dulles’ words, his “solitary pilgrimage to Moscow” – was largely
suspected to be an attempt to appease his voters at home. Even members of the British delegation
had misgivings about their mission. Sir Patrick Reilly, the ambassador in Moscow, felt that the
visit was carried out “for the wrong motives – with electoral advantage in view”. “[I]n those
days”, he recalled later, “it was generally believed that the public would vote for anybody who
was seen to make an effort to come to terms with the Russians” (Horne 1989, 128). The timing
of Macmillan’s visit – plus the fact that he was the one who initiated it – alarmed his allies and
provided an opportunity for the Soviets to split the alliance.
57

The Soviets also understood the domestic implications of Macmillan’s visit. In reviewing
the British press, Alexei Adzhubei, the editor of Izvestia and Khrushchev’s son-in-law, opined
that “the British public hoped the visit would result in a reduction of tension, leading to a summit
conference and an end to the Cold War” (Newman 2007, 36). Macmillan, in short, was the

57
For an overview of British policy during the Berlin Crisis and how its perceived softness worried its allies, see
Trachtenberg 1999, 263-267.
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weakest link, and Khrushchev was ready to turn up the heat, with the hope that his guest would
be the first to give in.
So while Macmillan was on a visit to a nuclear research facility some seventy miles away
from Moscow, Khrushchev delivered a speech that, as mentioned earlier, was highly
provocative. He denounced Western policies towards Berlin, and demanded that nothing short of
a summit be convened and the signing of a peace treaty be discussed. Khrushchev’s attack was
also personal. Specifically, he “criticised in harsh terms Eisenhower and Dulles”, and “[a]bout
[West German leader Konrad] Adenauer he was brutally offensive”. After that, he “turned on a
violent attack upon the Shah of Iran” and continued on with offensive remarks against capitalism
in the West. The “only surprise”, Macmillan remarked, “was the offer of an immediate non-
aggression pact with Britain” (Macmillan 1971, 605-606) – a not so subtle attempt to divide the
allies (Horne 1989, 124). Overall, as Macmillan wrote in his diary, the speech was “offensive to
us, both in content and timing” (Macmillan 2011, 200).
The speech was in fact made as part of Khrushchev’s election campaign. But in
Macmillan’s view, it was aimed at the West. “[I]n a country where these contests are purely
formal,” he noted, “the character of the speech could hardly be regarded as a sudden outburst
intended only for local consumptions.” “The whole effect of this sudden and unexpected oration
– or declaration – of which we had been given no warning”, he continued in his memoir, “was in
the circumstances deplorable.” At a reception at the British embassy that evening, the two
leaders had a brief conversation in private, but neither mentioned the speech (Macmillan 1971,
606).
On the following day, February 25, the two met over lunch at a dacha in the outskirts of
Moscow, where the British delegation had spent the night. It was at this occasion that the talks
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over Germany and Berlin degenerated into angry outbursts not only from Khrushchev, but also
from Macmillan.
With Khrushchev’s speech in mind, Macmillan “wondered what would be his
[Khrushchev’s] mood when he and his friends came to lunch with us today” (Macmillan 1971,
608). It did not take long for the Briton to confirm from Khrushchev’s body language that the
speech was meant to be provocative, and that the Soviet leader was certainly not apologetic
about it. Macmillan wrote in his memoir:
As he [Khrushchev] was enjoying all the delicacies… I could see in his face a sly, but
rather engaging, expression of a schoolboy who has been caught doing something wrong,
is conscious of his culpability, but certainly intends to brazen it out. As we sat down after
luncheon… in armchairs drawn round the fire, it seemed to me that through the haze of
cigar smoke and the fumes of alcohol, he gave me a wink. Oh yes, the speech to his
constituents had been very naughty, but it had been great fun (Macmillan 1971, 608).
Macmillan opened the conversation with a carefully prepared statement. He started off by
expressing his appreciation for the fact that on a range of issues, he and Khrushchev were “able
to see things through each other’s eyes” in the past several days. But, he continued, “the most
urgent questions which faced us were those of Berlin, Germany and European security”, on
which, he noted, Khrushchev had stated the Soviet position in the speech the day before. He
would therefore “like to discuss the situation in the same spirit of frankness”. On the possibility
of a conference, Macmillan reaffirmed his commitment to negotiations, but also noted that he
could only speak for himself and not the other Western powers. He was also not going to discuss
“whether such a conference should be of Heads of Governments or Foreign Ministers, or a
Seanon S. Wong
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combination of both” (Macmillan 1971, 609). In essence, Khrushchev should not expect that he
could pressure Macmillan into advocating a summit on his behalf.
Macmillan then proceeded on a more confrontational note, referring directly at the Soviet
ultimatum: “[W]e could not disguise from ourselves that as a result of the initiative that the
Soviet Government had taken about Berlin recently, a very dangerous situation was in prospect”
(Macmillan 1971, 609). After that, he “spoke with much deliberation and seriousness”. He
expressed to Khrushchev: “It was my duty to make it clear that the British Government would
stand by and co-operate with their Western Allies. Because of my anxiety as to the direction in
which events were now moving I felt it right to leave the Soviet Government in no doubt. Nor
could Britain be separated from her allies by attacks upon their leaders”. At last, he concluded
his statement with words that he had “carefully memorized” after conferring with his advisors at
the dacha that morning:
[I]t is my duty to emphasise two points. I hope Mr. Khrushchev will take careful note of
them. The first is that the German situation is full of danger and could develop into
something tragic for us all. The second is that it must surely be possible to avoid this by
sensible and co-operative work (Macmillan 1971, 610-611).
Macmillan was unequivocal about the British position, and that the Soviets should not expect
him to cave in. He had, as he wrote in his diary, “a straight talk” with Khrushchev (2011, 200).
But thus far, as one historian put it, his tone had been “careful, courteous and measured”
(Newman 2007, 69).
“Khrushchev was obviously put out,” Macmillan’s account continued, “but in the early
stages of his reply he kept his temper.” Not long after, however, the Soviet leader went on the
offensive, and “progressively… worked himself up into a rage over Germany”. With “a certain
Seanon S. Wong
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petulance”, he responded that he “could not understand why the West wished to keep a state of
war with Germany” and “the dangerous character of the Berlin situation.” Were they seeking to
arm the West Germans in preparation for a war, he asked? “At this point”, according to
Macmillan, “Khrushchev began to show, or perhaps simulate, real anger.” Macmillan was
doubtful that his anger was sincere. “I was never sure at this or at other meeting with him
[Khrushchev]”, he added in his memoir, “how far this ebullition of temper was genuine”
(Macmillan 1971, 611).
Khrushchev then asserted that the Soviet proposal of a “free city” for West Berlin was
already a concession, and ended his statement with a rather threatening message:
The Russian Government intend to conclude a peace treaty with the D.D.R. [GDR] and
with any other country which is prepared to join in. They will follow out this plan
whether the Western Governments agree or not. If the West wish to maintain a state of
war the responsibility lies on them. History will condemn them. The burden and blame
will lie upon them.
A long exchange on the Western power’s military presence in West Berlin ensued, with
Selwyn Lloyd, the British Foreign Secretary, and Andrei Gromkyo, the Soviet Foreign
Minister, taking the lead. At various points, according to Macmillan, Khrushchev “intervened
angrily” and “sulkily” (Macmillan 1971, 612-613).
Soon, “the argument began to degenerate”. Khrushchev, Macmillan recalled, “somewhat
angrily” complained that the Western powers had ignored his proposal to turn Berlin into a “free
city”, and reasserted that nothing would discourage him from signing a peace treaty with East
Germany. He declared that the West had obviously wanted to conspire with Adenauer to
“liquidate” the GDR, and if there was any violation of its ally after the conclusion of the treaty,
Seanon S. Wong
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he continued, “the consequences would be very grave and it would be the fault of the West”
(Macmillan 1971, 611-613).
It was “somewhere at this point”, according to Horne’s interview with Macmillan years
later, that the British leader also “bridled and retorted” in the rather blunt language: “[I]f you try
to threaten us in any way you will create the Third World War. Because we shall not give in, nor
will the Americans” (Horne 1989, 125). Macmillan, as Gearson (1998) puts it, had “lost his
legendary composure” (71). When in response, Khrushchev “leapt to his feet and shouted: ‘You
have insulted me!’”, “[t]he British delegation was taken aback by this intemperate display of
rage” (Horne 1989, 125). According to Thomas Brimelow, a British diplomat in attendance, the
Soviet leader’s face “went the colour of rather too old leather; he was furious, rocking to and fro,
obviously thinking that if he acted it would mean war” (Gearson 1992, 138). Before they
adjourned, “Khrushchev was clearly disturbed and angry, and did not respond to the attempts of
[Anastas] Mikoyan and [Andrei] Gromyko to restrain him” (Macmillan 1971, 614).
As Sergei Khrushchev recalled, Macmillan’s “conversations with Father had made an
impression” (S. Khrushchev 2000, 310). His assertiveness must have come as a shock for
Khrushchev (Beschloss 1986, 175). With a personal motto reputed to be “Quiet, calm
deliberation disentangles every knot” (Williams 2009, 293), Macmillan had been known for his
composure. As one observer noted in his obituary in 1986, he maintained a “public posture of
unflappability”.
58
For him, it was as much natural as it was a conscious and deliberate effort.
Peter Jenkins, a veteran journalist and columnist of British politics, noted that Macmillan
possessed an “ability… to suppress all display of true emotion.” He was “a veritable master …
During his prime ministership this trait was dubbed his ‘unflappability.’ He cultivated the

58
Vernon Bogdanor, “Harold Macmillan: unflappable master of the middle way,” The Guardian, December 30,
1986.
Seanon S. Wong
107

reputation for it assiduously, as he did with all his poses”.
59
For Macmillan, “[i]t was a constant
struggle to discipline, and even repress, his immediate emotions. The image of unflappability for
which he became so well known was achieved over many years and was far from being an
instinctive characteristic.” “I always felt”, he once explained to Horne, “that one must maintain
great control, but it is very exhausting keeping it to yourself. I wasn’t really ‘unflappable’, I just
had to keep it down” (Horne 1989, 14).
60
His loss of temper in front of Khrushchev must
therefore have been unusual, even in his own view. As though finding it necessary to justify his
bluntness to himself, he confided in his diary: “In order to keep straight with the Western allies, I
had – at some point – to take a ‘tough’ line on Berlin and the consequences of unilateral action
by the Soviet Govt [sic]. This was not easy to do, altho’ [sic] necessary. K’s [sic] public speech
[on February 24]… enabled me to do this, but in reply” (underlines original; Macmillan 2011,
201-202).
Even though his presentation might or might not have changed Khrushchev’s mind on
Germany at that point, Macmillan thought that he had demonstrated firmness successfully. In a
letter sent to Eisenhower that day, Macmillan wrote: “I think that I had a pretty useful
conversation from our point of view and that it left him [Khrushchev] disappointed… I hope that
my language may have had some good effect in making him realize the strength of our
determination and what is involved”.
61
In private, Macmillan even thought that he had called
Khrushchev’s bluff. He wrote in his memoir: “It was quite clear how disappointed he
[Khrushchev] was at the failure of his own intrigue” (Macmillan 1971, 614). To him,
Khrushchev’s claim of resolve was not convincing. He “took offence, or pretended to take

59
Peter Jenkins, “The Unflappable Old Magician,” New York Times, March 5, 1989.
60
For more but similar discussions on Macmillan’s image of “unflappability”, see, for instance, Newman 2007, 13.
61
Macmillan to Eisenhower, February 26, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 219-220).
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offence,” Macmillan remarked in his diary, “and then realised his mistake” (Macmillan 2011,
201-202).
With the talks scheduled for the day coming to a close, the atmosphere swiftly returned to
“geniality and common sense”. Over tea and vodka, Macmillan recalled, Khrushchev expressed
“jovially” that he looked forward to attending with his guest a gala performance at the Bolshoi
Theatre that evening. Khrushchev was “friendly” and invited the British to a box near the stage
that was only used by him and other Soviet leaders previously. “No doubt”, Macmillan
concluded, “all this had been arranged before the coolness which followed Khrushchev’s speech
and our afternoon meeting.” “[I]t was clear”, however, “that he had not yet made up his mind as
to the next step” (Macmillan 1971, 615).
The two parties had another formal meeting at the Kremlin the following morning,
February 26. The discussion began with less contentious issues, such as cultural exchange, trade
and air services between Moscow and London. They were “conducted in a very sensible and
business-like way” and “handled in a pleasant atmosphere” (Macmillan 1971, 615-616).
Then, Khrushchev turned his attention to foreign policy, and “[i]n the course of this he
worked himself up into a state of considerable emotion”. But echoing what he concluded the day
before, Macmillan was not entirely convinced that Khrushchev’s behavior was heartfelt.
“[W]hether genuine or assumed, it was hard to tell”, he added (Macmillan 1971, 616).
Khrushchev began with a “tirade” on British policy in the Middle East, its humiliation in
Suez three year earlier, and avowed again his commitment to a peace treaty with the GDR, “with
all the results that will follow from this liquidation of the state of war”. He “went on to say with
growing emotion” that if NATO rejected the treaty, the Soviets would “rebuff the aggressor”.
Seanon S. Wong
109

