The Cold War International History Project
June 2, 2006 2:06 PM Subscribe
Bulletins (more recent ones are PDF only) from the Cold War International History Project. During the 40-odd years of the Cold War, diplomatic historians in the West only had access to documents--papers, memos, cables, and so on--from one side of the conflict. Since the end of the Cold War, the Cold War International History Project has been going through diplomatic archives from the Soviet Union, China, and other countries, translating documents and illuminating the other sides of the conflict. Examples: discussions between Stalin and Kim Il Sung prior to the Korean War. Chinese documents from 1964-1965 on the Vietnam War. Letter to Brezhnev from Czech hardliners requesting Soviet intervention in 1968.
Super awesome. Am reading the Stalin-Kim conversation notes now. Thanks, russilwvong.
posted by ibmcginty at 2:53 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by ibmcginty at 2:53 PM on June 2, 2006
Hopefully readers will find the documents. Rapid technological progress seems to create amnesia.
posted by lw at 3:30 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by lw at 3:30 PM on June 2, 2006
Wow! What great historic value and significance.
Merci pour l'infos, comrad russilwvong.
posted by Unregistered User at 4:20 PM on June 2, 2006
Merci pour l'infos, comrad russilwvong.
posted by Unregistered User at 4:20 PM on June 2, 2006
Fascinating links. Thank you russilwvong.
Interesting to note that the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) is being funded by "a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation". Right-wing Henry Luce, who founded Time magazine, offered his Time journalists as covert operatives for the CIA and and allowed the CIA operatives to work as journalists. Luce had a huge part in creating the Cold War miasma. Even though this informative article is on the crackpot Larouche's site, it's written by Steven P. Meyer and is well researched. For anyone not familair with the term, synarchist. Because of the Luce Foundation backing, I have my doubts now about the full reporting of the facts on CWIHP.
posted by nickyskye at 6:24 PM on June 2, 2006
Interesting to note that the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) is being funded by "a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation". Right-wing Henry Luce, who founded Time magazine, offered his Time journalists as covert operatives for the CIA and and allowed the CIA operatives to work as journalists. Luce had a huge part in creating the Cold War miasma. Even though this informative article is on the crackpot Larouche's site, it's written by Steven P. Meyer and is well researched. For anyone not familair with the term, synarchist. Because of the Luce Foundation backing, I have my doubts now about the full reporting of the facts on CWIHP.
posted by nickyskye at 6:24 PM on June 2, 2006
Thanks for the positive feedback!
Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing similar material for the Bush administration. Here's one sample: Paul O'Neill's archive of documents. (As Treasury Secretary, O'Neill was a member of the National Security Council.)
nickyskye raises a good question: is the CWIHP biased? (Luce was a leading member of the "China Lobby.") Of course bias is always a possibility, but I've never seen any accusations of bias against the CWIHP on H-DIPLO (a mailing list for diplomatic historians). Also, the Luce grant announcement is fairly recent (2003); CWIHP has been running since 1991.
The Steven P. Meyer article looks a bit ... wacky to me. The outlook of today's Beast-Men, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, is a continuation of the policies represented by Luce and the fascists of the 1930s and 1940s. Cheney's inner core of neocons are all signers of the founding principles of William Kristol's Project for a New American Century, explicitly modelled on Luce's theme. The Children of Satan, as Lyndon LaRouche has determined they rightly be called, had Henry Luce as one of their godfathers. Luce's brothers at Skull and Bones gave him the secret name of "Baal."
posted by russilwvong at 10:22 PM on June 2, 2006
Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing similar material for the Bush administration. Here's one sample: Paul O'Neill's archive of documents. (As Treasury Secretary, O'Neill was a member of the National Security Council.)
nickyskye raises a good question: is the CWIHP biased? (Luce was a leading member of the "China Lobby.") Of course bias is always a possibility, but I've never seen any accusations of bias against the CWIHP on H-DIPLO (a mailing list for diplomatic historians). Also, the Luce grant announcement is fairly recent (2003); CWIHP has been running since 1991.
