shuttle diplomacy

n.
Diplomatic negotiations conducted by an official intermediary who travels frequently between the nations involved.

shuttle diplomat shuttle diplomat n.

Negotiations conducted by a mediator who travels between two or more parties that are reluctant to hold direct discussions.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Henry Kissinger continued as secretary of state after Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 and Vice President Gerald Ford assumed the presidency. Kissinger had negotiated a fragile military disengagement in the Middle East in 1973, which he helped sustain by shuttling back and forth between nations while preparing formal summit meetings between them. Kissinger also made several trips to the Soviet Union to lay the groundwork for summit meetings between President Ford and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev. Because Kissinger traveled among nations so frequently for face-to-face meetings, his method was called shuttle diplomacy.

Ford was a shuttling president, making goodwill trips to several countries. He became the first sitting president to visit Japan.

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Term denoting a diplomatic intermediary shuttling back and forth between countries in an effort to arrange an agreement among contending countries. The term was first raised to the level of public discourse to describe the efforts of American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to bring about a disengagement of forces after the October 1973 Arab–Israeli war. Kissinger had to shuttle back and forth between the capitals of Egypt, Syria, and Israel, carrying his proposals, because the parties could not agree to meet together.

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