“At the end of this tirade”, Macmillan continued, “he thumped the table and said, ‘That is all!’”
(Macmillan 1971, 616).
Instead of raising the temperature further, Macmillan responded: “What I had said
yesterday I thought it my duty to say”, and that “[m]y purpose was to bring about the opening of
negotiations and ensure their success”. Khrushchev, however, continued on and accused the
British of “planning the liquidation of the Socialist achievements in Eastern Europe” and that the
Western powers “seemed to want war”. But Macmillan did not think that Khrushchev’s anger
was spontaneous – a sign that the display was calculated and deliberate rather than involuntary
and genuine. He felt that “[t]here was a pause”, as the Soviet leader was “uncertain whether to
work himself up into a new pitch of rage or let things calm down” (Horne 1989, 125-126).
After a discussion on their plan for a communiqué when the two parties were to meet
again four days later, Khrushchev “in a short but offensive intervention went back to Suez, to the
sales of arms, to Russia’s enemies, and to a general attack on Selwyn Lloyd, as a man whose
‘imagination’ was dangerous” (Macmillan 1971, 617). His remarks, as Macmillan wrote in his
diary (2011), were “rude and provocative” (200). Macmillan voiced his objections, but
maintained his composure. He recalled: “I tried to keep my temper and merely said that I was
sufficiently friendly with Mr. Khrushchev not to answer his remarks but that did not mean that I
could accept them” (Macmillan 1971, 617). As Newman put it, “[t]he unflappable Macmillan
had proved himself admirably fitted to deal with the irascible Soviet leader, for he did not over-
react to Khrushchev’s rapid changes of mood and rude outbursts”. Patrick Reilly, the British
ambassador who was also present, extolled Macmillan in his diary for taking Khrushchev’s
insults “with a self control and an imperturbable courtesy”. “A flare up at this moment”, he
opined, “might have done irreparable harm” (Newman 2007, 70).
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110

Towards the end of the meeting, there was a short silence when no one spoke. Then,
Khrushchev stood up and announced that he had decided not to accompany his guest on a trip to
Kiev and Leningrad – as he originally intended – first allegedly because he had been “insulted”;
he then, as Macmillan recalled, “altered his line and said ‘and moreover I’ve got the most terrible
toothache’” (Horne 1989, 126). Macmillan responded that he felt sorry, but it would still be a
pleasure to meet with the Soviet leader’s daughter, who lived in Kiev. Khrushchev, however,
replied that that would be unlikely. Moreover, as Macmillan noted in his diary, “Mr [sic]
Mikoyan and Mr [sic] Gromyko wd [sic] not – unfortunately – be able to come to Leningrad
with us,” as had been announced in the first days of his visit (Macmillan 2011, 200). Thus
occurred what he described as “one of the most whimsical diplomatic episodes in history – the
famous story of the tooth”. The slight was later exacerbated by the fact that notwithstanding his
alleged pain, Khrushchev received a delegation from Iraq that afternoon (Macmillan 1971, 618-
619).
Upon returning to the embassy, Macmillan consulted with his advisors on their next
course of action. They contemplated cutting the trip short and returning home “in a mood of
affronted dignity.” Nevertheless, Macmillan decided that it would be better to continue “in the
calm spirit” that he had ended the meeting (Macmillan 1971, 618).
But what did the British make of Khrushchev’s intemperate, if not childlike, behavior?
Macmillan thought, if anything, it revealed the Soviet leader’s weakness rather than genuine
offense in the face of his assertiveness. “[T]he reason for Khrushchev’s sudden change of
position may well have been twofold”, he opined. “First he perhaps realised that he had made a
serious mistake in going so far in his speech of 24 February… [and] was trying to put the blame
on me. He may also have been genuinely disappointed at my determination to stand by my
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friends and to refuse any detailed negotiation on Germany”. In any case, Macmillan decided to
“go to Kiev and Leningrad, enjoy ourselves, see the sights and wait upon events” (Macmillan
1971, 618-619). He was, as he wrote in his diary, “to take no notice at all of all this childishness
and go on with the programme” (Macmillan 2011, 201).
Days 7 to 11: Khrushchev gave in
Khrushchev was, in the end, the first to extend an olive branch, both in terms of mending
relations with his visitor and putting forth concessions on Germany.
The British delegation spent the next day, February 27, in Kiev with a packed itinerary.
At the dinner hosted by the local authority that evening, Khrushchev’s daughter appeared
“[s]omewhat unexpectedly” (Macmillan 1971, 620-621). The next morning, Macmillan received
a message from Khrushchev. He was told, as Macmillan relayed in his diary, that he “would be
glad to know that K’s [sic] tooth was better. The dentist had used an excellent and new British
drill!” (Macmillan 2011, 201). Upon arrival at Leningrad in the early afternoon, Mikoyan and
Gromyko – in a reversal of what Khrushchev had claimed two days earlier – showed up and
greeted the British. The Soviets, according to Macmillan, “seemed determined to remove all
memories of the disagreement and showed us the greatest possible courtesy” (Macmillan 1971,
622).
While the British were traveling, Mikoyan and Gromyko, who had been present
throughout the talks and witnessed the exchange between the two leaders, strived to persuade
Khrushchev to leave the option of a foreign ministers conference open if it was all that they
could secure from the West at that point (Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 222). Such a concession
came on the ninth day of the visit, March 1. Before the British delegation left Leningrad for
Moscow, they were handed an advanced copy of a note the Soviets had planned to deliver the
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following day in response to the US Note of February 16. In it, the Soviets restated their proposal
for a summit meeting. Significantly, however, they agreed that if the West was not prepared for
it, there should be a conference at the foreign ministers’ level to begin at the end of April, with a
time limit of two to three months. Such a proposal would have effectively superseded the
deadline of Khrushchev’s ultimatum, since the conference would still be in session then.
62

Macmillan thought that the note “represented a real concession” (Macmillan 1971, 624), and
upon learning about it, so did Eisenhower. The President wrote in his memoir that he found
Khrushchev’s change of mind “somewhat flabbergasting, in view of his earlier bombast” (D.
Eisenhower 1965, 353).
Upon returning to Moscow the next day, Macmillan had a “very long and important
meeting” with Khrushchev that was “really useful and constructive” (Macmillan 2011, 201).
Khrushchev confirmed his concessions in verbal terms, noting that “the date of 27 May had no
particular significance. It could be 27 June or 27 August or any date [the West] liked to name”
(Macmillan 1971, 625). He was, as Sergei Khrushchev put it, hoping to “weaken the force of the
ultimatum” (S. Khrushchev 2000, 308). On the larger question of East Germany’s status,
Khrushchev stated that if Britain was unwilling to sign a peace treaty and recognize the DDR de
jure, perhaps some other arrangement could be worked out, provided that its de facto boundaries
were respected. On the issue of how to proceed with the negotiations, Macmillan suggested a
combination of meetings of heads of government and among the foreign ministers. Khrushchev
agreed, and said that he was not after a summit meeting at all costs (Macmillan 1971, 625-626).
Macmillan concluded the morning’s meeting feeling that “the thaw was now complete”,
with Khrushchev appeared “in a gay and bubbly mood” (Macmillan 1971, 626). In his
correspondence with Eisenhower later that day, he wrote: “The Russians have been showing us a

62
Department of State Bulletin, April 13, 1959, 508–511.
Seanon S. Wong
113

fairer face since the scowl they directed at us last Wednesday [Day 3]… [G]reat efforts were
made… to restore a cordial atmosphere”.
63
Eisenhower responded immediately: “I was delighted
to note the change in Khruschev’s [sic] tone”.
64
The day continued in the afternoon with an
elaborate party at the Kremlin. Afterwards, Macmillan was allowed the rare opportunity to make
an uncensored broadcast over Russian television.
On the last day of the visit, Macmillan and Khrushchev had “further friendly talks” and
signed a joint communiqué at the Kremlin (Macmillan 2011, 201). In it, the two parties affirmed
that “[t]heir common objective remains the ultimate prohibition of nuclear weapons” and “the
great importance of achieving an agreement to stop nuclear weapons tests under an effective
system of international inspection and control.” On the subject of Berlin and Germany, they
essentially agreed to disagree. The two leaders, the communiqué stated, “exchanged full
explanations of the views held by their respective governments… They were unable to agree
about the juridical and political aspects of the problems involved. At the same time they
recognized that it was of great importance… that these problems should be urgently settled…
They therefore acknowledged the need for early negotiations between the interested
governments”.
65
The British delegation then departed the Soviet Union in an elaborate ceremony
of “bands, guards of honor, speeches and all the rest” (Macmillan 1971, 632).
The “chief practical result” of the trip, as Macmillan himself put it, “was the
postponement, if not the solution, of the Berlin crisis and the agreement upon arrangements to be
made through the Foreign Ministers for an ultimate meeting of the Heads of Government”
(Macmillan 1971, 631). Patrick Reilly saw Khrushchev’s concessions as “almost certainly a
consequence of the visit” (Newman 2007, 73). Specifically, it was Macmillan’s forceful

63
Macmillan to Eisenhower, March 2, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 220).
64
Eisenhower to Macmillan, March 2, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 222).
65
RIIA Documents on International Affairs, 1959, 11–13.
Seanon S. Wong
114

declaration of resolve in the meetings on February 25 and 26 that made a mark on the Soviet
leader. Thomas Brimelow attested that “Macmillan had made Khrushchev realise that what he
was considering was dangerous… [and] had, perhaps semi-advertently, done a great deal to
make Khrushchev think very seriously about the risk of war” (Gearson 1992, 138).

Potential challenges to my argument
Skeptics, however, might counter my reading of the crisis along two distinct lines. First,
the recollections of Macmillan and other members of his delegation – the primary materials that
inform much of our contemporary assessment of the visit – should be taken with a heavy grain of
salt. Macmillan was mindful of the historical parallel the British public and especially his
international allies would draw if he were perceived as soft on Khrushchev. Britain, he declared
in a cabinet meeting upon returning to London, “must not get into the position we got into at
Munich… I will be no Mr. Chamberlain” (Macmillan 1971, 634). Macmillan was acutely
anxious about the legacy of his trip. As such, he would be inclined to claim more than the credit
he deserved for changing Khrushchev’s mind. The most rigorous skeptic might therefore be
reluctant to accept the argument I have put forth without an equally close examination of Soviet
sources.
As far as my knowledge goes, extant Soviet sources do not contain any detail of the
meetings, and certainly none on the subtle personal dynamics that transpired between the two
leaders. However, evidence shows that the other Soviet officials present were no less impressed
by Macmillan’s demonstration of resolve. In a speech delivered on February 27 to a domestic
audience, Anastas Mikoyan noted that “the British Prime Minister had at first given the
impression of seeking solutions acceptable to both sides… [B]ut later in the course of talks about
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a peace treaty with Germany and the Berlin question, the British Prime Minister… chose a tough
line”.
66
Gromyko, who was also present at the talks, recalled in his memoir: “[T]he British
position presented by Macmillan excluded the least possibility of any understanding or the
slightest movement” (Gromyko 1989, 157). A report produced by the Soviet foreign ministry
five months later, presumably under Gromyko’s direction, noted that Macmillan had in the first
days of his visit demonstrated his “well known flexibility”, but the meetings on February 25 and
26 had been the most “unfortunate”. Macmillan – on behalf of his allies – threatened that had the
Soviet Union insisted on its ultimatum on Berlin, the West would retaliate with “indefinable
force” (Newman 2007, 81).
Curiously though, Khrushchev never supplied his side of the story. His dictated memoirs
run over 3,000 pages; the third volume on foreign policy is over 1,100 pages in length and
includes vivid descriptions of his interactions with many world leaders (N. Khrushchev 2007).
They contain, however, not a single word on Macmillan’s visit to the Soviet Union, the first by
any major Western statesmen since World War II. One possible explanation – and
notwithstanding the return to a more amicable relationship by the time the British were on their
way home – is the sense of defeat he must have felt about the experience. His son, Sergei, has
provided a glimpse into his thought. “Of course he retreated”, the younger Khrushchev
commented on what came out of the visit. “The whole world saw him retreat… Did Father lose?
Yes, he bluffed, he miscalculated… Did Father think he’d won? I think that deep in his heart he
did not” (S. Khrushchev 2000, 308). It was not only the British who thought that Khrushchev
blinked; so did the Soviets.
Second, while Khrushchev was the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union by 1958-1959,
his actions were nevertheless constrained by other members of the Presidium. Recent research by

