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Brazil is traditionally regarded as having been distant from its Latin American neighbours. However, new documents show that it was actually very involved in the Cold War struggles that engulfed the Southern Cone during the early 1970s. In Chile, Bolivia and Uruguay, Brazil's military regime intervened to prevent or overturn left-wing gains. It also did its best to encourage the United States to play a greater role in fighting the region's Cold War. Finally, it served as the model that military leaders in the Southern Cone looked to as they plotted to seize power. Examining these direct and indirect forms of influence, with particular reference to the relationship between Brazil and Chile, this article argues that Brazil's experience after 1964 was a game changer when it came to the way in which the inter-American Cold War unfolded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Cold War meanings of the Moscow Festival of Youth and Students that attracted thirty thousand attendees in June of 1957. It argues that this festival reflected a pivotal moment in the Cold War where the Soviet leadership embraced the rising importance of culture and youth in their struggle for global consensus. It contends that while the Soviet leadership endeavored to use the festival as a vehicle for the projection of a revised, free, and peaceful Soviet populace, both the western press and the delegates themselves took actions that complicated the meanings of the festival and in turn, complicated the meanings of the cultural Cold War for domestic and international audiences alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New archival materials have become available that allow us to test the conventional interpretation of Warsaw Pact policy towards conventional arms reductions in Europe. They shed new light on the objectives of the Eastern side in talks on mutual and balanced arms reductions, how it approached the dispute over the assessments of the military balance and sought to preserve its advantages while constraining West German military capabilities, and demonstrate that Soviet military leaders perceived a shift in the conventional military balance in favour of the West in the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents elements of a novel approach to the study of social movements in a Cold War context. Using peace activism in West Germany during the 1980s as a case study, this article argues for a conceptualisation of social movement activism that moves beyond the ideological divides of the Cold War and a functional understanding of politics. Instead, this article highlights the multi-layered, fractured and contested nature of activism and shows how peace activists engaged in debates about the meanings of ‘peace’, ‘security’, and ‘democracy’ rather than merely representing ‘Communist’ interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Relying on newly opened documents from Canada and the United States this article examines Washington's effort, from January to October 1962, to internationalise the embargo of Cuba and explores the Canadian response. It argues that the Canadian government sought to support American policy while still maintaining its independent course of action. Although officials in Ottawa did not feel the need to abandon their position, they did come to appreciate that Canada's connections to Cuba were having an adverse impact on their country's vital relationship with the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to assess the sustainability of neutrality in the early Cold War. This issue is examined through the study of Switzerland's armament policy. The Swiss were able to maintain their status of a permanent neutral after the Second World War, and thus succeeded in upholding a centuries-long policy. Their armed neutrality, however, required modern weaponry. In search of this material Switzerland turned to the West, while refusing to purchase weapons from the East. The paper argues that Switzerland's self-imposed policy of armed neutrality increased Swiss dependence on western armaments, and thereby endangered its neutrality status and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1964 Romanian ‘Declaration of independence from Moscow’ signalled a change in Romania's foreign policy, widely argued to have been anti-Soviet after that date. Based on new archive materials, this article shows however that Romania's foreign policy should not be understood as anti-Soviet, but rather in terms of anti-hegemonism. Romania opposed and feared both the Soviet and American hegemonic tendencies, and their foreign policy decisions were very much influenced by these views. To exemplify the Romanian anti-hegemonic perceptions and policies, the article presents Romania's definitions on détente and the related Romanian goals in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), 1973–75. It concludes that in terms of state politics and security threats, during the 1960s and 1970s, Romania saw the Cold War opposition not as an East–West, socialist–capitalist one, but rather as superpowers/great powers versus all the other powers. Furthermore, for Romania, détente represented a threat because it created the context for the hegemons to agree once again upon the fate of ‘the others’, negatively affecting their interests. The article also reveals the limits of the objectivist approach in dealing with different Cold War issues, and proposes a perceptual approach. It also opens further discussion of how leaders' perceptions influenced Romania's foreign policy decision making during that time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article re-examines America's approach to cold war modernisation in US–Arab relations during the era of Nasser. It shows how US and Arab modernisers pursued different aims on the basis of similar assumptions about the nature of societal change. By analysing Arabic political literature and describing US–Arab conflicts over development in Iraq and Egypt, it illustrates how the cold war raised expectations regarding total modernising systems and escalated an earlier rivalry among Arab anti-colonial movements. This contribution fills a gap between studies of cold war development that emphasise conflict and those that explain modernisation theory in an exclusively American context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With regard to the analysis of the history of the Cold War and the blocs' confrontation, the GDR is both a typical representative of the Eastern bloc alliance and an exception. In addition to processes intended by the Soviets to enforce political conformity, which were similar throughout the Eastern bloc, there were other formative influences, such as the GDR being part of a divided nation, the GDR being at the centre of the Cold War and the lack of legitimacy for SED rule under international law. The Warsaw Pact served the Soviet Union as an instrument for exerting political and military influence on the allied states. The military doctrine of attack as the decisive moment of warfare required extensive preparations for war in times of peace. For the Pact, the GDR was the area of operations for the military clash of systems in the western theatre of war. This function determined the demands on the armed forces, defence industry and security forces and also resulted in a bizarre way of thinking with regard to domestic security after the People's Uprising of 1953. In the 1950s, a co-ordinated domestic security system was established and on that basis a superordinate system of national defence which in its particular form made the GDR one of the most militarised states in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the US reaction to the Portuguese revolution and its impact on the relationship between Washington and its main Western European allies. It analyses the international repercussions of the chaotic Portuguese transition and their impact on Soviet–American détente. Finally, it highlights the different responses to the Portuguese crisis given by the United States, and by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger overall, and by Western European Socialist governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relying on so far untapped Vietnamese archival sources, this article examines the impact of China's gradual curtailment of its economic assistance to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam's (DRV) war and economic recovery efforts and its implications for Sino-Vietnamese relations between 1972 and 1975. While Beijing's gradual reduction of aid to the DRV during this period was primarily motivated by the declining importance of North Vietnam to China's strategic security combined with the reality of China's domestic economic hardship which largely resulted from the disastrous Cultural Revolution of 1966–69, Hanoi's reactions and policy responses were driven by their deep-rooted perception of Beijing's insincerity and hidden intention to keep Vietnam weak. The Sino-Vietnamese conflict that ensued after 1975 was not inevitable; Hanoi's leaders launched concerted diplomatic efforts to improve economic relations with Beijing throughout 1975 because they clearly recognised the importance of China's continued economic assistance and preferential trade agreements to its first five year plan (1976–80). However, Beijing's unchanged position and hasty decision to totally cut off aid to Vietnam and additionally take punitive economic measures against Vietnam's first five-year plan in late 1975 while at the same time increasing economic and military aid to the Democratic Kampuchea compelled Hanoi to tilt closer towards Moscow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have addressed the problem of the Dwight Eisenhower administration's opposition to Fidel Castro's nationalist insurrection (1956-59) following two main perspectives. Some authors have perceived it in terms of a response to the threat that Castro's radical programme posed to American economic interests in Cuba. Other scholars have claimed that, in the 1950s, Washington did not have a clear perception of the differences between progressive nationalism and communism. This article offers a different explanation. It argues that the intersection between the Cold War and the decolonisation process played a crucial role in changing the US's perception of Latin American nationalism. Specifically, the launch of the Peaceful Coexistence strategy by the Soviet post-Stalinist leadership increased Moscow's ability to interact with nationalism of developing areas, pushing the Republican administration into a defensive position in the Third World. During the 1950s, this context strongly influenced Washington's diplomatic strategy in the Latin American and the Cuban scenarios, driving the Eisenhower Presidency to adopt a hostile position toward nationalist governments or nationalist inspired political movements such as Castro's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cold War demonstrated that perception was critical in the decision making of states as it underpinned the reasoning behind many of the decisions made during the Cold War. This paper examines the British Government's response to the Second World Peace Congress. The response was influenced by the understanding of Communist ideology related to the peace movement, the possible effect of the Congress on other NATO members, and the legal limits on the response to the Congress. These factors combined to create a reaction that was based on the Government's perception of this episode as part of a greater Communist ideologically motivated security threat, not only to Britain, but to the West in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1963 and 1975, the United Kingdom fought its last 'hot war' that can be classified as part of the Cold War. Attracting little media attention at the time, the war the United Kingdom waged in Oman's Dhofar province halted the spread of communism in the Persian Gulf at a period of acute vulnerability. Contrary to existing studies, which treat the conflict as a textbook British counter-insurgency conducted in a remote province of Oman, the purpose of this article is to highlight the complex regional and international dynamics that arguably proved more critical to the conflict's resolution. Within this context, the key elements contributing to the Anglo-Omani victory were the ability of British policymakers to forge an alliance of the Middle East's conservative monarchies, their successful mobilization of conservative Islam against secular Marxism and their persistent efforts to destabilize the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the thaw (1963) after the Cuban missile crisis, West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt proposed jointly-hosted Olympics on both sides of the Berlin Wall. Historians have dismissed this initiative as a propaganda stunt. It was not. Belying his reputation for realism, Brandt aimed to use popular culture and non-governmental organisations to ease the Cold War at its most dangerous flashpoint. The ensuing internal and public discourses illuminate how Brandt and his Eastern and Western opponents assessed the risks and rewards of a policy of cultural and political engagement. Amid the doubly-treacherous political terrain, only false starts permitted the architect of German-German detente to trace the boundary between the imaginative and the imaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of Cold War military systems science in the emergence of a nonlinear view of war within the US military. It argues that US military ambivalence towards systems science and seeds of a nonlinear worldview within the systems sciences help to explain the enlistment of nonlinear sciences like chaos and complexity theories. The turn to nonlinear science represents not a radical break with, but rather the evolution of a worldview whose roots can be traced to US military responses to Cold War exigencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon documentary and other evidence from Vietnam this paper argues that in 1954 the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN) accepted negotiations and a diplomatic solution to its war against France because it served some of its most vital interests and satisfied its sense of the possibilities of the moment. To be sure, the DRVN leadership responded positively to concerns and pressures from its socialist allies, the Soviet Union and China, on some issues in Geneva. But it was not, as western scholars have maintained, acting against its own better judgement or strategic imperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Openly critical at times of the United States for its actions in the Vietnam War, Canada was not for all that in a position to put its continental interests into question, and advocated therefore a conciliatory agenda towards its neighbour in this matter. This was particularly true in 1973 when it accepted an American invitation to take part in the international commission for implementing a ceasefire in Vietnam, thereby providing the US with a chance to withdraw without losing face completely. This article also notes that, in a show of North Atlantic solidarity, as the Cold War went on, Canada's measures were supported all along by Great Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article surveys political, economic and cultural issues of British-Bulgarian relations. It argues that neither Bulgaria nor Britain appeared to have interest in total isolation. Therefore, Anglo-Bulgarian relations were about more than political tension and confrontation. The multifarious nature of the Cold War was displayed in this case - while Britain was losing its political influence in Bulgaria its trade with the country reached levels higher than before the war. Besides, Bulgaria tried to develop a cultural presentation in Britain in order to foster a positive image of the regime and thus respond to Western critiques regarding communist dictatorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on declassified Chinese records of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's conversations with Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai when he visited Beijing in 1954, this essay examines the conceptual underpinnings of Sino-Indian co-operation. The Cold War fostered co-operation between two countries that might have been expected to become rivals. In exploring the nature and limitations of the relationship, the essay shows how these leaders failed to understand that Asian countries might be as averse to Chinese or Indian hegemony as they were to Western imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 98,000 American military personnel were stationed in France by the mid-1950s. Most studies of these US forces in France have taken an intercultural perspective, assessing how the two communities related to each other 'on the ground'. This article seeks to explore how American deployment was received and represented within the increasingly polarised context of French national politics. It examines the role played by the American military presence in the creation of Cold War narratives in France, in the very initial phases of US deployment (1950-52), with particular reference to cultural representations developed in these two years by the French Communist Party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author worked in BBC External Services/World Service during the last three decades of the Cold War, latterly as Head of Audience Research. In the article he outlines the difficulties and the solutions to obtaining reliable information about audiences in communist parts of Europe during that period and in the previous years before he was responsible. He shows how the internal political outlook and atmosphere at Bush House coloured the approaches that were taken. He shows how audience research for all the BBC's external broadcasting was developed from the early days and what was done after the Second World War when Soviet control over large areas of Central and Eastern Europe effectively closed many target area countries to any internal research. There was heavy reliance on anecdotal evidence, the few listeners' letters that were received and interviews with refugees leaving communist countries. But then new methods were developed, principally by the US government funded broadcasters, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe. They developed an extensive approach which contacted travellers from communist countries when they were travelling outside the communist areas and these produced a wealth of information about listening to western broadcasters. There was close cooperation between the audience research department at the BBC and the respective departments at RL and RFE. When the Berlin Wall came down and communist rule ended in all of Europe, research inside the country became possible. Some was actually possible and conducted even earlier in Poland and Yugoslavia. The surveys in country at the end of communism showed that earlier estimates based on interviewing travellers had been remarkably accurate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the restrictive terms of reference and a limited operative budget, in the 1950s and 1960s the NATO Information Service launched a series of successful propaganda campaigns. One of the most effective initiatives was the organisation of a series of travelling exhibitions which toured the NATO countries. By travelling through the countryside and small centres, the travelling exhibitions reached areas that had not yet been touched by any other propaganda campaign. This paper investigates the choice of themes and objects put on display, the organisational problems and the question of assessing the impact of such initiatives in an historical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an anatomy of an inquisition. It examines the Cold War persecution of Edwin Berry Burgum, a university professor and literary theorist. Whilst his professional competence was consistently applauded, his academic career was abruptly destroyed. His 'fitness to teach' was determined by his political beliefs: he was a member of the American Communist Party. The paper argues that New York University, an institution that embodied liberal values, collaborated with McCarthyism. Using previously overlooked or unavailable sources, it reveals cooperation between NYU's executive officers and the FBI, HUAC and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Though its focus on one individual, the paper illuminates larger themes of the vulnerability of academic freedom and the bureaucratic processes of political repression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article calls into question the conventional narrative about international meddling in British Guiana, which argues that US intervention against the Leftist government of Premier Cheddi Jagan was the proximate cause for the colony's racial violence as it moved to independence. The authors focus on the violent pro-government sugar workers' strike of 1964 and in particular the role of Jagan's wife, Janet, presenting evidence from retired Cuban intelligence agents that Cuba countered US aid to the opposition by providing paramilitary training to Guianese cadres and laundering financial aid to Jagan's government. This outside intervention turned British Guiana into a Cold War sideshow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bibliography is presented of books received by the journal including "From Hot War to Cold: The U.S. Navy and National Security Affairs, 1945-1955" by Jeffrey G. Barlow, "Sex, Thugs and Rock 'n' Roll: Teenage Rebels in Cold-War East Germany" by Mark Fenemore, and "The Bay of Pigs" by Howard Jones.

The particular intensity of Italy's Cold War rivalries was subverted, critiqued, and even outright rejected by a coalition of women from both Left and Right. These women, brought together by their participation in the antifascist Resistance and held together by a particular vision of women's equal citizenship as the only guarantee of democracy in Italy, presented an ideal image of womanhood to the public endorsing both a Christian inspiration and a progressive militancy. Indeed, this conviction more accurately reflected the average Italian voter's own identity, in which Catholicism and communism were both thoroughly hybridised in local culture; and the real, if strategically complex, commitment in both mass parties' hierarchies to remain loyal to the new constitution rather than acquiesce to the covert sabotage constantly suggested to them by their interlocutors in Moscow or Washington. These women's success is a testament to an important women's movement before neofeminism, all too often forgotten; but it is also an important confirmation of our evolving understanding of the real significance of the Cold War as an interplay of forces which influenced, but could not determine, Italian and other local outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reconsiders the attempts of the Eisenhower administration (1958-60) to come to terms with the realities of Middle Eastern politics by initiating a rapprochement with the forces of radical Arab nationalism. The establishment of a limited 'working relationship' with Gamal Abdel Nasser's United Arab Republic had a stabilising influence on intra-regional developments and contributed to the containment of Soviet advances in Iraq and Yemen. Despite these successes, the Eisenhower administration proved to be ideologically disinclined to establish a constructive long-term relationship with the key regional force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the transatlantic economic sanctions levied against Iran following the US embassy hostage crisis. It charts their shifting objectives and notes their integration with US-Iranian relations, transatlantic dynamics and Cold War concerns. Two main conclusions are drawn. Firstly, that the sanctions pursued multiple objectives besides efforts to coerce the Iranian regime. Secondly, that their economic scope is an unreliable indicator of their effectiveness or transatlantic cooperation. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan enhanced the tactical value of sanctions as a substitute for actions that posed greater geo-political risks for the United States. The European allies, though eager to protect their substantial financial investments in Iran, eventually acquiesced to demonstrate transatlantic solidarity and prevent a US military intervention that threatened their vital interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Editors of the journal Cold War History have the pleasure to present this paper as the winner of the Best Paper Award at the last Graduate Conference on the Cold War, jointly organised every year by the University of California, Santa Barbara, the George Washington University, Washington DC, and the London School of Economics and Political Science, London. It is not often that a paper, as was the case with this one, won unanimous endorsement from prominent Cold War scholars from all three institutions, present at the Conference. The last Conference was organised in April 2009, at LSE, in London and the host of the next one to be held on 22-24 April 2010 will be the George Washington University. By continuing with the practice we inaugurated last year, we wish to underline our commitment to promoting and encouraging new and substantive research of the Cold War by young scholars. As the colonial system collapsed quicker than anticipated in the post-Second World War period, the Soviet Union found itself unprepared, and it hurriedly tried to build the institutions necessary to conduct an active foreign, economic and military policy in the newly emerging states. The development of the Sino-Soviet split triggered a Chinese challenge to this Soviet push for influence, with Beijing portraying the USSR as another white, imperialist power that valued relations with the West over the cause of national liberation. Moscow was consequently forced to adapt its policy, particularly by taking a more militant approach, in order to neutralise the Chinese threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to resolve the historical controversy over Stalin's attitude and action toward the Chinese Communist Party in early 1949. It specifically deals with the question of whether Stalin had indeed persistently tried to persuade the CCP not to cross the Yangtze River, a move that would have resulted in a divided China. With the aid of newly discovered telegrams sent to Moscow by the Soviet embassy in China, this article reinterprets the telegrams exchanged between Stalin and Mao Zedong in January 1949. On the basis of these, this article proposes a new analysis as to whether or not Stalin actually dissuaded the river-crossing; asserting that Stalin's telegram and the so-called 'coalition government' urged by Anastas Mikoyan in late January 1949, lend strong support for the argument in favour of Stalin's dissuasion of the river-crossing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Setting out to assess Soviet policy toward Syria and Israel in the two years that preceded the Six Day War, this article argues that the Soviets were trying to implement a policy of detente in the Middle East. Therefore, they were wary of war between Israel and Syria and did their best, albeit clumsily at times, to prevent it from erupting. Their policy moved in cross-purposes to Syrian needs and little by little they lost control over their ally. This story should be read against the backdrop of the rebellion of radical regimes in the Third World against Soviet detente policy, thus emphasizing the ability of actors in the periphery of the Cold War to undermine superpower designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the intentions of the Soviet leadership towards Germany during the early 1950s in the light of recently released documents. Whereas Malenkov's comment of 2 June 1953 shows the commitment to a 'bourgeois' Germany and the victory of Beria in post-Stalin debates about the German question, Bodnăras' report on a meeting of the party chairmen and defense ministers of the people's democracies of 9 to 12 January 1951 underlines the real fear of war due to the Western decision to rearm Western Germany, and the minutes of the meetings between Stalin and the SED leadership on 1 and 7 April 1952 demonstrate both the difference of interest between Stalin and Ulbricht and the difference of performance between Stalin and Beria. Minutes of the Presidium of the CPSU's Central Committee show that the final decision for the stabilisation of the GDR was not taken before November 1955. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, based on multi-archival research in the United States of America and South Africa, analyzes the nuclear relationship between South Africa and the US during the Reagan, Bush and Clinton Administrations, by tracing South Africa's journey to non-proliferation during the last decade of the Cold War. During the Reagan years, anti-communism and the Cold War formed a major component of US foreign policy and dictated a closer nuclear relationship between the US and South Africa, coupled with US non-proliferation efforts vis-a-vis South Africa. At the end of the 1980s, the US efforts coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of Soviet support and indeed a nuclear war potential from Southern Africa. In late 1989, South Africa at last gave up its nuclear weapons development and destroyed all its nuclear weapons, followed by signature of the NPT in July 1991. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on Romanian archival documents, memoirs and recent scholarship, this article argues that the Hungarian crisis functioned as a godsend for the Romanian leaders by justifying a closing of the ranks, as a course on how to prevent a revolution and Soviet invasion, and as a stimulus for coaxing Soviet troops out of Romania. The Dej regime extracted seven lessons from the crisis, namely: avoid isolation from the masses, do not rehabilitate political prisoners, maintain tight control over the press, take military precautions, be tactful to avoid needless alienation of the people, and eschew being perceived as a Soviet puppet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an examination of the short movies produced by the NATO Information Service (NATIS) between 1949 and 1969. It demonstrates that the material reflected NATO's changing priorities and strategic scope. Moving away from the strictly defined military themes of the early 1950s, the death of Stalin and the following climate of detente led NATIS to explore new themes, including economic and political cooperation, and to address new audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the repeated appearance of scenes showing the partial or complete destruction of New York City in American cinema of the Cold War. While this theme goes across genres, it has been especially prevalent in science fiction films which are the focus of this study. It begins by showing the particular reasons for this morbid fascination and the history of such imagery in nineteenth and early twentieth century literature and cinema. The paper then analyses the changing presentations of destruction from the 1950s to the 1980s and relates them to the dominant fears and anxieties of each period. It concludes by taking a brief look at the continuation of the theme in the post-Cold War period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origins of the Cold War have been the subject of numerous debates among international historians. On different occasions, historians have looked at International Relations Theory for insights and concepts to help understanding why and how the Cold War originated. While the postrevisionist paradigm was inspired by realism, for the last decade and a half, running parallel with broader theoretical developments in IR, large parts of the debate on the origins of the Cold War have focused on the role of ideas, ideology, and culture. However, the imported innovations had the effect of fragmenting our theoretical understanding of the origins of the Cold War, rather than offering a workable, coherent synthesis. Moreover, these accounts do not always sufficiently address problems of agency and causality. The debate on the origins of the Cold War, therefore, is in need of coherent theoretical frameworks which are capable of remedying these problems. This article argues that a possible way of generating such a framework is taking a closer look at hermeneutics and constructivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study states that Turkish President İsmet İnönü did not use democracy merely as a tool to bring his country into the US-led Western alliance at the onset of the Cold War. Instead, Inonu was inspired by a true sense of mission to fulfil Ataturk's legacy to bring democracy to Turkey. Admittedly, the Truman administration used democracy as rhetoric in order to realize its strategic goals in, and secure congressional aid for, Turkey, and yet Washington did not put pressure on Turkey to democratize faster or more thoroughly. There is no causal link between Turkey's democratization and either the Truman Doctrine or Turkey's admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effect of the Cold War era on a historic event with serious consequences for Greece, namely the Greek Colonels' regime, which lasted between April 1967 and July 1974. Greece, due to its strategic position, served as guarantor of stability in NATO's southeastern flank, a benefit that the alliance considered indispensable to its strength, therefore impossible to compromise. In the light of this consideration, NATO tolerated, to put it mildly, the dictatorial, albeit pro-NATO regime that the Greek Colonels imposed on Greece on 21 April 1967. This paper will attempt to account for NATO's reactions to the Greek regime and the factors dictating them - a small, albeit indicative, peripheral segment of the puzzle of the global antagonism between the West and the East during the Cold War era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 5 May 1969 Finland launched its famous initiative, which led to the opening of multilateral negotiations for the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) three years later. To date there is widespread reasoning that the Finnish initiative was mainly an idea inspired by the Soviets. Based on new archival materials and interviews with contemporary witnesses, this article shows, however, that the Finns had their own good reasons to launch their appeal. The initiative was primarily designed to ease Soviet pressure on Finnish neutrality and to deal with the pending question of recognition of the two German states. The conference itself was for a long time not the main ambition of Finnish foreign policy. Offering Helsinki as a host to the talks and thereby making neutrality an indispensable condition for convening the security conference became the crown jewel in Finland's strategy towards the Soviet Union in the years 1969 to 1972. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American W. Averell Harriman's many diplomatic activities have received considerable attention from historians. However, one of his most important contributions to the United States' early Cold War policy largely has been overlooked. On 18 August 1947 Harriman delivered a speech in Seattle calling for more confrontational Soviet policies, making a case for the Marshall Plan that successfully appealed to Americans even in 'isolationist' or conservative parts of the country. In the process, Harriman helped Truman overcome the effects of wartime pro-Soviet propaganda and helped mobilise support for active policies at a time when the legacy of the 1930s left some skeptics doubting democracies could mobilise before bombs began raining on them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Marshall Plan was the most effective US foreign policy initiative in the post-war period and a turning point in the Cold War. This paper highlights a very important and commonly neglected aspect of the Marshall Plan - the influence of oil. Oil played a key role in the origins, operations, and impact of the Marshall Plan. Marshall Plan aid for oil preserved markets for US oil companies and shaped Western Europe's energy use patterns and its relations with the United States and the oil-producing nations, especially those in the Middle East. In contrast, the Soviet Union was unable to use oil as an instrument of power and influence in this period. Examination of the role of oil in the Marshall Plan provides important insights into the origins of the Cold War and the factors that shaped the post-war world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes issue with American historians of the Cold War who assert that the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 endorsed the post-war division of Europe, and that its results were accidental or surprising. The article demonstrates that the nine members of the (then) European Community, with important support from neutrals and non-aligned, resisted strong pressure from Moscow and Washington to confirm the status quo. Instead, they ensured that the Final Act became an agenda for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since NATO existed, the Kremlin was keen to eliminate it. In 1966-68, there appeared to be a window of opportunity which, however, was closed when the USSR crushed Czechoslovak reform communism. From 1969 onward, Brezhnev sought 'political detente' with the West to initiate a process of 'military detente' intended to allow for a Soviet first strike capability against Western Europe. The campaign designed to promote this policy by generating public pressure in Western countries gained momentum only when NATO decided to counter crucial SS-20 armament. Massive anti-NATO 'peace' opposition resulted, but failed to achieve its purpose. The stage was set for the breakdown of the Soviet empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 23 October 1973, the third week of the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli army cut off all supply routes to the 20,000 strong Egyptian Third Army on the east bank of the Suez Canal. Five days later, however, Israel partly lifted the siege and allowed the first convoy of non-military supplies to reach the Third Army. This decision was explained in Israel as deriving from American pressure, the source of which, according to the Americans, was the threat of Soviet intervention. This paper argues that a Soviet threat was not the main reason for the United States' pressure, but that it derived from an array of American interests in the region. The Israeli leadership, in turn, used American pressure to publicly justify its decision to spare the Third Army, though it had its own reasons for doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In November 1983 a routine NATO nuclear readiness exercise code-named Able Archer could have led to a Soviet nuclear strike against the West. What is remarkable about this possible Soviet strike is that it was perceived by the Soviets as a defensive and pre-emptive strike. Therefore, the Soviets somehow believed that there was an impending Western nuclear attack that they had to pre-empt. American rearmament, NATO missile deployment, and Reaganite rhetoric somehow convinced the Soviets that the nuclear endgame was near. These fears climaxed in November 1983 during a seemingly innocuous nuclear-readiness exercise by the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1970 the Nixon Administration bribed members of the International Olympic Committee in an effort to bring the 1976 summer games to Los Angeles. These actions injected Cold War issues into the process of selecting Olympic host cities. This effort initiated a political confrontation with the Soviet Union, since Moscow was another of the candidate cities. Although weak and vulnerable to political assaults, the International Olympic movement's decentralized organizational nature made it difficult for the Nixon White House to bring the Olympics to Los Angeles. The administration learned from this failure and was more successful in offering more limited support to efforts to host the 1980 Winter Olympics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay maintains that detente, rather than stabilizing the international situation as many of its architects had hoped for, fundamentally altered the Cold War international system. Detente did not end the Cold War nor provide a clear road map towards 1989 (or 1991). But by bringing about an era of East-West engagement, detente was instrumental in setting in motion the many processes that ultimately caused the collapse of the international system that it was supposed to have stabilized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observers of international relations frequently assume that human rights challenge realpolitik. This article shows that in the context of negotiations about European security in the early 1970s, the two went hand-in-hand. Despite significant transatlantic differences, Americans and Europeans conceptualized human rights as products of the Cold War, and principles for assuming more order and stability in the international system. Human rights discussions and agreements were not designed to end the Cold War in the 1970s. This analysis challenges assumptions about the absence of human rights in detente, and the alleged connection between the Helsinki Final Act and the Revolutions of 1989. The anti-Cold War quality of human rights activism in the 1980s was not present a decade earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]