Willy Brandt's spectacular policy of reconciliation with Russia, with Poland and Czechoslovakia, and especially with the(at first very reluctant) East German regime between 1969 and 1973, chiefly on the basis of accepting the 1945 boundaries as permanent, inaugurated a period of ing East-West contacts. Western investments and technology flowed across the Iron Curtain, and this"economic détente" spilled over into cultural exchanges, the Helsinki Accords human rights, and efforts to avert future military misunderstandings and to achieve mutual force reductions. To all this the superpowers, for their own good reasons, and with some inevitable reservations(especially on the Soviet side), gave their blessing. But perhaps the most signifi cant fact had been the persistent pressures by the Europeans them- selves to cffect the rapprochement even when relations cooled between Moscow and Washington, therefore, it was going to be ex tremely difficult in the future for either the USSR or the United States to halt this process,