66
“British took tough line,” The Manchester Guardian, February 28, 1959.
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Fursenko and Naftali (2006) indicates that the more “dovish” members, especially Mikoyan, had
actively sought to undercut Khrushchev’s position by acting as a countervailing voice in the
leadership (Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 196-198, 201-204, 207-209, 211-213). Skeptics might
therefore argue that Khrushchev’s concessions should be construed not only as a result of his
impression of Western firmness after meeting with Macmillan, but also of internal lobbying in
the Kremlin. He might even have decided to back down already by the time Macmillan visited,
especially considering the fact that three months had lapsed since he declared his ultimatum and
the Americans were showing no signs of compromise (Newman 2007, 75).
Khrushchev’s concessions may in fact be multicausal with both domestic and
international factors at work. But Mikoyan’s conviction about Western firmness and his belief
that Khrushchev’s brinkmanship was ill-advised were informed by his own trip to the US several
weeks before Macmillan’s visit (Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 214-216; Taubman 2003, 409; S.
Khrushchev 2000, 307). His purpose for meeting the Americans, as the US ambassador in
Moscow Llewellyn Thompson suspected at the time, was in part “to take our temperature on
Berlin question”.
67
The Americans, on the other hand, were hoping to divine Soviet intentions by
scrutinizing the second most powerful person in Soviet politics. On the eve of Mikoyan’s visit,
Eisenhower said he had hoped that they would “get behind each other’s facial expressions and to
see what we are really thinking” (D. Eisenhower 1959, 27).
During the trip, Mikoyan engaged in heated exchanges with Eisenhower, Richard Nixon
and especially Dulles on Berlin,
68
which according to Taubman (2003), convinced him of the

67
Telegram 1274 from Moscow, December 17, 1958. See also Edtorial Note, Foreign Relations of the United States
(FRUS), 1958-1960, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc. 59.
68
“Memorandum of Conversation,” FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. VIII, Doc. 121; “Memorandum of Conversation,”
FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc. 61; “Memorandum of Conversation,” FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc.
62; “Memorandum of Conversation,” FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. VIII, Doc. 135; “Memorandum of Conversation,”
FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. VIII, Doc. 136; “Memorandum of Conversation,” FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc. 64;
“Memorandum of Conversation,” FRUS, 1958-1960, VIII, Doc. 137.
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US’ commitment to maintaining the status quo (409). The “Mikoyan factor” therefore does not
contradict the basic argument put forth in this dissertation, namely that emotions communicate
intentions in face-to-face diplomacy; it fact, it provides an additional layer of evidence for it.
Moreover, the argument that Khrushchev was already prepared to retreat would be
difficult to square with the fact that he reaffirmed his ultimatum in the midst of Macmillan’s
visit, both publically with his speech on Day 4 and privately in his talks with the British leader.
He might have realized by then that he had overplayed his hand and would have to be the first to
blink as the deadline of his ultimatum loomed closer, but that did not prevent him from at least
attempting to bluff a concession out of Macmillan, even at the risk of further damaging his
reputation and credibility. Macmillan’s angry turnabout could not have singlehandedly motivated
Khrushchev to budge – I certainly do not wish to overstate the argument made with the current
case study. It is at least, however, one of the factors involved – a factor that the current state of
IR theory is in no position to account for.

The implications of Macmillan’s “voyage”
Macmillan’s effort made an impact on the larger trajectory of the Cold War. To begin
with, his presentation of firmness on behalf of Britain and its allies had successfully warned
Khrushchev of the likelihood of a larger conflict, and as a result, convinced him to back down –
at least temporarily until the crisis flared again two years later – on the ultimatum he so
publically and vehemently trumpeted. To understand how that was possible, we need to discard
the assumption of “cheap talk” that has dominated IR’s understanding of diplomacy, and instead
look at how both parties sought to demonstrate resolve face-to-face, through the medium of
emotions, and the inferences they made about each other’s intentions as a result.
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118

Moreover, the Western world did not know much about Khrushchev by the time
Macmillan travelled to Moscow, at least not at a personal level. The visit was more or less his
“debut performance” on the diplomatic stage with any major Western leader since assuming
power in the Kremlin. Macmillan’s interactions with him therefore provided the world a first
glimpse of his personality. As the Daily Telegraph reported at the time, “the Prime Minister’s
visit had provided a unique opportunity for getting to know how Khrushchev’s mind worked”
(Newman 2007, 78). Whatever he learned, as I explain below, was passed onto other leaders in
their subsequent correspondence and communications. The trip allowed Macmillan “to interpret
Khrushchev’s behavior to Ike [i.e. Eisenhower] and the other Western heads of state” (Geelhoed
and Edmonds 2004, 196). As one historian put it, it provided them “a vital new understanding of
Khrushchev’s personality and his objectives” (Newman 2007, 82). Nevertheless, his intemperate
behavior throughout those eleven days had cast an impression that did not serve him well in his
subsequent interactions with other Western leaders.

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Chapter 6: When an Intemperate Display of Anger Backfires

“Negotiations inevitably lead to some playacting. Sometimes it’s useful to pretend that you have
a warmer relationship than you actually do. At other times, a show of anger or walking out is
useful. I believe it’s unacceptable, however, for leaders to let tantrums obstruct important
initiatives” – Madeleine Albright (2003, 620).

In the previous chapter, I argued that anger is more convincing as an expression of
resolve if a leader or diplomat has projected ex ante an image for being composed. In this
chapter, I argue that on the contrary, being chronically angry can backfire, since over time, a
counterpart would be more likely to attribute the emotion to the leader’s disposition rather than
to his own actions. The perception that a leader or diplomat is emotional – or worse, emotionally
manipulative – would in turn make the counterpart more intransigent.
I substantiate my claim with a second case study, again with Khrushchev as my subject.
In particular, I argue that it was his intemperate outbursts during Macmillan’s visit, coupled with
the firsthand experience that Eisenhower, Nixon, Charles de Gaulle and others had in dealing
with the Soviet leader subsequently, that conferred upon him a reputation for being emotionally
manipulative – a reputation that did not serve him well when he was actually aggrieved at
Eisenhower’s reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union and wanted to express it at the
Paris Summit in May 1960.
This chapter consists six sections. First, I discuss what the Western leaders, particularly
Eisenhower, made of Khrushchev’s personality from Macmillan’s visit. The American President
was observing closely as events unfolded in Moscow, and Khrushchev’s “performance” had
given him a first impression that for the Soviet leader, anger was more an instrument used to
exploit others than an occasional yet genuine expression of protest.
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In the second section, I discuss the impression Eisenhower further developed about
Khrushchev as they undertook their own attempt at face-to-face diplomacy in Washington and
Camp David in September 1959. Meanwhile, the President received reports about his personality
from others, such as Vice President Richard Nixon, who also met with the Soviet leader.
Eisenhower is the focus of my discussion because it was in part the offence he took at
Khrushchev’s outbursts at the Paris Summit that caused the relationship between the
superpowers to rupture.
Third, I discuss how one incident – the capture of an American U-2 spy plane over Soviet
territory – created an unexpected crisis on the eve of the summit, and how the leaders,
particularly Eisenhower, prepared to handle the expected fallout in Paris.
In the fourth section, I recount Khrushchev’s outbursts at the summit. More importantly, I
discuss how his behavior, and the fact that Eisenhower concluded it to be more (in his words) a
“show” than sincere, were responsible for the summit’s failure, and beyond it, the worsening of
Cold War hostility.
In the fifth section, I argue that Khrushchev’s behavior was not a deliberate attempt to
sabotage the summit, as some of his contemporaries and historians have come to interpret it. On
the contrary, Khrushchev was genuinely offended by Eisenhower’s reconnaissance missions, and
considered any compromise in Paris without a formal apology from the Americans unacceptable.
Rightly or wrongly, he thought that his show of indignation would cause the President to budge.
That Eisenhower became more intransigent instead was as much a surprise to him as was
expected to those who had grown accustomed to his tendency to use emotions to threaten other
people.
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In the sixth and final section, I discuss the ramifications of the failure of the Paris
Summit.

What the Western leaders made of Khrushchev’s personality from Macmillan’s “voyage”
As I explained in the conclusion of the previous chapter, Macmillan’s interactions with
Khrushchev in February-March 1959 were the first among Western leaders since the Soviet
leader’s accession to power. But Macmillan’s first probe into Khrushchev’s psychological
makeup actually occurred two years earlier. In the summer of 1957, he realized that
Khrushchev’s “sudden rise to supreme power was a fact of vast significance”, and wished to
learn more from Sir Patrick Reilly, who by then, as the British ambassador in Moscow, had met
with the new leader a number of times. Macmillan wrote to Reilly to explore – among other
subjects – “Khrushchev’s… character”. In response, the ambassador warned that the Soviet
premier’s “most dangerous feature” was “megalomania.” With such advice in mind, Macmillan
commented: “Lenin, Stalin, etc., were pretty cold fish I should imagine; but megalomania
frightens one because people who get it can do very stupid things and lead to great disasters”
(Macmillan 1971, 557-558).
The eleven days he spent in the Soviet Union in 1959, with the extremities of amity and
hostility he received from his host, seemed to have confirmed Reilly’s description. As Fursenko
and Naftali (2006) put it, on his way home, Macmillan “might well have thought that he was
dealing with a manic-depressive regime” (222). On March 4, 1959, the day after returning to
London, he wrote in his diary:
Mr. K [sic] is a curious study. Impulsive; sensitive of his own dignity and insensitive of
anyone else’s feelings; quick in argument, never missing or overlooking a point; with an
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extraordinary memory and encyclopaedic information at his command; vulgar, and yet
capable of a certain dignity when he is simple and forgets to “show off”; ruthless, but
sentimental… (Macmillan 2011, 199-200).
Years later, in his memoir, Macmillan remarked that “[o]ne of Khrushchev’s charms was his
inability to hide his feelings. Many of the Russians in high places appeared to be almost wooden
in their correctness… But Khrushchev, expansive, irrepressible, eloquent, seemed almost cast
from a different mould” (Macmillan 1971, 608).
Other members of the British delegation were no less “transfixed” by Khrushchev’s
behavior. Reilly described his reactions throughout as “remarkably emotional”. At one point,
Khrushchev even had trouble suppressing his displeasure when Macmillan and Selwyn Lloyd
whispered to each other while the interpreter was translating his words (Taubman 2003, 411-
412). Other western leaders were also observing Khrushchev’s behavior closely. De Gaulle,
according to the British ambassador in Paris, thought that Khrushchev’s speech on February 24
was “outrageous” (Macmillan 1971, 621) and his behavior “caddish” (Newman 2007, 71). In his
memoir, the French President described Khrushchev as “quirkish”, which made “communication
rather painful” (de Gaulle 1971, 217).
Across the Atlantic, Eisenhower was put out by what had happened in Moscow. In his
view, Khrushchev’s provocative speech was not only an attempt to demonstrate resolve on
Berlin; with insults heaped upon the Western leaders, it was personal and offensive. In a letter
for Macmillan the following day, written so that Macmillan “will not be feeling alone and lost”
(Gearson 1998, 70), the President remarked: “We have become so accustomed to the rudeness of
the people in the Kremlin that I suppose that Khrushchev’s speech… made at a time when you
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were a guest in his country, should give us little reason for astonishment”.
69
Later in his memoir,
the President noted: “While Harold was still in Moscow, Khrushchev took time out from their
talks to deliver a hard, even insulting speech, an act of incredibly bad manners” (D. Eisenhower
1965, 345). When he read Macmillan’s cable about Khrushchev’s alleged toothache, Eisenhower
remarked – according to his son, John – that “he personally would have gotten in the plane and
headed home” (J. Eisenhower 1974, 222). Five days later, upon learning about Khrushchev’s
concessions, Eisenhower wrote to Macmillan: “I hasten to felicitate you on the firmness of your
presentation respecting Western rights in the Berlin situation… [Y]ou demonstrated to the world
that strength does not depend upon discourtesy, a great contrast to the provocative attitude and
statements of Khruschev [sic] during your visit there”.
70
When he was later asked how he would
explain Khrushchev’s behavior, Eisenhower replied that he had been “trying to get an answer for
a long time” (D. Eisenhower 1959, 209). The State Department’s report on the visit provided a
possible answer: Khrushchev’s “mood swings” were “deliberate tactics” (Gearson 1998, 412).