The Steven P. Meyer article looks a bit ... wacky to me. The outlook of today's Beast-Men, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, is a continuation of the policies represented by Luce and the fascists of the 1930s and 1940s. Cheney's inner core of neocons are all signers of the founding principles of William Kristol's Project for a New American Century, explicitly modelled on Luce's theme. The Children of Satan, as Lyndon LaRouche has determined they rightly be called, had Henry Luce as one of their godfathers. Luce's brothers at Skull and Bones gave him the secret name of "Baal."
posted by russilwvong at 10:22 PM on June 2, 2006
russilwvong, Since the Luce Foundation gave such "generous" support to CWIHP, I can well imagine that the CWIHP will not thoroughly detail the Time-Life/Luce empire's role in the Cold War. That would presumably be biting the hand that feeds it. Putting the word "Luce" into the search box at the CWIHP site all I came up with was several results only referring to Luce Foundation funding.
Certainly seems biased to me.
Yes, the Steven P. Meyer article ends on a wacky note, must be the Larouche contaigion. Since the Bush administration is heavily funded by Christians I suppose Larouche believes they will get some mileage out of calling the Bush bunch Satanic. Oh well. But the facts included in the article about Luce are well documented elsewhere, just not so nicely collected in one place, including the wacky sounding but true info about the Skull and Bones thing, backed up on the Skull and Bones' own site. Yes, Luce was called Ba'al, another name for Beelzebub.
From the PBS on Luce and the "New American Century". "The intellectually dishonest or simply mediocre champions of Luce's causes more likely obtained good coverage. Years of editorial cleverness were now being used to promote the foreign policies of Henry Luce. 'No restraint bound him,' recalled one of his correspondents."
"Luce's concern for the world began with the Second World War. Like many members of the Eastern Establishment - an informal collection of publishers and political and financial leaders...armed intervention to save Europe and a new postwar order dominated by the United States - Luce called it the American Century."
"Luce became, wrote Joseph Epstein, 'a great grey eminence whom everyone, with tar brush in hand, painted black.' No other publisher of his rank had offered, in his own words, such resolute calls for American hegemony. And to those in the late 1960s outraged over the cost of that globalism in Vietnam, Luce and his magazines bore much of the responsibility. 'The Lucepress had led, not followed, the nation into war,' biographer W.A. Swanberg wrote. Luce stood guilty of 'manipulating 50 million people weekly.' "
More on the "New American Century" ("The name and vision clearly echo Henry Luce’s famous 1941 manifesto 'The American Century' ")
"By Zia Mian | May 4, 2005
Editor: John Gershman, International Relations Center (IRC)
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
In 1997, a group of conservative American politicians, academics, and policy brokers announced “The Project for a New American Century.” The members included a who’s who of important players in the Bush administration since 2001, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby (Cheney’s chief of staff), Paul Wolfowitz, formerly in the defense department and newly appointed president of the World Bank, and Zalmay Khalilzad (who has served until recently as the ambassador to Afghanistan and is now the ambassador to Iraq). It also includes Jeb Bush, President Bush’s brother."
posted by nickyskye at 11:14 PM on June 2, 2006
Certainly seems biased to me.
Yes, the Steven P. Meyer article ends on a wacky note, must be the Larouche contaigion. Since the Bush administration is heavily funded by Christians I suppose Larouche believes they will get some mileage out of calling the Bush bunch Satanic. Oh well. But the facts included in the article about Luce are well documented elsewhere, just not so nicely collected in one place, including the wacky sounding but true info about the Skull and Bones thing, backed up on the Skull and Bones' own site. Yes, Luce was called Ba'al, another name for Beelzebub.
From the PBS on Luce and the "New American Century". "The intellectually dishonest or simply mediocre champions of Luce's causes more likely obtained good coverage. Years of editorial cleverness were now being used to promote the foreign policies of Henry Luce. 'No restraint bound him,' recalled one of his correspondents."
"Luce's concern for the world began with the Second World War. Like many members of the Eastern Establishment - an informal collection of publishers and political and financial leaders...armed intervention to save Europe and a new postwar order dominated by the United States - Luce called it the American Century."
