...Cold War chit-chat in its 1970s détente phase—when Willy Brandt and Pierre Trudeau and Jimmy Carter pretended the enemy was not what it was...
Come on Mark, Willy [Brandt] wasn't too bad. Sure he was quite a wuss, but he was no anti-American and was quite sane when compared with the even goofier New Zealand Left of his contemporaries:
Denis Dutton on New Zealand "idealism"/appeasement
"Willy Brandt, the social democratic Chancellor of West Germany, was once upbraided by idealistic members of the New Zealand Labour caucus over Nato. As Mike Moore tells the story, Brandt explained his position to the New Zealanders, and added, "Idealism increases in direct proportion to your distance from the problem.""
I think when compared with the Europeans in power today, Brandt would be more like Tony Blair.