Eisenhower’s impression of Khrushchev
Khrushchev’s ill treatment of Macmillan was repulsive to Eisenhower. But throughout
the late-1950s, however, there were also other opportunities through which the President had
come to develop an image of Khrushchev as aggressive, argumentative, and most importantly to
our current discussion, emotionally manipulative.
The first meeting of consequence to the relationship between the two leaders occurred
earlier, during the Geneva conference in 1955 when, in Eisenhower’s words, Nikolai Bulganin

69
Eisenhower to Macmillan, February 25, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 218).
70
Eisenhower to Macmillan, March 2, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 221). The contrast between a composed
Macmillan and an intemperate Khrushchev was on full display later at the United Nations on September 29, 1960.
As Macmillan was addressing the General Assembly, Khrushchev interrupted and shouted at the podium repeatedly.
Then, according to some accounts, he removed his shoe and started banging it against the desk. Macmillan
responded calmly, “Mr. President, perhaps we could have a translation, I could not quite follow”.
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was still “the first among equals” in Soviet politics (D. Eisenhower 1963, 511).
71
At that time,
Khrushchev was “an adversary he hardly knew” (Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 36). The meeting
did not lead to any compromise between the two superpowers. In fact, it only confirmed their
differences with regard to disarmament, Germany and other issues. But the atmosphere remained
congenial throughout, giving rise to what had been dubbed the “Spirit of Geneva”. Eisenhower’s
impressions of the Soviet leaders in attendance – Bulganin, Molotov, Zhukov, Gromyko and
even Khrushchev – were mostly positive (D. Eisenhower 1963, 517-518). But as one historian
put it, he was “personally affronted” when Khrushchev rejected bluntly his proposal of mutual
aerial surveillance (i.e. the “Open Skies” proposal) (Perret 1999, 527).
72
“He made his points
laughingly”, Eisenhower recalled (1963), “but his argument was definite and intractable” (521).
Subsequent impressions were not so flattering. After Macmillan’s visit, the next major
interaction between Khrushchev and a Western leader occurred during Nixon’s eleven-day visit
to the Soviet Union in July-August the same year. Having dealt with Khrushchev firsthand and
understood his tendency to bluster, Macmillan wrote Eisenhower a letter on July 21, whose
purpose was in part to offer some advice to the Vice President on dealing with the Soviet leader.
Macmillan wrote: “In conversation I found that Khrushchev was very quick to resent plain
speaking which could in any way be construed as a threat. The only way to get a point across
was either by heavy handed badinage or by serious and conciliatory conversation on high
philosophical note”.
73

Khrushchev’s aggressiveness was on display when he and Nixon had their first
conversation in the Kremlin. He announced his displeasure at a recent resolution of the US

71
Eisenhower and Khrushchev actually met once earlier in their career, at the Victory Parade in Moscow in June
1945. But the exchange was brief. As Sergei Khrushchev noted, “[i]t was hardly likely that the American general
would remember the Ukrainian premier” (S. Khrushchev 2000, 84).
72
For Khrushchev’s exact wording, see Bohlen 1973, 384. Charles Bohlen was the US ambassador to the Soviet
Union and served as an interpreter at the conference.
73
Macmillan to Eisenhower, July 21, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 270).
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Congress that condemned the Soviet Union, describing it as “horse shit, and nothing smells
worse than that.” Nixon in turn replied, “I am afraid the Chairman is mistaken. There is
something that smells worse than horse shit, and that is pig shit” (Nixon 1982, 182). It was, as
Taubman (2003) put it, “a verbal slugfest” (417). “Khrushchev”, Eisenhower (1965) recalled in
his memoir, “had expressed considerable anger” to Nixon over the resolution (410).
Their most famous exchange came the following day, when they engaged in what has
since then been known as the “Kitchen Debate” at the American exhibition in Sokolniki Park.
Halfway through their heated debate on the relative merits of their political systems, the Vice
President responded: “All that I can say from the way you talk and the way you dominate the
conversation you would have made a good lawyer yourself”.
74
Khrushchev’s volatility made a
mark on the Vice President. In his memoir on the visit, Nixon described Khrushchev’s behavior
as “a repertoire of gestures that a conductor of a brass band would envy”; a “quick flip of the
hand to ward off a statement as he would a fly”; an impatient glance skyward “if he felt he had
heard enough of an argument to anticipate the rest”; arms outstretched with hands cupped “as if
they held self-evident truths for all to witness”; both hands waving in unison when angry, “as if
exhorting his band to play louder” (Taubman 2003, 418). Eisenhower (1965) was not happy
about it. “Khrushchev deliberately took advantage of what was supposed to a ceremonial
occasion to attack both Dick and the United States”, he recalled (410).
But the real opportunity for Eisenhower to acquaint with Khrushchev personally came
when the latter visited the US two months later for thirteen days, the first in history by the
preeminent leader of the Soviet Union. In light of the treatment he received just half a year ago,
Macmillan again considered it necessary to forewarn Eisenhower about the Soviet leader’s
penchant for emotional dramas. On September 5, ten days before Khrushchev’s scheduled

74
“The Kitchen Debate”, July 24, 1959.
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arrival, Macmillan appended a memorandum, titled “Mr. Khrushchev’s Character and Motives”,
to a letter for Eisenhower. His purpose was to offer the President a “short character sketch” of his
subject. “While… the general trend of [Khrushchev’s] policy will be more or less dictated by
Communist ideas,” Macmillan opined, “there is a great deal of room for personal prejudices and
ideas to influence things from day to day.” “Khrushchev’s personal touchiness”, he admonished,
“may even so lead to tiresome scenes. If these occurred they must be accepted with calm, but it
would be better to try to avoid them.” Nevertheless, he remained optimistic, believing that
“[du]ring his visit… Khrushchev will probably be on his best behavior” because “he is coming
as Head of State and he is bringing his family with him”.
75
That Macmillan thought Eisenhower
should be warned of the Khrushchev’s “touchiness” speaks volumes about the extent to which
the Soviet leader’s personality and the President’s reaction to it – in Macmillan’s judgment, at
least – could derail the relationship between the superpowers.
The visit provided ample opportunity for Eisenhower to observe his visitor up close. The
experience, however, had reinforced his image of Khrushchev as emotionally volatile, combative
and even petty, and as a result, hardly improved his opinion of the latter.
Khrushchev spent the first day of his trip in Washington, mostly in the accompaniment of
Eisenhower. He went on the offensive right from the start. Upon arrival at the Oval Office, he
presented as gift a replica of the pennant that had just arrived at the moon on a Soviet rocket; his
purpose was perhaps to remind his host the Soviet Union’s superiority in space. The gift
“privately annoyed the President quite a bit”, according to a witness (Kistiakowsky 1976, 86).
He was “appalled by Khrushchev’s crudity but tried not to show his anger”. “After all,”
Eisenhower explained to his son, John, later, “this fellow might have been sincere” (J.
Eisenhower 1974, 257). In their first formal meeting that afternoon, Khrushchev repeatedly

75
Macmillan to Eisenhower, September 5, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 292-293).
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harped onto a recent speech by Nixon he deemed offensive. Nixon, who was present, reminded
that Khrushchev himself had made similar speeches upon his arrival at the Soviet Union two
months earlier. The exchange, according to Eisenhower, “tried the patience of the Vice
President.” “To add to the snowballing comedy of the situation,” Eisenhower added, “Mr.
Khrushchev suggested that I be the referee as to which speeches were more provocative” (D.
Eisenhower 1965, 436-437). When the discussion turned to the subject of propaganda,
Khrushchev was defiant. “There was no question in my mind of Khrushchev’s skill as a
debater”, Eisenhower recalled in his memoir. “He was a master at picking up another’s proposals
and using them – with his own interpretations – to advance his own point of view” (D.
Eisenhower 1965, 437).
76

Khrushchev, however, was not emotional when his host expected him to be so. When
Eisenhower took him for a helicopter ride over the capital, he thought Khrushchev would marvel
at the “spectacular flow of thousands of automobiles”. But he “saw no expression revealing his
reaction to what must have been, for him, unusual sights… He must have been persuaded of the
truth of Nixon’s statement [on American prosperity], but stoically refrained from saying so or
even changing expression” (D. Eisenhower 1965, 438-439).
In the initial days of his visit, Khrushchev was also repeatedly offended by and protested
at what he considered insults from members of the public (such as by putting up a sign that
protested his visit) and offensive questions from the press (such as on Hungary) (Taubman 2003,
425, 428-429). But the more serious “provocations” came when he thought his hosts in Los
Angeles were humiliating him on purpose. He was angry upon hearing that he was denied a visit
to Disneyland because the local police had security concerns. At a movie studio in Hollywood,
he was brought to watch the filming of a dance number from the movie Can-Can. But he found

76
This exchange is documented in “Memorandum of Conversation,” FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc. 109.
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the performance offensive instead of entertaining, and was further annoyed when a photographer
tried to take a picture with women lifting their skirts next to him. The greatest annoyance came
the following day, when at a dinner reception, the mayor of Los Angeles opened his speech with
a mocking reference to Khrushchev’s famous “We will bury you” statement. Khrushchev,
according to the State Department’s official report, made “a threatening display of… anger” and
“took violent issue with a relatively inoffensive speech”. He snapped, interrupted the mayor and
threatened that he could cut his travels short and return home anytime (Fursenko and Naftali
2006, 234; Taubman 2003, 429-432). According to Khrushchev’s wife, Nina, he “completely
lost his temper in Los Angeles”.
77

Upon returning to his hotel, Khrushchev gathered his staff and family and started
lambasting the way he had been treated. “He didn’t stint on colorful phrases,” recalled his son.
“At times his voice rose to a scream; his fury seemed to have no limits” (S. Khrushchev 1990,
358). His reaction, however, was perhaps partly staged. Khrushchev recounted in his memoir: “I
was in full control of my nerves: I was giving vent to my indignation for the ears of the
American accompanying us. I was sure that there were eavesdropping devices in our room” (N.
Khrushchev 1974, 389). Sergei Khrushchev also remembered what appeared to be “the explosion
of a very emotional man” was actually “calm calculation” (S. Khrushchev 1990, 358). Moreover,
according to an interview that Taubman (2003) conducted years later with Rada Adzhubei,
Khrushchev’s daughter, Khrushchev’s behavior was “entirely deliberate” (754). The Americans
had apparently come to interpret Khrushchev’s outbursts along similar lines. “The Soviet leader
was… a good actor”, according to Taubman (2003), who also interviewed the American officials
responsible for arranging Khrushchev’s visit. “At least one American diplomat… came away

77
“Report on the Khrushchev Visit,” FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc. 136. For a more sympathetic reading of
his outbursts, see S. Khrushchev 2000, 331-334.
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convinced that his outbursts were designed to put Eisenhower on the defensive” (426). Chalmers
Roberts, a journalist with the Washington Post who witnessed Khrushchev’s outburst at the
dinner in Los Angeles, remembered that without doubt he was “a master of feigned anger”
(Roberts 1973, 159).
His tour around the country continued on without as many of the “provocations” he
experienced earlier. After further stops in San Francisco, Iowa and Pittsburgh, he returned to
Camp David on September 25 for three days of serious talks with Eisenhower. It was around this
time that Eisenhower received a report from Cabot Lodge, the US’ envoy to the United Nations
who accompanied Khrushchev throughout his tour.
78
In his debriefing with the President, he
described Khrushchev as “a remarkable, although very difficult, man.”
79
According to
Eisenhower, Lodge, “who had undergone an ordeal in keeping up with our energetic and
unpredictable visitor, told me in detail of Khrushchev’s activities… This much could be said:
Khrushchev responded vigorously to every incident. When things were right, he showed
pleasure; when he was displeased or heckled, he displayed a scowling, enraged countenance” (D.
Eisenhower 1965, 441).
The Soviet leader again became petulant at various points throughout his meetings at
Camp David (Taubman 2003, 435-438). On the final day, according to John Eisenhower,
Khrushchev demonstrated an “inexplicable hostility” towards Nixon, speaking to him “in harsh
terms, exceeding the rules of decent manners” (J. Eisenhower 1974, 263). According to George
Kistiakowsky, Eisenhower’s Science Advisor in attendance, Khrushchev’s “whole performance
was almost personally insulting to the President and the vice-president… I could see by the
expression on his [the interpreter’s] face that he was rather shocked at the way in which

78
For his firsthand account, see Lodge 1973, 157-181.
79
“Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower,” FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc. 128.
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Khrushchev spoke during his outbursts… I could see by the President’s expression that he was
intensely angry and just managed to control himself” (Kistiakowsky 1976, 91).
Overall, the negotiations were successful. By the time Khrushchev left the US, he had
agreed to withdraw his ultimatum on Berlin, while Eisenhower agreed that the current division
and occupation of Berlin could not go on indefinitely. The two leaders also consented to a
summit meeting, along with Macmillan and de Gaulle, sometime the following year, and
Eisenhower would reciprocate with a trip to the Soviet Union soon after.
That the visit did not end on a sour note was a relief to Macmillan. As he confided to his
diary the following day: “President E[isenhower] and Mr K[hrushchev] have parted without
quarrelling!” (Macmillan 2011, 250). Upon reading the communiqué two parties issued,
Macmillan wrote to Eisenhower: “If I may say so, you handled him splendidly and I do hope that
his occasional outbursts did not give you too much trouble”.
80
In another letter dated three days
later, he added: “I think you are unduly modest about what you achieve with a pretty difficult
customer”.
81

Even though the visit was generally perceived to have brought about better relations
between the two countries, Eisenhower’s opinion of Khrushchev hardly improved. As Geelhoed
and Edmonds (2004) put it, the President “was disappointed with his apparent inability to
establish anything resembling a rapport with Khrushchev” (198). He wrote in his memoir:
[H]e [Khrushchev] implied that the personal acquaintanceship between us should prove
helpful in approaching some of our common problems… He himself later talked much
about “the Spirit of Camp David,” but it was a term that I never used or deemed valid (D.
Eisenhower 1965, 448).