"Luce became, wrote Joseph Epstein, 'a great grey eminence whom everyone, with tar brush in hand, painted black.' No other publisher of his rank had offered, in his own words, such resolute calls for American hegemony. And to those in the late 1960s outraged over the cost of that globalism in Vietnam, Luce and his magazines bore much of the responsibility. 'The Lucepress had led, not followed, the nation into war,' biographer W.A. Swanberg wrote. Luce stood guilty of 'manipulating 50 million people weekly.' "
More on the "New American Century" ("The name and vision clearly echo Henry Luce’s famous 1941 manifesto 'The American Century' ")
"By Zia Mian | May 4, 2005
Editor: John Gershman, International Relations Center (IRC)
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
In 1997, a group of conservative American politicians, academics, and policy brokers announced “The Project for a New American Century.” The members included a who’s who of important players in the Bush administration since 2001, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby (Cheney’s chief of staff), Paul Wolfowitz, formerly in the defense department and newly appointed president of the World Bank, and Zalmay Khalilzad (who has served until recently as the ambassador to Afghanistan and is now the ambassador to Iraq). It also includes Jeb Bush, President Bush’s brother."
posted by nickyskye at 11:14 PM on June 2, 2006
--I can well imagine that the CWIHP will not thoroughly detail the Time-Life/Luce empire's role in the Cold War.
Naturally not--the CWIHP is looking at the other side(s) of the Cold War, not the US and its allies.
Putting the word "Luce" into the search box at the CWIHP site all I came up with was several results only referring to Luce Foundation funding.
Not surprising, unless it turns out that Luce was secretly corresponding with Stalin or Mao.
posted by russilwvong at 12:58 AM on June 3, 2006
Naturally not--the CWIHP is looking at the other side(s) of the Cold War, not the US and its allies.
Putting the word "Luce" into the search box at the CWIHP site all I came up with was several results only referring to Luce Foundation funding.
Not surprising, unless it turns out that Luce was secretly corresponding with Stalin or Mao.
posted by russilwvong at 12:58 AM on June 3, 2006
Naturally not--the CWIHP is looking at the other side(s) of the Cold War, not the US and its allies.
Say wha? A Cold War International History Project without info about the United States' part in the Cold War?????
From the CWIHP's own site it says "The Cold War International History Project disseminates new information and perspectives on the history of the Cold War, in particular new findings from previously inaccessible sources on "the other side" -- the former Communist world." It does not say exclusively from the other point of view.
"The Cold War was the protracted geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle that emerged after World War II between the global superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States, supported by their alliance partners. It lasted from about 1947 to the period leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991."
As a matter of fact, the CWIHP does have at least some info, naturally, about the United States' role in the Cold War:
If one puts "United States" into the CWIHP search box there are 1340 results, "CIA" gets 701 results, "Kissinger" gets 420 results, "Kennedy" gets 1470, "Lyndon Johnson" gets 179, "Allen Dulles" (founder of the CIA) gets 24.
And, naturally the CWIHP offers info about the U.S.-Soviet Relations and the Turn Toward Confrontation, 1977-1980
U.S.-Cuban Relations and the Cold War, 1976-1981
But not to offer any information about the Cold War's largest media support via Luce in the United States, not a single document, just because the Luce Foundation gives lots of money to the CWIHP, that seems very biased to me and, frankly, dishonest.
posted by nickyskye at 3:45 PM on June 3, 2006
Say wha? A Cold War International History Project without info about the United States' part in the Cold War?????
From the CWIHP's own site it says "The Cold War International History Project disseminates new information and perspectives on the history of the Cold War, in particular new findings from previously inaccessible sources on "the other side" -- the former Communist world." It does not say exclusively from the other point of view.
"The Cold War was the protracted geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle that emerged after World War II between the global superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States, supported by their alliance partners. It lasted from about 1947 to the period leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991."
As a matter of fact, the CWIHP does have at least some info, naturally, about the United States' role in the Cold War:
If one puts "United States" into the CWIHP search box there are 1340 results, "CIA" gets 701 results, "Kissinger" gets 420 results, "Kennedy" gets 1470, "Lyndon Johnson" gets 179, "Allen Dulles" (founder of the CIA) gets 24.
And, naturally the CWIHP offers info about the U.S.-Soviet Relations and the Turn Toward Confrontation, 1977-1980
U.S.-Cuban Relations and the Cold War, 1976-1981
But not to offer any information about the Cold War's largest media support via Luce in the United States, not a single document, just because the Luce Foundation gives lots of money to the CWIHP, that seems very biased to me and, frankly, dishonest.
posted by nickyskye at 3:45 PM on June 3, 2006
But the facts included in the article about Luce are well documented elsewhere, just not so nicely collected in one place, including the wacky sounding but true info about the Skull and Bones thing, backed up on the Skull and Bones' own site. Yes, Luce was called Ba'al, another name for Beelzebub.
