The French word was détente; Nixon’s savvy pursuit of it would push the nuclear superpowers away from the brink.45 At Kissinger’s suggestion, the White House and Kremlin decided to open a back channel—direct, secret communications that cut out the bureaucracy. About once a month—as often as every day during tense periods—Dobrynin would slip into the White House through a little-used and little-noticed entrance in the East Wing and join Kissinger in the Map Room, where the two men would begin the long, tedious, and vital slog toward a nuclear arms control treaty.