80
Macmillan to Eisenhower, September 28, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 286).
81
Macmillan to Eisenhower, October 1, 1959 (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 302).
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Eisenhower’s negative impression of Khrushchev, however, should not be seen as
inevitable or epiphenomenal to Cold War hostility. While staunchly anti-Communist, the
President actually held higher regard for other Soviet leaders based on firsthand interactions –
independent of the positions they held. Constraints under the bipolar structure of the Cold War
may not allow much variation in their views on foreign policy across individual leaders, but as
Jervis (2013) puts it, “temperaments and styles could vary considerably” (160). In mid-January
1959, for instance, Eisenhower met with Anastas Mikoyan for a forty-five-minute
conversation.
82
“Mikoyan had contended himself with putting on a very spirited defense of all
the existing U.S.S.R. positions. One could detect no change or weakening in any respect”, the
State Department reported on the visit.
83
The meeting itself was a disappointment, according to
Eisenhower, because his guest had only “‘mouthed’… the current Communist line” with “no
evidence whatsoever of softening of the Soviet attitude.” Nevertheless, he found him “a
relatively affable personality” (D. Eisenhower 1965, 339-340). On June 28 the same year,
Eisenhower was in New York to meet with Frol Kozlov, who, according to a memorandum
prepared for him by Acting Secretary of State Robert Murphy, “is a trusted deputy of
Khrushchev and appears to be regarded by the latter as his ‘heir apparent’”, and whose visit to
the US was in part “to estimate U.S. official and unofficial opinion on resolve to preserve our
[American] position in Berlin and elsewhere”.
84
The President remarked that the interaction
allowed him “to form a preliminary personal impression of the First Deputy Premier”. Two days
later at the White House
85
, he “had a further opportunity to become acquainted with Mr.
Kozlov.” Both meetings were “unproductive”, Eisenhower concluded, but he found the Soviet

82
“Memorandum of Conversation,” FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc. 64; “Memorandum of Conversation,”
FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. VIII, Doc. 137.
83
“Memorandum of Discussion,” FRUS, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc. 67.
84
“Editorial note,” FRUS, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc. 78.
85
“Memorandum of Conversation,” FRUS, Vol. X, Pt. 1, Doc. 79.
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leader “a personable, yet obviously tough and capable man.” His guest was “pleasant” (D.
Eisenhower 1965, 404-405). He had similarly characterized the Soviet ambassador to the United
States, Mikhail Menshikov (nicknamed “Smiling Mike” among Washington reporters), as
“genial-appearing” (D. Eisenhower 1965, 434).
An important Soviet figure – apart from Khrushchev himself – who had struck
Eisenhower as volatile was Gromyko. Gromyko was known for his “sphinxlike” façade
(Taubman 2003, 466). He was, as Henry Kissinger described, “unflappable, almost mechanical”
(quoted in Gromyko 1989, vii). Eisenhower, however, recalled in his memoir that in the
meetings of the foreign ministers in Geneva from May to July, 1959, Gromyko was “not only
obstructive but on occasion even indulged rudely in personalities” (D. Eisenhower 1965, 406).
Throughout, he “maintained his tiresome attitude of intransigence”. Interestingly, though, the
President attributed such attitude not to the foreign minister himself, but to Khrushchev.
Gromyko, he opined, “was little more than a messenger and one, I often thought, whose every
word and action, including his bad manners, were dictated by his Soviet master” (D. Eisenhower
1965, 359). Eisenhower clearly did not think too highly of Khrushchev.
Perhaps surprisingly, Khrushchev’s Soviet contemporaries had also developed an
impression of their boss as intemperate and prone to manipulate others with his emotions. His
behavior during Macmillan’s visit was shocking even to his subordinates. According to Taubman
(2003), who spent years interviewing those around him to divine his personality, the
“sophisticated, diplomatic [Oleg] Troyanovsky”, Khrushchev’s foreign policy advisor and
interpreter, was “amazed” at how “aggressively and provocatively” he treated his guest. “After
bullying Macmillan at one session,” Troyanovsky recalled, “Khrushchev boasted… that he had
‘fucked [the prime minister] with a telephone pole’” (Taubman 2003, 412). Commenting on his
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boss’ aggressive treatment of US President Kennedy at the Vienna Summit in 1961, Anatoly
Dobrynin (1995) asserted that “Khrushchev was obviously bluffing, whether consciously or
because of his emotional makeup is still hard to say” (45). As his son, Sergei, once put it, “[h]e
was a calculated person like each successful politician. He had this image that he was very
emotional. Sometimes he used it, and he liked to use it, to threaten people”.
86

The U-2 spy plane incident and the run-up to the Paris Summit
However, whatever optimism world opinion had in anticipation of the four-power summit
scheduled in Paris the following year ended abruptly. On May 1, 1960, just two weeks before the
summit, the Soviets shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft on a mission over
Soviet territory. The Americans attempted to cover it up initially by announcing that a weather
research plane had been lost on a mission near Turkey. When the Soviets revealed more evidence
that rendered the cover story untenable and Khrushchev publically vented his anger on the
transgression, Eisenhower claimed full responsibility for the surveillance program.
Eisenhower, in fact, had always doubted whether the potential gains justified the risks in
authorizing the flights. He was worried about the propaganda victory the Soviets would reap, the
harm done to the objective of arms reduction and even the possibility of war if a U-2 was ever
brought down or mistaken as a surprise attack, and had suspended the program three times
previously (Perret 1999, 581). A “tremendous asset in a summit meeting,” he once remarked, “is
[my] reputation for honesty. If one of these aircraft were lost,” it could “dissipate my reputation
for a different mode of behavior from that of Khrushchev in international affairs” (Pickett 1995,

86
Interview in The Most (episode no. 9), History Channel. First aired on December 8, 2000.
Seanon S. Wong
134

132).
87
He was even sympathetic to the sense of insult that such flights would certainly engender
among the Soviets because of the violation of their sovereignty.
Nevertheless, he continued with the flights under the operating assumptions – as his
subordinates in the CIA had told him – that the Soviets lacked the capabilities to shoot down a
U-2 given its high altitude, and if even they could, neither the plane nor the pilot would survive
the fall (Perret 1999, 581; Wicker 2002, 126-127). All of these assumptions turned out to be
wrong.
So when a U-2 was eventually brought down on May Day, the most important day in the
Soviet calendar, Eisenhower, while not apologetic, was to a certain extent regretful. A week
later, he grumbled to his secretary, “I would like to resign!”
88
The next day, he claimed ultimate
responsibility in a conference. “No one wants another Pearl Harbor”, he justified, so surveillance
programs such as the U-2 flights were a “distasteful but vital necessity”.
89

As his trip to Paris was approaching, Eisenhower was still hopeful for the summit. In a
meeting with a group of Republican senators four days before his departure, he commented that
“while no one should expect great or far-reaching achievements, he was nonetheless hopeful that
some useful progress could be made.” He also “did not think the recent theatrical behavior of Mr.
Khrushchev would set the tone of the meeting”.
90
He even suggested to Christian Herter, his
Secretary of State, that he meet with Khrushchev in private at the American ambassador’s
residence in Paris the afternoon before the summit. Herter, however, objected the initiative
because it would be a sign of weakness (S. Khrushchev 2000, 386). As one scholar puts it,

87
For Eisenhower’s misgivings about the flights, see also Wicker 2002, 125; Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 38, 267.
88
Ann Whitman diary, Eisenhower Presidential Library, May 9, 1959.
89
“U.S. States Position on U-2 Incident,” Department of State Bulletin, May 30, 1960, 851-852.
90
“Memorandum for Ann Whitman,” Eisenhower Presidential Library, May 11, 1960.
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Eisenhower was “brimming with conciliation, and hoping against hope that Khrushchev would
follow suit” (Haapanen 1994, 256).
On May 15, he arrived at Paris. As it turned out, the Soviet premier had already paid de
Gaulle, the host, a visit and handed him a démarche. In essence, it declared that the Soviets
would withdraw from the conference unless Eisenhower issued an apology, announced that the
missions be discontinued, and pledged that those responsible for the flights in the US
government be punished. His demands were also relayed verbally to Macmillan. According to de
Gaulle (1971), upon learning about the démarche that afternoon, Eisenhower was “very upset by
the turn which events had taken” and “announced his intention to make a conciliatory statement”
when the four powers met the following morning (429). The American delegation met
immediately to discuss a proper strategy to deal with the Soviets. While it was clear that
Eisenhower would not apologize, there was no sign yet that the President was offended. Herter
suggested that in the morning, “the President should invite [Khrushchev] over for discussions”
(Beschloss 1986, 274). Eisenhower, on his part, seemed to be dwelling still on the ill-fated
mission. He said to his colleagues, “the intelligence people [i.e. the CIA]… had failed to
recognize the emotional, even pathological, reaction of the Russian regarding their frontiers”.
91

Macmillan checked with him the following morning, just three hours before the four
powers were to meet, and found the President “depressed and uncertain” (Macmillan 1972, 204).
He was encouraged by Eisenhower’s remark that “one thing was very clear in his mind and that
is until we get to satellites, we will not do this kind of overflying anymore.” Macmillan thought
that “clarification of this point might be of great value in the discussion with Mr. K [sic].”
92
As
the two leaders finished up their breakfast, Herter came in and delivered the latest version of the

91
“Memorandum of Conference with the President,” Eisenhower Presidential Library, May 15, 1960.
92
“Memorandum of Conference,” Eisenhower Presidential Library, May 16, 1960.
Seanon S. Wong
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text that Eisenhower had planned to deliver – the one that, according to de Gaulle, would be
“conciliatory”. But the President found it “not very good and much too truculent” (Macmillan
1972, 204; emphasis original).

