The Foreign Service Journal, June 2011

ing time for everyone, including the ambassador. In Washington the hunt for pallia- tives got under way, and the perception spread that only an arms control deal would improve matters. Toon, ever the realist, was having none of it. “Just because we reach agreement, it is not suddenly going to mean sweet- ness and light in Soviet-American rela- tions,” he said, again going out on a limb. “We can expect continuing prob- lems and incidents until the Soviet sys- tem changes. But without SALT we could look forward to a serious worsen- ing of relations.” History was to prove him correct. Well before that point was reached, Mac Toon would have to endure the spectacle of Carter kissing Brezhnev at the Vienna summit, and watch from the sidelines as the final details of the SALT agreement were hammered out without his input. Frustration over those developments led to his single most politically explosive comment to those Moscow-based correspondents who had followed him to the Austrian capital. Amb. Toon briefed his regular audi- ence on the evening of June 18, 1979, the final day of the meeting. Asked his views on SALT-2, he said: “Whether or not I support it will depend on whether it is verifiable. At the moment I’m not sure. I have to be certain none of the verification rests on trust. So before I go public I have to have more informa- tion than I have now.” Not content with this bombshell, he went on to pour scorn on the so-called ‘Spirit of Vienna’ proclaimed by Carter, declaring that “it doesn’t exist.” Fortunately, as far as I can tell, not a word of this highly damaging ambassa- dorial assessment ever reached the public. But within five months of that briefing, the Soviet Union would in- vade Afghanistan, and the SALT-2 Treaty would never be ratified. Mac Toon left Moscow for good in October 1979, and retired from the Foreign Service soon afterward. He died in February 2009 at the age of 92. J U N E 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43 Toon’s core attitudes regarding the USSR and communism were always clear and acerbic, yet ultimately offset by innate diplomatic caution.