L’accordo di Helsinki era un capolavoro della diplomazia europea. Cinquant’anni dopo, abbiamo bisogno del suo spirito più che mai

The signatories list was insanely stacked:

* Helmut Schmidt, Erich Honecker, Gerald Ford, Bruno Kreisky, Todor Zhivkov, Pierre Trudeau, Urho Kekkonen, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Harold Wilson, János Kádár, Aldo Moro, Nicolae Ceaușescu, Olof Palme, Gustáv Husák, Leonid Brezhnev and Josip Broz Tito… just to name a few.

It’s basically a who’s-who of the Cold War.

Also, this accord coinciding with the Portuguese revolution might’ve saved us from becoming a Soviet satellite state (which NATO would never have tolerated – there were plans for an invasion coming from Spain) or a NATO-supported far-right dictatorship.

The Soviets told our Communist Party “chill tf out, we are not destroying détente for fucking Portugal”. So instead of trying to create socialism, the PCP focused on solidifying the social-democratic gains in the constitution. Maoists and other hardliners like Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho never forgave them for it.

For Italy Aldo Moro signed the accord.

3 years later the red brigades would kidnap and murder him