Khrushchev’s “manners”
However, whatever desire for reconciliation Eisenhower had that morning quickly
dissipated. In his memoir, Eisenhower devoted an entire chapter, titled “The Summit That Never
Was”, on his meeting with Khrushchev. He opened it with a quote by the English poet, Edmund
Spenser: “For a man by nothing is so well bewrayed… As by his manners.” By the end of the
day, the President was to be thoroughly incensed by Khrushchev’s “manners”.
The Soviet delegation was already in the room of the meeting when Eisenhower entered.
Khrushchev gave him a cold shoulder. The President, according to Gromyko (1989), “was about
to move forward to greet Khrushchev, but met his icy stare, understood the situation and
remained where he was. No greeting took place: the two leaders did not even shake hands”
(171).
93
After the four parties had seated, de Gaulle, as the host, announced that since “one of the
participants” (i.e. Khrushchev) had delivered him a statement, the floor was open to anyone who
wished to respond. Both Khrushchev and Eisenhower indicated their intention to speak, but de
Gaulle suggested Eisenhower to speak first since he was both a head of state and of government.
Khrushchev, nevertheless, contested angrily that they were all equals and he had been first to
request the floor (Walters 1978, 343). He, as Eisenhower described, “was on his feet, red-faced,
loudly demanding the right to speak” (D. Eisenhower 1965, 555).
Khrushchev’s speech – or in Eisenhower’s words, his “long diatribe” (D. Eisenhower
1965, 554) – lasted forty-five minutes, and was read straight out of a text prepared in advance. In

93
See also Walters 1978, 343.
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essence, he repeated the three demands he had issued the day before. If they were not met, the
Soviets would leave Paris, and Eisenhower would no longer be invited to the Soviet Union. Both
of these consequences, Macmillan noted, “were couched in ironical and wounding terms”
(Macmillan 1972, 205). Khrushchev was in an “angry mood” and spoke “loudly”, according to
Anatoly Dobrynin, who was present as the Soviet delegation’s counselor (Dobrynin 1995, 40).
At one point, Khrushchev “lashed himself into an even greater frenzy” that de Gaulle interrupted
and said: “The acoustics in this room are excellent. We can all hear the chairman. This is no need
for him to raise his voice” (Walters 1978, 344). Khrushchev wrote in the memoir, “I was all
worked up, feeling combative and exhilarated” (N. Khrushchev 1974, 455).
Eisenhower, however, was not convinced that Khrushchev’s angry protest was sincere; it
was, as he put it, “largely spurious” (D. Eisenhower 1965, 558). His speech was “repetitious, and
at one point”, Eisenhower recalled in his memoir, “he became so vehement that I could not help
grinning. He happened to notice this, and thereafter kept his eyes glued to the text of his speech”
(D. Eisenhower 1965, 555). The President also thought that the other leaders concurred with his
assessment. “Both President de Gaulle and Prime Minister Macmillan”, he wrote, “suggested
that Khrushchev was acting more like a student reciting a difficult lesson than as a person who
was speaking his own convictions and beliefs” (D. Eisenhower 1965, 556). He was expecting to
meet an angry Khrushchev in light of the U-2 incident, but from what he could tell, the Soviet
leader was striving to achieve more; he was seizing on the opportunity to insult him and force the
Americans on the defensive.
Eisenhower grew angry. “The President could scarcely contain himself, but he did”,
Macmillan remembered, as Khrushchev “tried to pulverize [him]… by a mixture of abuse,
vitriolic and offensive, and legal argument” (Macmillan 1972, 205). “Khrushchev’s emotional
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speech and especially its second part [i.e. on the consequences if his demands were not met]”,
Dobrynin remarked, “was a real surprise to Eisenhower and, besides, make him feel
uncomfortable, since it had been delivered in the presence of his main allies” (Dobrynin 1995,
40). “As Khrushchev talked,” according to Charles Bohlen, who was the official note-taker for
the Americans, “Eisenhower’s bald head turned various shades of pink, a sure sign that he was
using every bit of will to hold his temper” (Bohlen 1973, 468). Vernon Walters, his aid and
interpreter, similarly remembered: “[Eisenhower’s] face and neck were flushed and I could tell
from experience that he was extremely angry” (Walters 1978, 345). The President scrawled a
note to Herter: “I am going to take up smoking again” (Beschloss 1986, 285).
Eisenhower was next to speak. As he was about to do so, with the speech his staff
prepared for him and finalized that morning, Herter passed him a note: “Do not let K interrupt, as
he will try to” (Beschloss 1986, 286). Eisenhower did not apologize, but he pledged to satisfy
another of Khrushchev’s demands. “[D]espite the violence and inaccuracy of Mr. Khrushchev’s
statements”, he declared, the surveillance flights “were suspended after the recent incident and
are not to be resumed.” Instead, he proposed, as he had in Geneva in 1955, that the responsibility
of aerial surveillance be taken up by the United Nations. He ended his statement with an offer
whose significance historians often overlook – “to undertake bilateral conversations between the
United States and the USSR while the main conference proceeds.” His speech, as he told de
Gaulle the day before, would be conciliatory.
But the meeting degenerated further as Khrushchev remained belligerence. Macmillan
was hoping to salvage the summit, while Eisenhower did not speak much. De Gaulle, however,
also became irritated. He expressed displeasure at the fact that Khrushchev responded
affirmatively when the French ambassador in Moscow was dispatched to ask if the summit
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should be held as planned. But now, it was uncertain whether the meeting could continue. He
also pointed out that Khrushchev was no less responsible for Soviet satellites flying over French
territory, including one that was launched just the day before.
Khrushchev, in turn, questioned whether Eisenhower had meant to end the flights only
during the conference or in general, and complained that “President Eisenhower expressed no
regrets for this aggressive act. On the contrary, he spoke of its necessity and thus attempted to
justify if not condone it”. With regard to the offer of bilateral talks, he declared: “This idea is
always good… [B]ut frankly I am skeptical of reaching agreement on the basis announced by
President Eisenhower.” In other words, whatever Eisenhower had said thus far was not sufficient
to his ears. He addressed Eisenhower directly, the first time since his trip to the US eight months
earlier: “[W]e don’t understand what devil pushed you into doing this provocative act to us just
before the Conference. If there had been no incident we would have come here in friendship and
in the best atmosphere.” Raising his hands above his head, he said: “God is my witness that I
come with clean hands and a pure soul.” Eisenhower later recalled upon hearing that, he almost
choked (Beschloss 1986, 288). The President then responded – and with Khrushchev interrupting
him – that he could pledge that the flights would not continue under his watch, but he could not
speak for his successor.
Khrushchev, according to Walters (1978), “jumped to his feet” (346). He retorted that “it
is not enough” and that “[t]here is no reference to the condemnation or regret for the insult
publicly made to us.” Despite protests from Macmillan and de Gaulle, he then insisted on
publicizing his speech that morning. Macmillan then concluded by proposing that another
meeting be scheduled the next day. Khrushchev responded that “I would not participate… until
the United States has publically removed the threat it has imposed.” He then, according to
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Eisenhower (1965, 556) and Walters (1978, 340), “stalked out” of the room. As he left, he
slapped his driver on the back and remarked, “Mine is the only ruddy face. Eisenhower’s is
white, and Macmillan’s has no color” (Beschloss 1986, 289).
94

One could imagine, however, that Eisenhower’s face was probably as red as
Khrushchev’s, but for the opposite reason. He was livid. “I’m just fed up! I’m just fed up!”, he
shouted after he returned to the American embassy. Khrushchev was “a son of a bitch” by trying
to put on a show to impress Moscow (Beschloss 1986, 290). He “had been completely
intransigent and insulting”.
95
When he met with Macmillan that evening, he was, according to
the latter, “relaxed, but talked very strongly against Khrushchev. He was a real S.O.B. He did not
see what he could do.” Macmillan remarked to himself that he supposed the President could
“‘say he was sorry’ – or, preferably, [make] a formal diplomatic apology.” But he did not broach
the subject, since there was no point to press Eisenhower given the way he had been treated
(Macmillan 1972, 208). Clearly, Khrushchev’s behavior did not draw anyone closer to his cause.
According to Walters (1978), “neither de Gaulle, who did not seem unduly shaken, nor
Macmillan, who was clearly staggered by the whole business, ever suggested, even indirectly,
that Eisenhower should apologize” (347-348). John Eisenhower, who was also part of the
American delegation, recalled that his father had great difficulty “in keeping his temper during
the long-drawn-out polemics”. “Under the surface,” he wrote, “we all felt the impact of the
insults, all harboring strong resentment and bewilderment at Khrushchev’s violent conduct” (J.
Eisenhower 1974, 274-275). There was no way Eisenhower would budge given what he had just
gone through.

94
For the full transcript of the meeting, see “Memorandum of Conversation,” FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. IX, Doc. 168.
95
“Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower,” FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. IX, Doc. 169.
Seanon S. Wong
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On the following day, the three Western leaders decided to schedule another session of
meetings, and extended an invitation to Khrushchev. Meanwhile, according to John Eisenhower,
the American delegation had caught words that “the Russians were… peddling the idea around
town” that a telephone call from the President “to express regret” over the U-2 flights “would
keep the Summit going”. Khrushchev was willing to drop his demand that those responsible in
the US government be punished if Eisenhower would “personally apologize” (J. Eisenhower
1974, 275-276). That afternoon, the Soviet premier responded to the invitation. Again, he would
not attend another meeting unless the Americans accepted all of his demands. Khrushchev, as
Taubman (2003) noted, “may still have hoped that Eisenhower would relent” (465). He later
confided that he was hoping that de Gaulle and Macmillan would press Eisenhower to apologize
(Beschloss 1986, 296). But instead of caving in, the three Western leaders decided to issue a
communiqué, announcing that the summit could not continue without Khrushchev’s
participation. The summit had thus ended before it began, with neither side willing to budge in
order to save it. “Father burned the last bridge”, Sergei Khrushchev wrote. “The leaders of both
superpowers dug in their heels: one demanded an apology, the other refused to make it” (S.
Khrushchev 2000, 389).

What was Khrushchev hoping to achieve?
The critical question with regard to the validity of the argument advanced in this chapter
is what was Khrushchev’s motive in unleashing his wrath at the summit. The dominant view held
among his contemporaries and historians who have studied the event closely is that perhaps
Khrushchev was less interested in striking an agreement on disarmament, Germany and other
issues than scoring propaganda points against the Americans. Worse, some have argued that he
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was deliberately sabotaging the summit to placate the more hawkish voices in the Soviet
leadership and even his international allies. Macmillan, for instance, thought that Khrushchev
turned adamant “because he had gotten into something of a spot at the Kremlin” (D. Eisenhower
1965, 554). Paul-Henri Spaak, NATO’s Secretary General at the time, thought that “a
combination of Chinese, Stalinists, and Soviet army pressures forced Khrushchev to change his
policy” (Sulzberger 1970, 670).
96
To conclude any kind of agreement after an American spy
plane was captured in Soviet territory would be an unacceptable affront to his country’s dignity.
If Khrushchev was indeed seeking to sabotage the summit, my argument cannot hold,
since it would imply that he was not expecting his outbursts to elicit any compromise from
Eisenhower. Khrushchev’s objective would be the exact opposite, i.e. to inflict maximum insult
on the Americans (and reap the propaganda points that came with it), leave no doubt among the
leaders and in world opinion that the Soviets were the aggrieved party, and with that as a pretext,
extricate himself from the summit. Whether or not Eisenhower perceived his outbursts as sincere
and whether he softened or hardened his position as a result were beside the point.
But such ex post reading of Khrushchev’s motive seems to have borne out of the fact that
the summit failed – and failed so spectacularly – rather than an informed reading of what he
thought ex ante he could achieve with his behavior, realistically or otherwise. Evidence, in fact,
suggests that Khrushchev was genuinely aggrieved. More importantly, he actually believed that
his angry protests could convince Eisenhower to yield and continue on with the summit.
First of all, the view that Khrushchev was under pressure at home to sabotage the summit
is contradicted by those who knew the Soviet leader best. “Some Western authors who write

96
For similar explanations among Khrushchev’s contemporaries for his behavior at Paris, see de Gaulle 1971, 249;
Kistiakowsky 1976, 328; S. Khrushchev 2000, 388. For views among historians, see Pickett 1995, 132-133;
Beschloss 1986, 458, 275-277; Newman 2007, 1; Perret 1999, 583; Schick 1971, 123-127; and Wicker 2002, 127-
128.
Seanon S. Wong
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about the Paris crisis argue that there were serious differences in the Soviet leadership at the time
and that pressure on Father from the right led to the breakup of the conference. This viewpoint
strikes me as profoundly mistaken… He was in complete command of the situation and made the
decisions” (S. Khrushchev 2000, 383). In fact, the Soviet leadership gave him the mandate to
negotiate on the eve of his trip to Paris. Dobrynin similarly wrote in his memoir: “Some
American historians have argued that Khrushchev came to Paris with the intention of wrecking
the summit so he could make propaganda. That was not so, and I can testify to it. Our delegation
brought with it extensive directives for each item on the agenda, all of them approved after active
deliberation within the Politburo. So we left Moscow with the expectation of lengthy if uneasy
discussions in Paris.” Instead, Khrushchev undertook an “emotional attempt to bluff an apology
out of Eisenhower by threatening to ruin the summit” (Dobrynin 1995, 41-42).
What, then, caused Khrushchev to change his mind in the last minute? He wrote in his
memoir:
During the flight [to Paris]… I felt a keener sense of my responsibility… They present us
with this pill just before the conference, but we pretend that we don’t understand
anything; we go to this conference as if nothing had happened… We are, in fact, the
injured party; our dignity was insulted, but we are still going to this conference… I began
to think that we had to review the content of our papers, especially the first – the
declaration which we would make at the opening of the conference. I thought that we had
to set conditions, an ultimatum [i.e. the three demands he eventually issued]… Thus, we
departed with documents containing one position and when we landed in Paris their
content was quite different.
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Khrushchev was furious, especially in light of the rapport and trust he thought he had developed
with Eisenhower at Camp David. As Bohlen (1973) noted, “Khrushchev’s anger and
disappointment were real. He had gone out on a long limb in accepting Eisenhower as a man of
good will and a man of peace. He genuinely believed the President was different from ‘capitalist
warmongers’” (470). According to Sergei Khrushchev, he made an attempt to meet with
Eisenhower in private the day before the summit (as Eisenhower had suggested earlier to his own
people before he departed for Paris), with Macmillan serving as the intermediary. However, he
was furious when Eisenhower did not reciprocate.
97
“Father’s struggle”, as Sergei put it, “was
not against the opposition [i.e. the hawks in the Kremlin who wished the summit to fail] but
within himself” (S. Khrushchev 2000, 386).

