Giles Scott-Smith, dean of Leiden University College in The Hague, visited RICH research group The Eighties on Tuesday 15 April. During his visit, he talked about his research on Dutch entrepreneurs Frans Lurvink and Ernst van Eeghen, who practiced diplomacy on a remarkably high level as citizen diplomats during the 1980s.
In December 1979, NATO made the so-called 'double-track decision': the decision to install 572 long-range missiles with nuclear warheads in Europe. The potential deployment of the weapons caused a great social uproar. In the first half of the 1980s, the Dutch government was under heavy pressure to make a decision on it. Dutch businessmen Lurvink and Van Eeghen wanted to prevent escalation and, partly in thanks to the media, played a remarkable role in facilitating contact between Soviet diplomats and politicians and their Dutch and American counterparts.
Van Eeghen and Lurvink were citizen diplomats. The concept of citizen diplomacy itself originates from the 1980s. It refers to citizens who, driven by ethical, moral or religious values, want to make the world a better place. They sometimes did this on a remarkably high level.
For example, in October 1985, Van Eeghen's mediation led Russian prime minister Ryzhkov to invite the Dutch prime minister Lubbers to discuss cruise missiles. Van Eeghen also paved the way for the visit of a delegation of Dutch MPs (including Klaas de Vries and Joris Voorhoeve) to the Soviet Union. Through his foundation 'Stichting De Burght', he organised conferences about human rights and international cooperation, and was one of the driving forces behind the 'Help de Russen de winter door' (Help the Russians get through winter) action. He also brought together important soldiers. You can often see him in the background on pictures of politicians.
Between 1984 and 1988, Frans Lurvink organised eight conferences in his castle Den Alerdinck; in New York, Vienna, Budapest, Moscow and Paris. They were attended by important politicians, spokespeople, scientists and journalists. This included a large conference in the Ritz with Chirac and Kissinger in December 1988. Journalists and other media professionals wanted to break stereotypes of East and West. Elsevier, die Zeit and The Economist published pieces about it, which were all written by people that were there. Lurvink also published a newspaper in English and Russian for some time, which was meant to contribute to mutual understanding, but ultimately became too expensive.
Both Van Eeghen and Lurvink resolutely tried to avoid and work around the traditional diplomats of the Dutch, Soviet and US Ministries of Foreign Affairs. In 1980s Russia, this was possible because power relations had become more fluid: one Soviet leader died after the other in the first half of the 1980s (between 1982-1985, three Soviet leaders died, after which Gorbachov came to power).
Dutch politicians such as prime minister Lubbers and the then minister of Foreign Affairs, Van den Broek, considered Van Eeghen to be 'irrelevant'. Russian records show a difference perspective, Scott-Smith said. And it is undeniable that in many pictures, Van Eeghen can be seen in the wings.