Many objected to Putin’s recent visit to Alaska. He is after all the invader of Ukraine who has murdered his opponents and strangled Russia’s short-lived democracy with its own entrails.

Conservative commentator William F. Buckley, among others, similarly objected to Nikita Khrushchev’s first visit to America in 1959 at Eisenhower’s invitation. Buckley even organized a festive protest rally at Carnegie Hall in New York City where he was the chief speaker. The new Buckley biography by Sam Tanenhaus quotes Buckley’s sarcastic speech:

I deplore the fact that Khrushchev travels about this country having been met at the frontier by our own prince [Eisenhower, at the airport in Washington], who arrived with his first string of dancing girls, and a majestic caravan of jewels and honey and spices.

And:

I mind that he will wend his lordly way from city to city, where the Lilliputians will fuss over his needs, weave garlands through the ring in his nose, shiver when he belches out his threats, and labor in panic to sate his imperial appetites.

And:

I have not heard a “reason” why Khrushchev should come to this country that is not in fact a reason why he should not come to this country. He will see for himself the health and wealth of the land? Very well; and having confirmed the fact, what are we to expect? That he will weaken in his adherence to his maniacal course? Because the average American has the use of one and two-thirds toilets? One might as well expect the Bishop of Rome to break the apostolic succession upon being confronted by the splendid new YMCA in Canton, Ohio.

Buckley had a similar attitude about Nixon’s 1972 visit to China, known for its “aggression, torture, convulsion, and xenophobia.” According to Buckley, who joined the trip as a journalist: “Kissinger and Nixon went to Peking like barbarians approaching the Manchu emperors. They set a pattern of deference bordering on obsequiousness which has run through Western approaches to China ever since.” When Nixon at a Beijing banquet went to clink glasses with Chinese officials as part of his toast, Buckley contemptuously noted:

The effect was as if Sir Hartley Shawcross had suddenly risen from the prosecutor’s stand at Nuremberg and descended to embrace Goering and Goebbels and Doenitz and Hess, begging them to join with him in the making of a better world.

Of course, Buckley was not wrong in his assessment of the Soviet Union and Maoist China, both soaked in blood and aggression. But as Buckley’s friend and fellow anti-communist Whitaker Chambers complained to him, as reported in the Tanenhaus book, Buckley’s perspective seemed to point to war as the alternative to diplomacy. Chambers also noted that Khruschev, for all his misdeeds, like invading Hungary, was not Stalin and had in fact de-Stalinized the Soviet Union, releasing thousands from the Gulag. Chambers recognized that Eisenhower was not soft on Communism and hosted Khrushchev to advance America’s interests in the Cold War. The Soviet leader across many days was exposed to and had to react to the American people at the summit of their prosperity and good will, as the world watched.

Three years later, perhaps these experiences factored into Khrushchev’s calculations during the Cuban Missile Crisis as he chose between accommodation or potentially nuclear war. He had seen for himself that America was benign, not malevolent. Surely these observations gave him some pause and led him towards accommodation. Eisenhower in 1959 was sufficiently confident to appreciate that America and he gained more from Khrushchev’s visit than did Khrushchev, though the publicity did showcase Khrushchev as an international leader to his own captive audiences in the Soviet Bloc.

As to China, which was just completing the Cultural Revolution in which hundreds of thousands, and maybe more, were murdered in Maoist frenzy, it was unsavory that Nixon and other Americans toasted those who were responsible. Nixon enthusiastically met with the reclusive Mao, who was himself responsible for rivers of blood. But for Nixon and Kissinger, it was a strategic opportunity to woo a great power that had broken with the Soviet Union. Thanks partly to Nixon and Kissinger, China during the remaining twenty years of the Cold War became a de facto ally against the Soviet Union. FDR and Churchill had made similarly calculations in their relations with another monster, Stalin, who was an essential ally against Nazi Germany. Churchill had literally jumped up and down on his bed at the British embassy in Moscow after his initially chilly but ultimately successful first visit with Stalin. Churchill had famously declared he would befriend Satan if Hitler had invaded hell.

So democratic statesmen, in pursuit of their national interests, must occasionally meet, even with smiles, the great tyrants who too often plague our world. They do so seeking some approximate peace and to pit one tyrant against another more dangerous tyrant. So, meeting the likes of Putin is often necessary, which is not to say that this particular meeting was useful. Time will tell.

What is essential is this:  American presidents and their representatives, although required to conduct business with the monsters of the world, must leave no doubt about their commitment to American principles of justice, fair play, and decency for all. Monsters must be dealt with. But there should never be confusion about what they are.