The incident, including Eisenhower’s failure to
extent an olive branch before the summit, was too bitter a pill for him to swallow. His bottom
line was that negotiations could not begin without at least an apology.
Moreover, after the meeting on May 16, he stayed in Paris for two more days, hoping that
Eisenhower would relent (Schick 1971; Taubman 2003, 465). That would not be the proper
strategy if his objective were to sabotage the summit. His confidence in his ability to secure an
apology was further strengthened by his belief that Eisenhower had much at stake in the
summit’s success. As Dobrynin (1995) observed, “[t]o better understand Khrushchev’s behavior
it should be said that from the very beginning he was convinced that Eisenhower would not
allow the conference to collapse” (41). He, moreover, actually believed that Eisenhower would
accept his demands. At one point during his opening speech, he was convinced that he heard the
President saying to Herter: “Well, why not? Why don’t we go ahead and make a statement of
apology?” (Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 285). Eisenhower denied ever saying that when he was

97
For a corroborating account from a Soviet official made on the day of the summit, see Sulzberger 1970, 669. The
writings of Macmillan and Eisenhower, however, contain no indication of Khrushchev’s attempt to reach out and
talk.
Seanon S. Wong
145

later asked about Khrushchev’s claim. Khrushchev also confided later that he had hoped that
Macmillan and de Gaulle would act on his behalf and convince Eisenhower to apologize
(Beschloss 1986, 296). But as mentioned, both leaders considered that a lost cause after
Khrushchev’s behavior that morning.
98

In short, Khrushchev did not intend to wreck the summit. He actually believed that
Eisenhower would yield to his forceful protests and the negotiations would carry on. As Walters
(1978) observed: “It seemed to me that the Soviets had gambled on a capitulation by Eisenhower
and were disoriented when it was not forthcoming. They had counted on both de Gaulle and
Macmillan to pressure Eisenhower for some form of apology and this had not happened” (348).
However far-fetched the belief that Eisenhower would apologize was to Khrushchev’s
contemporaries, the fact that Eisenhower did not was in fact a surprise to him.
My argument is not that Eisenhower would have apologized had Khrushchev’s outbursts
been perceived as more credible and genuine. In any event, it would be unrealistic to expect
Eisenhower, as leader of the Western camp, to publically admit guilt and remorse for a
surveillance program he authorized. One needs to entertain, however, the counterfactual in which
Khrushchev had not developed ex ante a reputation – in Eisenhower’s mind and in general – for
being intemperate and prone to exploit others emotionally. What if, on the contrary, Khrushchev
had developed a reputation for being composed and good-mannered, generated sufficient rapport
with the Western leaders from past interactions, and at the summit, exercised a more prudent use
of anger? While one may never know the answer, it is conceivable that under such preconditions,

98
It is in fact rather doubtful how clear-headed Khrushchev was in his assessment of how others would react to his
behavior. His belief that his performance was for the better as far as extracting an apology from Eisenhower is
concerned seemed wishful thinking. He, for instance, wrote that de Gaulle “was more bitterly disappointed than
Macmillan with the collapse of the conference. It could be that he had greater hopes and expectations. I can’t be
sure. I’m basing this opinion only on the impression I got from my reading of the expressions on their faces” (N.
Khrushchev 1974, 460). John Eisenhower, however, opined that the French leader “seemed completely unperturbed
by all these turns of events; perhaps he had never put much stock in the Summit anyway” (J. Eisenhower 1974, 278).
Walters (1978) similarly observed that de Gaulle “did not seem unduly shaken” (347-348).
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146

it would be more likely that his behavior be perceived as exceptional rather than typical of him,
and as such, be interpreted as a genuine protest against American transgression. Eisenhower, in
turn, would have been more inclined to compromise over what was in his mind the “stupid U-2
mess” (Geelhoed and Edmonds 2004, 316), such as by following up on the hint the Soviets were
dropping the day after the summit that an apology over the telephone was all that Khrushchev
needed. After all, as mentioned, Eisenhower had been one of most mindful in his administration
of Soviet sensibilities regarding the violation of their airspace, and was privately rueful about the
spy flights (Fursenko and Naftali 2006, 226).
In short, Eisenhower was prepared to be conciliatory on his way to Paris. But the
perception that Khrushchev’s outbursts were staged in order to humiliate the Americans made
him more intransigent instead. The interaction only provided further evidence for Eisenhower’s
verdict on Khrushchev’s personality: “He was shrewd, tough, and coldly deliberate, even when
he was pretending to be consumed with anger” (D. Eisenhower 1965, 557-558).

Ramifications of the summit’s failure
The whole incident would be comical and petty and sound more like gossip than an
interaction of much consequence if not for the fact the protagonists involved were the two most
powerful people in the world, or four if Macmillan and de Gaulle are counted in as well. The
summit was an important turning point in the history of the Cold War because its failure had put
an abrupt end to nearly two years of effort – particularly by Macmillan – to achieve détente
between the superpowers. More specifically, the hope that the four powers could work out of
their impasse on Berlin was dashed. The best opportunity until then to work towards
disarmament was also lost (Wicker 2002, 129).
Seanon S. Wong
147

Notwithstanding the bad blood that the U-2 incident had caused, the leaders, including
Khrushchev, were in fact ready to make progress in Paris. As Newman (2007) concludes after
studying newly available sources in the Soviet and East German archives, “Khrushchev was so
keen to achieve disarmament and détente that he was prepared to make key concessions on
Berlin to the Western powers… [H]ad the summit gone ahead, both sides might well have
reached a compromise on Berlin” (1). But not only was the opportunity for the leaders to work
out their differences under one roof lost, the fallout actually aggravated the Cold War. “Instead
of producing at least some progress on outstanding issues,” Taubman (2003) argues,
“Khrushchev had broken with Eisenhower, ruined Soviet-West German relations (at least for the
time bring), alienated East German intellectuals, who had hoped for improved ties with the West,
and encouraged Walter Ulbricht [the East German leader] to continue scheming to create a
confrontation over Berlin.” Khrushchev, Mikoyan later opined, “was guilty of delaying the onset
of détente for fifteen years” (466).
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148

Chapter 7: Conclusion

Summary of argument
In this dissertation, I argue that IR has largely failed to make sense of face-to-face
diplomacy, particularly how it serves as a conduit for countries to communicate intentions. For
neorealists, power is the only measure of intentions; communication is epiphenomenal. Talks are
equally “cheap” according to rationalism; any claim of intentions is credible only if it is costly.
Constructivism underscores the influence of ideational factors in communication – such as
shared norms, identities and an intersubjectively constituted rationality – but falls short of
explaining the communicative mechanisms that enable leaders and diplomats to express how
much they care (or not care) about the integrity of these factors.
A closer reading of how leaders and diplomats actually behave and what they make of
each other’s behavior – as I have done with the episodes and case studies in the preceding
chapters – reveals a far more complicated picture. Khrushchev finding Macmillan’s
demonstration of resolve credible, Macmillan calling Khrushchev’s bluff, Eisenhower
considering Khrushchev’s angry protests unconvincing, etc. – none of such inferences of
intentions can be explained without considering the role of emotions. To propel the literature
forward, scholars must venture beyond the confines of the “cheap talk” paradigm and take into
account the nonverbal dynamics that transpire when leaders and diplomats interact face-to-face.
With that in mind, I have leveraged insights from the latest research on negotiations in
social and experimental psychology, and highlighted the communicative function of emotions in
interpersonal interactions. I have argued that the instrumental use of emotions is curtailed
because displays are more or less spontaneous, we all possess a certain ability to tell apart
genuine from feigned emotions, and emotional insincerity invites punishment. Individuals – and
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according to some, those who practice diplomacy in particular – are also able to ascertain an
emotion’s authenticity with remarkable accuracy. Emotions are in other words indices of
intentions. They are also signals because diplomatic culture expects practitioners to be sincere
and maintain composure, and diplomats are often acquainted with each other’s emotional
tendencies from past interactions. As such, the “strength” of an emotional signal is retained, if
not amplified, whenever it is expressed.
Overall, my portrayal of face-to-face diplomacy has cast the practice in a rather different
light. To elaborate on a game that rationalist scholars often use to analogize the uncertainty
countries face in dealing with each other, “[w]inning at poker has as much to do with judging
human personalities as it does with weighing the cards… [P]oker comes down to being able to
judge the preferences and characters of one’s opponents” (Gartzke 1999, 570). If diplomacy is
the channel that makes such judgment possible (Bull 2002, 174-175) because, inter alias,
individual-level indices and signals allow leaders to ascertain each other’s intentions directly or
vicariously through their diplomatic representatives, then IR’s continued inattention to
diplomacy is indefensible. Diplomacy is not epiphenomenal, merely transactional, and certainly
not dispensable.
I believe that the current research represents a significant step forward for IR theory
because it has opened up the “black box” of diplomacy. By applying what psychologists have
discovered about how people communicate through the exchange of nonverbal – particularly
emotional – cues, it shows that the study of diplomacy can be theoretically informed. It is not a
realm of inquiry exclusively reserved for diplomatic historians and practitioners.
99

In Chapters 5 and 6, I moved beyond the general claim that “emotions matter” and
instead used two case studies from the early Cold War period to contrast the divergent outcomes

99
See discussion in Chapter 1.
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150

of being a “stoic” versus a “hothead” in face-to-face diplomacy. Macmillan’s prudent expression
of anger, made possible by the image of a “stoic” he cultivated throughout his career, enabled
him to demonstrate Western resolve on Berlin when he met with Khrushchev in Moscow in
February-March 1959. In contrast, Khrushchev’s chronic outbursts in his interactions with
Macmillan and other Western leaders throughout the late-1950s had made a bad impression on
Eisenhower. When an American spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory just two weeks
before the Paris Summit, Khrushchev found the transgression unpardonable. He was not seeking
to wreck the summit with his outbursts; his bottom line, however, was that negotiations could not
begin without at least an apology. Eisenhower, on the other hand, was prepared to be conciliatory
on his way to Paris. But the perception that Khrushchev’s behavior was staged in order to
humiliate him made him more intransigent instead.
For those who practice diplomacy, there is an obvious lesson to be learned from these
case studies. As Richard Holbrooke’s quote that opened Chapter 5 implies, anger can be an
expression of resolve, but its credibility is ensured only if it is used prudently. Or, as Madeleine
Albright’s quote at the beginning of Chapter 6 suggests, it helps to be angry once in a while to
get a message across, but being seen as chronically angry actually prevents a leader from
achieving his goals.
100
All things considered, it is better to be a “stoic” than a “hothead”.
Overall, my discussion has also highlighted the need to take leaders’ perceptions of each
other and their relationships more seriously. As discussed in Chapter 1, IR theory has
traditionally downplayed such factors as little more than “noise” in the larger environment of
international politics and whose impact on state behavior is inconsequential. Yet, the empirical
evidence I have provided suggests otherwise. When leaders and diplomats interact, they base

100
In this case, she was referring to the behavior of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yassar Arafat at the Camp David Summit in 2000. To paraphrase Albright, the two leaders were trying to
manipulate each other with their moods, and as a result, refused to talk to each other (Albright 2003, 624).
Seanon S. Wong
151

their reactions no less on their preconceptions about each other’s dispositions, emotional or
otherwise.
Moreover, IR theorists typically assume that intentions are static and remain constant
throughout an interaction. The problem that intentions pose to cooperation – as IR currently
understands it – is that of asymmetric information. If only leaders and diplomats could credibly
discover each other’s underlying intentions and see through if one is being genuine or deceptive,
an acceptable solution to a dispute is within reach. But leaders and diplomats, like the rest of us,
are sentient beings. They respond emotionally to the emotions of others, and the understanding
of one’s intentions is often at the whim of the passions that lie within. Eisenhower turned from
conciliation to intransigence at the Paris Summit not because new information had enabled him
to reassess his intentions, but because of the rage that grew inside him as a result of the perceived
insults from Khrushchev. Intentions, in other words, are malleable, fluid and relational.