sheesh, and here i thought i was only being poetically truthful when i recently wrote a song comparing the current administration to biblical descriptions of Belial. had no idea there was any direct link there. here's some interesting, if only tangentially related absurdity from this link:
"In Ps., sviii, 5, it [Belial] is parallel to "death" and "Sheol"; some understand it as "destruction", Cheyne [another similar term from the original Hebrew] as "the abyss". The etymology of the word is doubtful; it is usually taken to be a compound meaning "worthlessness." Cheyne suggest an alternate that means "that from which no one comes up", namely the abyss, Sheol.
hmm. "Cheyne" --> "Cheney"? (and before anyone gets their panties in a wad, i'm not seriously suggesting Cheney is the antichrist, I just found this to be an interesting coincidence.)
religious tinfoil hattery aside, this is a really fascinating thread. and the resources in your fpp are tremendous. thanks for posting this russilwvong!
posted by all-seeing eye dog at 10:19 PM on June 3, 2006
sheesh, and here i thought i was only being poetically truthful when i recently wrote a song comparing the current administration to biblical descriptions of Belial. had no idea there was any direct link there. here's some interesting, if only tangentially related absurdity from this link:
"In Ps., sviii, 5, it [Belial] is parallel to "death" and "Sheol"; some understand it as "destruction", Cheyne [another similar term from the original Hebrew] as "the abyss". The etymology of the word is doubtful; it is usually taken to be a compound meaning "worthlessness." Cheyne suggest an alternate that means "that from which no one comes up", namely the abyss, Sheol.
hmm. "Cheyne" --> "Cheney"? (and before anyone gets their panties in a wad, i'm not seriously suggesting Cheney is the antichrist, I just found this to be an interesting coincidence.)
religious tinfoil hattery aside, this is a really fascinating thread. and the resources in your fpp are tremendous. thanks for posting this russilwvong!
posted by all-seeing eye dog at 10:19 PM on June 3, 2006
nickyskye: It does not say exclusively from the other point of view.
In practice, CWIHP does in fact focus pretty much exclusively on documents from the other point of view. See the list of bulletins. It's all from the other side.
For similar documents from the US side of the Cold War, see the Foreign Relations of the United States archive and the National Security Archive.
By the way, I originally ran across the CWIHP while doing some research for this thread on the Korean War.
A minor point: I think you might be running your searches on the whole Woodrow Wilson Center site, not the CWIHP section. I got 55 hits for Kissinger and 4 for Allen Dulles, for example.
posted by russilwvong at 11:08 PM on June 4, 2006
In practice, CWIHP does in fact focus pretty much exclusively on documents from the other point of view. See the list of bulletins. It's all from the other side.
For similar documents from the US side of the Cold War, see the Foreign Relations of the United States archive and the National Security Archive.
By the way, I originally ran across the CWIHP while doing some research for this thread on the Korean War.
A minor point: I think you might be running your searches on the whole Woodrow Wilson Center site, not the CWIHP section. I got 55 hits for Kissinger and 4 for Allen Dulles, for example.
posted by russilwvong at 11:08 PM on June 4, 2006
russilwvong, When I put CWIHP into Google, the site I come up with is:
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.home
What is the URL you are referring to for the CWIHP?
Interesting that your "list of bulletins" is only in the Internet Archive.
When I put "Allen Dulles" into the search box, now it's 6 returns today compared with 24 yesterday. Actually that search box is unpredictable because I put the name "Dulles" in by accident an hour ago and it gave me 60 something responses (including John foster dulles and Avery Dulles) and now gave me 80 responses.
I Googled National Security Archive and the Luce Foundation and it appears the Luce fund is making "generous" contributions there as well.
"The George Washington University Cold War (GWCW) group is sponsored by the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies of the Elliott School of International Affairs. A generous three-year grant to GWCW from the Henry Luce Foundation is being used to host workshops on new evidence/policy legacies concerning critical events from the Cold War in Asia, to support document translation of new sources from non-American archives, to fund student and faculty research and travel, and to help support the annual GWCW graduate student conference."
In fact, at the GWUCW they have "Luce workshops".
If the CWIHP exclusively focuses on one one side of the Cold War, I think they should say that clearly. It certainly seems patently insane to have a Cold War archive with only documents from 'the other countries', rather than the documents in relation to the dialogue and in fact this is not true on the CWIHP site, they do have documents from the United States side, just not inclusive.
posted by nickyskye at 6:33 PM on June 5, 2006
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.home
What is the URL you are referring to for the CWIHP?
Interesting that your "list of bulletins" is only in the Internet Archive.
When I put "Allen Dulles" into the search box, now it's 6 returns today compared with 24 yesterday. Actually that search box is unpredictable because I put the name "Dulles" in by accident an hour ago and it gave me 60 something responses (including John foster dulles and Avery Dulles) and now gave me 80 responses.
I Googled National Security Archive and the Luce Foundation and it appears the Luce fund is making "generous" contributions there as well.
"The George Washington University Cold War (GWCW) group is sponsored by the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies of the Elliott School of International Affairs. A generous three-year grant to GWCW from the Henry Luce Foundation is being used to host workshops on new evidence/policy legacies concerning critical events from the Cold War in Asia, to support document translation of new sources from non-American archives, to fund student and faculty research and travel, and to help support the annual GWCW graduate student conference."
In fact, at the GWUCW they have "Luce workshops".
If the CWIHP exclusively focuses on one one side of the Cold War, I think they should say that clearly. It certainly seems patently insane to have a Cold War archive with only documents from 'the other countries', rather than the documents in relation to the dialogue and in fact this is not true on the CWIHP site, they do have documents from the United States side, just not inclusive.
posted by nickyskye at 6:33 PM on June 5, 2006
If the CWIHP exclusively focuses on one one side of the Cold War, I think they should say that clearly.
I think they do say that clearly. They're not trying to be a comprehensive archive of Cold War documents. From the description on the front page: The Cold War International History Project disseminates new information and perspectives on the history of the Cold War, in particular new findings from previously inaccessible sources on "the other side."
It certainly seems patently insane to have a Cold War archive with only documents from 'the other countries'--
I don't understand why. Again, the objective of the CWIHP isn't to provide a comprehensive archive, it's to translate new documents from Russian, Chinese, or whatever and make them available to diplomatic historians. That's a valuable service; I don't see why you think it's "patently insane."
Documents from the US side have been readily available for decades: under the 25-year rule, the National Archives systematically reviews and declassifies documents after 25 years, so US documents from the early Cold War were available by the early 1970s.
--in fact this is not true on the CWIHP site, they do have documents from the United States side--
Practically none. If you search for "Allen Dulles" on the Foreign Relations of the United States site, for example, you get 399 hits, vs. four hits in the CWIHP archive (all pointing to a single document published in FRUS in 1988).
What is the URL you are referring to for the CWIHP?
It's the same URL. But when you do a search, make sure that the dropdown above the search box is set to "Search This Section" instead of "Search Whole Site." After you do the first search, the dropdown changes to "Search Whole Site," which searches the Wilson site instead of just the CWIHP section. If you search for "Dulles" with the dropdown set to "Search This Section", you get 36 hits. For "Search Whole Site", you get 80 hits.
Interesting that your "list of bulletins" is only in the Internet Archive.
I used the Archive version because it's in HTML, which is easier for casual browsing. The CWIHP site's list of bulletins (the second link of the FPP) is PDF-only.
I Googled National Security Archive and the Luce Foundation and it appears the Luce fund is making "generous" contributions there as well.
Actually the grants are going to GWCW, which is separate from the National Security Archive (GWCW was founded in 2000, the National Security Archive was founded in 1985).
But in any event I'm starting to wonder whether we have any evidence that the Luce Foundation is pushing a particular political agenda. Henry Luce died in 1967, after all. Here's their list of recent grants; I don't see any obvious political slant. I checked SourceWatch and didn't see anything. I did some Google searches on controversial topics; the most interesting item I found was a letter to the NYT about an Islamic scholar funded by Luce who was barred from the US.
posted by russilwvong at 12:19 PM on June 6, 2006
I think they do say that clearly. They're not trying to be a comprehensive archive of Cold War documents. From the description on the front page: The Cold War International History Project disseminates new information and perspectives on the history of the Cold War, in particular new findings from previously inaccessible sources on "the other side."
It certainly seems patently insane to have a Cold War archive with only documents from 'the other countries'--
I don't understand why. Again, the objective of the CWIHP isn't to provide a comprehensive archive, it's to translate new documents from Russian, Chinese, or whatever and make them available to diplomatic historians. That's a valuable service; I don't see why you think it's "patently insane."
Documents from the US side have been readily available for decades: under the 25-year rule, the National Archives systematically reviews and declassifies documents after 25 years, so US documents from the early Cold War were available by the early 1970s.
--in fact this is not true on the CWIHP site, they do have documents from the United States side--
Practically none. If you search for "Allen Dulles" on the Foreign Relations of the United States site, for example, you get 399 hits, vs. four hits in the CWIHP archive (all pointing to a single document published in FRUS in 1988).
What is the URL you are referring to for the CWIHP?
It's the same URL. But when you do a search, make sure that the dropdown above the search box is set to "Search This Section" instead of "Search Whole Site." After you do the first search, the dropdown changes to "Search Whole Site," which searches the Wilson site instead of just the CWIHP section. If you search for "Dulles" with the dropdown set to "Search This Section", you get 36 hits. For "Search Whole Site", you get 80 hits.
Interesting that your "list of bulletins" is only in the Internet Archive.
I used the Archive version because it's in HTML, which is easier for casual browsing. The CWIHP site's list of bulletins (the second link of the FPP) is PDF-only.
I Googled National Security Archive and the Luce Foundation and it appears the Luce fund is making "generous" contributions there as well.
Actually the grants are going to GWCW, which is separate from the National Security Archive (GWCW was founded in 2000, the National Security Archive was founded in 1985).
But in any event I'm starting to wonder whether we have any evidence that the Luce Foundation is pushing a particular political agenda. Henry Luce died in 1967, after all. Here's their list of recent grants; I don't see any obvious political slant. I checked SourceWatch and didn't see anything. I did some Google searches on controversial topics; the most interesting item I found was a letter to the NYT about an Islamic scholar funded by Luce who was barred from the US.
posted by russilwvong at 12:19 PM on June 6, 2006
A couple more interesting sub-sections:
Virtual Archive, organized by topic.
CWIHP working papers.
One example: #9, New Evidence on the Soviet Rejection of the Marshall Plan, 1947: Two Reports (PDF).
Virtual Archive, organized by topic.
CWIHP working papers.
One example: #9, New Evidence on the Soviet Rejection of the Marshall Plan, 1947: Two Reports (PDF).
The vague wording of Marshall’s June 1947 speech made it difficult for the Soviet leaders to reach definite conclusions about the purpose of his offer, and they initially hoped it might prove to be a source of capital for the reconstruction of the war-damaged USSR. As the details of the American plan unfolded, however, the Soviet leadership slowly came to view it as an attempt to use economic aid not only to consolidate a Western European bloc, but also to undermine recently-won, and still somewhat tenuous, Soviet gains in Eastern Europe. They feared that the U.S. economic aid program sought to transform Stalin’s new chain of Soviet-oriented buffer states into a revamped version of the “cordon sanitaire” of the interwar years. The plan appeared to aim at the reintegration of Eastern Europe into the capitalist economic system of the West, with all the political ramification that implied. Thus the Marshall Plan, conceived by U.S. policymakers primarily as a defensive measure to stave off economic collapse in Western Europe, proved indistinguishable to the Kremlin leadership from an offensive attempt to subvert Soviet security interests.posted by russilwvong at 12:04 PM on June 7, 2006
Confronted with the ambiguous American initiative, Stalin first hesitated, then assumed the worst and acted accordingly. The Soviet leader did not desire to provoke a confrontation with the Western powers, but in the situation created by the Marshall Plan, he apparently felt that he had no other choice. The upshot was what we have come to know as the Cold War. ...
What the new documentation helps us see more clearly, then, is that the real difficulty and source of conflict in 1947 was neither Soviet nor American “aggression.” Rather, it lay in the unstable international economic and political conditions in key European countries which led both sides to believe that the current status quo was unstable, and that assertive action was required to defend that status quo. It was in this environment that the Western powers felt compelled to design the details of the Marshall Plan in such a way that it would stabilize Western Europe, but only at the cost of provoking a confrontation with the USSR. And it was this same environment that compelled Stalin to respond to the plan with a series of tactically offensive maneuvers which fanned the flames of confrontation even higher. This decisive moment in the emergence of the Cold War was thus more a story of tragedy than evil. Neither the West nor the Soviet Union deliberately strove to provoke a confrontation with the other. Instead, the fluid political and economic conditions in postwar Europe compelled each side to design policies which were largely defensive, but had the unfortunate consequence of provoking conflict with the other.
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posted by languagehat at 2:42 PM on June 2, 2006