Suggestions for future research
This dissertation, however, represents at best an initial foray in a broader research
agenda. I believe there are many promising avenues for future research, but several deserve
immediate attention.

More in-depth understanding of other emotions
First, I have provided two detailed case studies on anger. But as discussed in Chapter 3,
leaders and diplomats are confronted with an array of relational problems when they negotiate.
To overcome them – and thus to enable a negotiation to proceed from conflict in the beginning to
cooperation in the end – requires a much broader repertoire of emotions than just anger.
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Admittedly, my discussion in Chapter 3 of such other emotions – liking, embarrassment,
frustration, etc. – remains rather superficial. I have mostly explained their communicative
function at their most basic, e.g. ceteris paribus, a show of liking evinces an interest to engage. In
most situations, however, the impact of these emotions on behavior is likely to be mediated
through interactions with other factors at work. One could hypothesize, for instance, that liking’s
ability to elicit cooperation presupposes a certain degree of trust between the interlocutors.
To divine the repertoire of emotions that are operative in face-to-face diplomacy would
require more work than what can be accomplished in one dissertation. In fact, the lion’s share of
attention in the psychological literature on emotions and negotiations, from which many of the
insights presented in the current research are derived, has been on anger.
101
Further research on
other emotions would therefore enrich not only IR’s understanding of diplomacy; it should pique
the interest of psychologists as well. Particularly, case studies of real-life events – such as those
presented in the preceding chapters – promise to remedy the lack of external validity that critics
of the psychological literature often complain about.

The use of experiments
Second, the reason for IR’s past neglect of face-to-face diplomacy may in part be
methodological. Material power, public statements, shared norms and other variables that
neorealist and rationalist scholars tend to identify as crucial to interstate communication are to a
certain extent observable, amenable to process-tracing and operationalization through case
studies, large-N quantitative analyses and other “mainstream” methods in IR. Diplomatic
encounters, however, are mostly private. The intimate dynamics that transpire when leaders and
diplomats interact face-to-face are often beyond the reach of outsiders. Actual conversations

101
See reviews cited in fn. 29 of Chapter 3.
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might be put on record occasionally, but the influence of factors as transient and personal as
body language, gestures and tone may never be known beyond those who observed and
experienced them firsthand (Crawford 2000, 131). Emotions, in Stein’s (2013) words, “do not
leave visible traces unless the observer is in direct contact with the participant” (380). What
transpires when leaders and diplomats meet behind closed doors might therefore never be
accessible – or only partially so – to the public, including scholars who wish to investigate ex
post what they inferred from such encounters and how inferences were made.
But methodological expediency should not be allowed to dictate what counts as
empirically relevant. Doing so would be akin to “searching for one’s wallet under the
streetlight”, since what is important may precisely be where it is the most difficult to see.
One route to proceed would be to consult closely the primary accounts of those who
practice diplomacy, such as memoirs, diaries, meeting transcripts and memoranda, diplomatic
cables and – for contemporary cases – interviews (Crawford 2000, 131), as I have done for the
episodes and case studies presented in this dissertation. But such accounts may still fail to relay
the subtle dynamics of face-to-face diplomacy.
Moreover, recollections can be inaccurate, or even self-serving and biased. As Richard
Holbrooke (1998) caveats in the preface of his memoir on the negotiations that led to the end of
the Bosnian War, several factors work to influence the presentation of event in one’s favor: “the
natural tendency of memoirists to present themselves in a favorable light; a faulty memory or
incomplete knowledge; and the distorting effect of perfect hindsight” (xvi). For instance, with
regard to the Kennedy-Dobrynin episode discussed in Chapter 4, Kennedy’s memoir (1969)
contains no detail of his interaction with Dobrynin in their meeting on October 27, 1962 aside
from the “cold” facts of what was and was not said (107-109). Dobrynin and Khrushchev, on the
Seanon S. Wong
154

other hand, may have presented their impression of Kennedy honestly. But it is also possible that
they were hoping to present the Americans as more anxious of the two parties to yield at the
height of the crisis.
102
Given their inherent shortcomings, the reliance on the recollections of the
protagonists involved in any historical episode may never satisfy the most stringent critics of
qualitative case studies.
Future research can therefore be more methodologically innovative. A complementary
route would be to follow the psychological literature in its use of randomized laboratory
experiments, which IR has long marginalized (Hudson and Butler 2010; McDermott 2011a).
103

The analytical clarity that experiments offer makes them an attractive alternative. As McDermott
(2011a) writes, the key concern in IR often “revolves around the ability of the investigator to
isolate and control the variables of interest in order to determine their influence on outcome, and
often the laboratory offers a much better environment in which to assert such control” (504). To
thoroughly understand face-to-face diplomacy – including the intimate role of emotions – calls
for leveraging such advantages.
Skeptics might counter that experiments lack both external validity (with the use of such
convenience samples as university students) and mundane realism (because of the relative low
stakes involved in the simulated environment of a laboratory). But even if such problems were
inevitable, experiments would still be a worthwhile endeavor if important knowledge that is
inaccessible through extant methods is gained in return. Moreover, they are remediable through –
among other research strategies – conducting further experiments with samples of theoretically-
relevant populations and different manipulations in experimental designs (Hudson and Butler

102
Although the temptation to “embellish” one’s record may not be as severe in diplomatic cables – including the
telegram that Dobrynin sent to Moscow describing Dobrynin as “very upset” – than in memoirs, interviews and
other sources, since in comparison, the latter are clearly written with a wider audience in mind.
103
Bleiker and Hutchison (2008) similarly contend that “conventional social science methods cannot understand all
aspects of phenomena as ephemeral as those of emotions”, and propose instead a turn towards feminist and other
interpretative approaches (115).
Seanon S. Wong
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2010, 169-170; McDermott 2011b). For instance, scholars have in the past sought to enhance the
external validity of experiments on foreign policy decision-making and international negotiations
by including as subjects those tasked with such responsibilities in real-life, including diplomats,
high-ranking military officers, and business and political leaders (Mintz 2004; Renshon 2015;
Hafner-Burton et al. 2014).
Substantively, an avenue of research would be to investigate how emotions’
communicative function interacts with factors that are of particular interest to scholars of IR, but
that social psychologists have not explored as much in the past. Some of these factors have
already been proposed in this dissertation, but the causal roles they play warrant more systematic
investigation. For instance, to what extent does a negotiator’s expression of resolve through
anger compensate for his weakness in relative power, as is implied in the Monson-Delcassé
episode? How do different identities of the negotiators – such as in negotiations between allies
versus enemies – or their existing level of trust mediate their willingness to “read” intentions off
emotions? Do leaders and diplomats, who bring with them different display rules from their
home cultures, infer intentions differently? How are the communicative functions of emotions
modified in a multilateral setting, which is common in diplomacy? Does the expression of
certain emotions – such as anxiety or hope – in a pledge or promise mitigate the problem of
commitment that rationalists often highlight, as the Kennedy-Dobrynin episode suggests? How
are emotions used to communicate that one cares about the integrity of a norm or agreement
(Mercer 2006, 298-299)?
To answer these questions, experiments can be modeled after those in the extant literature
on international negotiations and bargaining. For instance, in designs where subjects are
randomly assigned to interact with each other anonymously (e.g. Dickson 2009; McDermott,
Seanon S. Wong
156

Cowden, and Koopman 2002; Tingley 2011; Tingley and Walter 2011), the researcher can
supplement the messages they send to each other with what is purportedly a picture of the
expresser (but is in effect portrayed by an actor) showing different (or no) emotions, and analyze
how such treatment interacts with the other factors of interest – including those just discussed –
to produce divergent outcomes. For experiments that allow subjects to interact freely face-to-face
(e.g. Butler, Bellman, and Kichiyev 2007; Majeski and Fricks 1995), their expressions can be
recorded and coded and messages content-analyzed to identify the emotions expressed and
measure their intensity. The researcher can then explore if – controlling for other factors –
emotions had an impact on how the subjects inferred intentions and therefore a negotiation’s
trajectory.

Understanding the emotions recognition ability of diplomats
Finally, social psychologists are experiencing a revival of interest in how differences in
individual-level attributes impact negotiations (Elfenbein 2013). Specifically, as I mentioned in
Chapter 4, psychologists have posited that negotiator differences in emotional intelligence would
lead to divergent outcomes, and leaders and diplomats have been remarked upon – albeit
anecdotally – for their emotional intelligence. Whether such proposition holds warrants
investigation not only because it has been a lingering if unsubstantiated theme in the centuries-
old literature on the “ideal diplomat”. More fundamentally, it suggests that diplomacy’s value –
that is, what makes it unique as a conduit between countries and how it contributes to
international cooperation – is derived in part from the emotional intelligence among those who
practice it. A potential line of inquiry would therefore be to administer a standard test on
emotions recognition ability – such as the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test
Seanon S. Wong
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(Mayer et al. 2003) or the Geneva Emotions Recognition Test (Schlegel, Grandjean, and Scherer
2014) – among diplomatic and non-diplomatic subjects. A possible method of subject
recruitment would be through snowball sampling. For instance, a respondent who is a career
diplomat may be asked to suggest acquaintances both within and outside of the diplomatic
profession to take the test. Results from the two samples and/or the published norms of other
populations of interest can then be compared.
All in all, I believe I have only scratched the face of a very important subject in IR. There
is still much work that needs to be done for scholars to truly appreciate the role that face-to-face
diplomacy plays in international politics. Without such efforts, we leave unaddressed the gaping
disconnect between IR’s dismissal of the practice on the one hand, and on the other hand, the
value that practitioners apparently see in it. IR is as a result left with an understanding of the
world that is at best incomplete, and at worst distorted. This dissertation should therefore be the
first rather than last word on the subject.
Seanon S. Wong
158

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Abstract (if available)

Abstract Countries often seek to resolve their disputes through face‐to‐face diplomacy. When leaders and diplomats interact, how do they express and assess each other’s intentions? ❧ Extant theories in International Relations either dismiss face‐to‐face diplomacy as a credible channel to communicate because talk is “cheap”—and are therefore at odds with its commonplace in international politics (neorealism and rationalism)—or can benefit from greater understanding of the interpersonal mechanisms that enable interlocutors to contest the validity of each other’s claims (normative constructivism and the theory of communicative action). ❧ To break through, I highlight the communicative function of emotions, leveraging insights from the latest research on negotiations in social and experimental psychology. I argue that when leaders and diplomats interact, they pay attention not only to what others say, but also to their emotional cues. One’s choice of words, tone of speech, hand gestures and body language carry emotive information that reflects how one appraises a situation. Emotions are indices of intentions because their displays are to a certain extent spontaneous, individuals—and according to some, practitioners of diplomacy in particular—are able to ascertain an emotion’s authenticity accurately, and deceit is “deterred” when it is reciprocated with intransigence and mistrust. Emotions are also signals because diplomatic culture expects practitioners to be more or less sincere and maintain composure when they interact, and leaders and diplomats are often acquainted with each other’s emotional tendencies from past encounters. As such, an emotional signal is more discernible than if such conditions were absent. ❧ Empirically, I demonstrate how different emotions—happiness, fear, anger, disappointment, etc.—enable leaders and diplomats to overcome the different relational dilemmas they encounter with thirteen short episodes of face‐to‐face diplomacy spanning from the Fashoda Crisis between Britain and France in 1898 to the recent negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. I also provide two detailed case studies on anger as an expression of resolve based on the face‐to‐face interactions between Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Macmillan and other leaders and diplomats from the onset of the Berlin Crisis in November 1958 to the aborted four‐power summit in Paris two years later. Throughout, I consult memoirs, diaries, correspondence, meeting transcripts and memoranda, diplomatic cables and other primary and secondary documents for supporting evidence. ❧ This dissertation represents an important step forward in the literature because it is among the first to theorize the communication of intentions in diplomatic interactions. As such, it sheds light on the role that individual agents and relationships play in international politics.

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Wong, Seanon S. (author)

Core Title When passions run high: emotions and the communication of intentions in face-to-face diplomacy

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Politics and International Relations

Publication Date 10/31/2015

Defense Date 10/08/2015

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag bargaining,Cold War,diplomacy,Emotions,international relations theory,negotiations,OAI-PMH Harvest,political psychology

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor James, Patrick (committee chair), Carnevale, Peter (committee member), Kang, David (committee member), Rathbun, Brian (committee member)

Creator Email seanon.wong@gmail.com,seanonwo@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-195213

Unique identifier UC11277059

Identifier etd-WongSeanon-4005.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-195213 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-WongSeanon-4005.pdf

Dmrecord 195213

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Wong, Seanon S.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA