Nixon tapes

"The Nixon Library makes available almost 50 million pages of documents, over 300,000 photographs, thousands of motion pictures and videos, and the Nixon White House Tapes."

Propaganda and Cold War: The mystery of the Colorado beetle

On the right, an image during the Cold War, from East Germany, protesting against the so-called dropping of Colorado beetle by the Americans. It is hard to imagine how the country was back then: poor people, hardly finding food in the middle of a destroyed country. And, instead on focusing on reconstruction, they were arming the media against the Americans and the West. A desperate try to build consensus.

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Modern art as CIA weapon

New revelations about the Cold War labyrinth - How modern art was part of a bigger plan to promote Western culture in the East. And, whatever the initial aim, the final outcome leaded to a positive effect for arts and culture.

From the academic ladder of the Cold War

Image by deVos via FlickrSheila Fitzpatrick's account about being a Western academic in the world of the Cold War.

Short notice on intellectuals

I continue to be extremely interested in issues regarding the Cold War, as I consider that many of the patterns created then still continue to influence our ways of thinking and translating the facts. The place of intellectuals, mostly scientists, in the East/West confrontation, their blindness - in supporting indefinitely the Moscow's part - the "red hunt", the political manifestos, and all the games behind the scenes will play a big part of my studies and lectures. In these stormy times, intellectuals were used or offered their services, to a part or another, and rarely were able to express dissenting opinions and positions. I am very familiar with the situation of intellectuals during the communist regimes, I followed some of the cases of intellectuals during the Third Reich but had a limited knowledge of the situation in the "free world", excepting my regrets for the lack of integrity in defending the cause of free thinking and to oppose repression from the other side of the Iron Curtain.

The very detailed biography of Robert Oppenheimer gave me new food for thought for deconstructing the myth of the beneficial role of the intellectuals. Far of becoming an anti-intellectual myself, I recognize the limits of human self-awareness and indifference, independently of the level of education and intelligence. Preoccupied by their works, not without direct political and civic implications - as it was in the case of the atomic bomb, they have often limited understanding of the need of expressing solidarity and civic involvement. For example, enjoying the freedom of thinking might imply to be able to defend, whenever necessary the situations when other scientists are not able to do their work in the same conditions. Very often, I think that "Dreyfus affair" was a very singular case in the intellectual history.

For me, Oppenheimer is a sad example of this lack of involvement and the refuse to be more than a wonderful mind. An encyclopedic mind and a coherent scientist, he - like many others - went involved - but not as a full member - in the activities of the Communist Party from the US, mostly as a counter action to the advance of Nazi Germany. From the book, it is not very clear the ways in which this US Communist Party fought or reacted against the fate of the European Jews. In Europe, Paul Dirac and other scientists were more connected to the Soviet Russia, but still unable to create a common front against what was happening in Germany, including with their Jewish colleagues. Little by little, once he's involvement in the Manhattan Project is increasing, Oppenheimer is becoming neutral regarding the communists, whose fellow traveller used to be for a while and dedicated fully to the works for building the atomic bomb, together with other bright minds. At the realm of the Cold War and when the pressures at various levels of the American establishment increased, Oppenheimer will be the perfect victim for separating the waters. The trial was unfair and the non-academic ambitions of the political and military elites played an enormous role. But, even in this situation, he refused to express but than scientific advices following the consequences of the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki or to separate clearly from his late Communist involvement. Obviously, it was a sporadic involvement, without a clear knowledge of all the sides of the story. And the public support from the part of his fellow scientists was limited as well. He was, perhaps, hiding many untold stories and the question of a possible spying case the Soviets, directly or by tolerating this kind of activities of scientists working for the Manhattan Project, is missing from the book. But, even confronted with days and hours of interviews and confrontations, he kept a low profile and hide behind his quiet world of ideas. He behaved predominantly defensive and reactive, as he lost the case before exposing all the arguments. He devoted most part of his life to a scientific project, but without understanding clearly all the implications. The tragic situation of being carried by the unchanging waves of politics.

The chronological structure of the book, describing step-by-step his personal and professional life, is not helping too much in understanding the context and the history of mentalities from this period. Given the enormous documentation, it was perhaps the most recommended way to build the narrative, but a synthetic perspective would add value and create a bigger framework of the world of ideas from the period of the Cold War and before.

1989-The Struggle to Create post-Cold War Europe

1989-2009 - 20 years after the start of the changes in Europe. A process still on the run, as long as even integrated as full EU and NATO members, the Central and Eastern European countries are still struggling to create functional market economies and political institutions. And, other countries - former parts of the Yougoslav Federation - are at various stages of the process of meeting the Western criteris.

1989-The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe is based on documents, television broadcasts, and interviews from many different locations including Moscow, Berlin, Bonn, Paris and Washington. The aim is to recontruct the starting process of the new Europe: the reunification of Germany, the NATO expansion and the redefinition of the role played by Russia on the world stage. A wide array of political players - from leaders as Mikhail Gorbatchev, Helmut Kohl, George H.W. Bush and James Baker, to organisations like NATO and the European Commission, as well to dissidents - all proposed courses of action and models for the future. The author explains how the aftermath of this fateful victory, and Russian resentment of it, continue to shape world politics today. The author is presenting diverse perspectives from the political elite as well as ordinary citizens.

Mary Elise Sarotte is associate professor of international relations at the University of Southern California. Her previous work includes the book, Dealing with the Devil and German Military Reform and European Security. She has served as a White House Fellow and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Retiring Intellectual

A 1959 article about Martin Lipset's stance on the Intellectual choices during the Cold War.

And an appreciation he made, referring to the difficulty to define intellectuals:

Definition of intellectual is sharpened by the existence of intellectuals in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union who used, or still use, the tools and trainings associated with intelligentsia in the science of anti-intellectual values. Are they really intellectuals?

Memories of the Cold War

Thatcher's Britain, Germany and the Soviet Union.

How extended was the Stasi network in DDR?

Questions and relative answers - Die Zeit (German)
Also in Die Zeit - Liebe Ossiversteher

Rock against/with communists, in DDR

Rock music in the Eastern block fought between survival and playing with the communist regimes. Some of them were banned and fuelled the main stream opposition against the regimes, some of them supported the regimes and fully enjoyed the advantages of being on the "good side" - state contracts, concerts, involvement in the public life.
Klaus-Renft-Combo band was created in 1958, in Leipzig, then in Eastern Germany. For a while, they supported communist party politics - SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) - with songs as "Chilean Metal" or "That's How Neruda died Too". But, songs like "Doubts" and "The Rock Ballad of Little Otto" criticized the Wall and contributed to the disbanding of the group and the emigration of its members to the Federal Republic. (Photo: concert from May 7, 2009, in Alexanderplatz, on the occasion of the events celebrating 20 years from the the fall of the Berlin Wall)
More luckier, the Pudhys, enjoyed the favors of the communist regime. Considered as "The Beatles of DDR" (in comparison with the "Rolling Stones" - the bad boys from Renft), they played until the end of the regime the role of exemplary socialists. Peter Meyer, the leader of the band, used to say: "We aren't the party types. We prefer drinking milk and cola over alcohol". This non-conflictual attitude brought them lots of advantages. In the 70s-80s, they sold over 16 million records, almost one for each citizen of the DDR, were rewarded with state honors, television and film contracts and toured constantly the Eastern block. The later STASI records revealed later (August 1993) that it was a price - as usual - for such advantages. Peter Meyer had provided between 1973-1989, as Stasi informant (Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter) information about artists and media personalities.

Rote Stern uber Deutschland

Before the German reunification, on the territory of the formerDDR, they were around 320,000 members of the Red Army, with 220,000 members of their families. The German state paid 8,35 mld. DM to the Russian state in order to be built new houses for them, in Russia, Bielorusia or Ukraine.

The Cold War legacy of Lithuania

February 28
Times Online

YSL and Givenchy may be in the shops but Vilnius has enough Cold War reminders to give Ian Belcher a chill

toto: Ian Belcher

You can only imagine the terror. The padded cell in the KGB museum in Vilnius carries few obvious scars of brutality, but it's truly disturbing: a testament to the horrors of Soviet control, when detainees were injected with truth serum, strapped into straitjackets and left to hallucinate - and no one could hear their cries.

It may be the most unnerving, but it's only one of the many Cold War sites in Lithuania. This year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of Eastern European communism, and the Baltic landscape is still littered with buildings, bunkers and monuments from behind the Iron Curtain.

There are, of course, more iconic communist landmarks. Moscow has Red Square, Lenin's Mausoleum and the Kremlin. But they come at an oligarch's price. A three-night stay in a central four-star hotel with flights and a Soviet tour costs about £900; more than double the price of a comparable visit to Vilnius.

And that's just the start. A meal in a fashionable Moscow restaurant with wine could cost you between £70 and £100 a head. I was charged £20 for an average glass of red in an hotel bar.

The Cold War legacy of Lithuania will have less impact on your wallet than on your mind. It's a compelling insight into how the tentacles of control snaked across the Soviet empire. The KGB building in Vilnius played a central role, where the ideologically unsound were interrogated and then deported or executed.

Officially 1,037 people were murdered on-site, but it's thought that up to 4,000 lives were terminated in the small room that the KGB claimed to be a kitchen. Yet it's the less gory exhibits that are the most haunting: staircase panels to prevent suicides, the solitary confinement cell's tiny switch, flicked by broken prisoners ready to confess.

“It's not pleasant but it's necessary. Future generations must understand,” said the chief guide, Ricardas Padvaiskas, pointing to a fading photograph of himself as a toddler, next to a Roman Catholic priest. “He died in a KGB ‘accident' in 1981.”

For a more artistic take on totalitarian control I headed 90 minutes south of Vilnius to Grutas Park. This mock Siberian labour camp, dubbed Stalin World, holds more than 80 Soviet-era statues, torn down when Lithuania claimed independence in 1990.

There are a couple of statues of Stalin, but it's Lenin who has the communist X-factor. Some of his many statues have six-packs; others reveal specially lengthened legs so he that towers over his comrades. It's called Soviet Realism.

But hell, this is a holiday weekend. There was some fun behind the Iron Curtain. The Neringa Hotel's revue night has been going for years, as has much of its audience and singer, Birute Dambrauskaite. She may look like Liza Minnelli after a heavy night, but she can belt out Lithuanian classics.

Neringa's food matches its music. The restaurant's retro Soviet decor, all heroic frescoes and mosaic floors, came with pre-independence staples, including boiled vegetable salad with mayonnaise and white bread triangles, followed by pork steak “with bone” and choice of one dessert.

At £50 for three, including booze, it was more serf than tsar. It wasn't the only red-tinted dining. At the Cold War-era telecommunications tower, a lift attendant with an authentic communist scowl took me up to the revolving restaurant. With blue and orange banquettes and astrology-themed food including Salad Nebula and Roast Aquarius Tuna, it blended Khrushchev with a dash of Austin Powers.

But Vilnius also has excellent-value contemporary dining. Despite its Old Town location, Bistro 18 has earth-toned walls with Rothko prints, a mellow vibe and modern European fusion food. My superb fillet steak came in for under £12. It wasn't the only evidence of change.

At Vilnius Vartai, a sparkling new chrome-and-glass shopping arcade, Alexander McQueen rubbed designer shoulders with YSL and Givenchy. But it was empty. Eerily empty.

Boutiques in search of an oligarch's wife. Its recent sales, offering a 75 per cent discount, suggest that a correctly timed visit would allow you to gild your Cold War thing with capitalist bling. The KGB would not approve.

Voices of dissent: Ethnic reconciliation in Central and Eastern Europe (I)

The Hungarian-Slovakian relations rarely reached a normal, non-tensed level, after the fall of communism.

As a overall rule, the dialogue between Hungary and its neighbours started from the very beginning on a dissonant tone, right after József Antal's claim of representing 15 million of Hungarians - including all the ethnic Hungarian from Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia - repeated by all the heads of the governments in Budapest, whatever their political orientation, created serious rifts in the dialogue between Hungary and its neighbouring countries.

One of the EU and NATO full membership conditions was a proof of good bilateral relationships with the neighbours, but the reconciliation process took longer than expected. The identity survival and the political tools chosen for supporting it tensioned sometimes this relationships. The Hungarian status law an initiative of Orban Viktor's government but voted - even with some nuances - by all the Hungarians parties, increased the lack of trust and provoked diplomatic tensions, mainly with Romania and Slovakia, hosts of larger Hungarian communities. But, in the same time the evolutions in the two cases are different.

In Romania, the cross-border cooperation, the economic and military exchanges continued in the last 20 years at a very high level, despite the nationalist accents of the public discourse - available as well for members of the Hungarian party, RMDSZ/UDMR. One of the hardest nationalist, anti-Hungarian and anti-Semitic Romanian party, The Greater Romania Party/PRM was left out of the Parliament at the last parliamentary elections, November 30. Since 1996, RMDSZ/UDMR is part of the coalition government, having in this way all the opportunities to be part of the political negotiations, as well as to be part of the decision making process. The process is far to be accomplished as the request of the minority don't get the full agreement of the Romanian parties - the recreation of Bolyai university in Cluj, the full restitution of church properties confiscated by the communist regime, being among the constant claims of the Hungarian party. But, at least, a certain mechanism of discussion and negociation was created in order to prevent serious tensions. Since 2005, they are held periodically Hungarian-Romanian joint Governmental meetings, in Bucharest or in Budapest with an agenda going beyond the issues of minority rights.

A similar evolution was followed in Slovakia. But, since 2006, it was for the first time since Vladimír Meciar's nationalist regime of the 1990s, the Hungarian minority Party of the Hungarian Coalition (Strana madarskej koalície: SMK) was left out of the power-sharing coalition. In its place, the right-wing Slovak National Party (Slovenská národná strana: SNS) gained the unexpected favour of populist Socialist Prime Minister Robert Fico, along with Meciar's People's Party - Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (Ludová strana - Hnutie za demokratické Slovensko: LS-HZDS), although Meciar himself plays a noticeably quieter role than SNS leader Jan Slota. Giving the popular support enjoyed by the ruling coalition and its nationalist discourse, it is hard to predict a change of tone, situation in which it is expected to have a radicalization of the Hungarian political party as well, echoing with a more and more active, visible and organized Hungarian far-right.

It is quite inappropriate to talk about models universally available in terms of ethnic reconciliation, mainly in a region where history is still playing a very important role. But, at least, it is possible to identify a couple of ingredients whose mixture could create the premises for a choice of the dialogue, instead of confrontation - of any kind. The permanent dialogue between representatives of the majority and those of the minority is one of the key. Nationalism ia an intellectually created concept, but it is available too for the reconciliation. Civil society representatives from both parts might constitute themselves in voices for dialogue. The Slovak intellectuals already sent a public message in this respect, and it is an important step forward, that must be continued, diversified and enforced, not only in crisis situation.

In Trust: Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, Francis Fukuyama is stating that the efficient economic and social organizations are emerging from those societies which have wide and efficient trust networks, including in this category the social-society network.

In Central and Eastern Europe, it is exactly this trust who was destroyed, with long term consequences, by the communists regimes. In each of the countries of the former Eastern block, the communist operated differently - from the "goulash Capitalism" in Hungary, to the paranoid dictatorship in Ceausescu's Romania. But, at the level of the society, of people-from-people relations, it is exactly this trust who was extincted, through the repression system. You was educated - in school, or family or society as a whole - to do not trust anybody - because spy of a "foreign" anti-communist power, or a collaborator of the secret polices, or member of the minority groups. The rising stars of communism from yesterday were the today "capitalism's agents", so, who to trust? Not even your family members. And extreme nationalism was an efficient tool to create a wide support for the regime.

It is obvious that the general political, social and economic situation in the last 20 years tremendously changed in Central and Eastern Europe. But, the past/various sentimental interpretations of history are resurgent, in political crisis, in elections times or simply when a need for getting a stronger identity is required. It will continued to be so, but such discourses have to be counter by an open dialogue of the public intellectuals on dissenting topics. It will took longer than winning a political campaign for a four-years term in office, but it is a very basic test of the mission and role of intellectuals in these (still) post-communist societies.

Histories of communism

20 years after the fall of communism and after the publishing of an impresive amount of testimonies, books, collections of documents it is still waiting for a critical appreciation. Lacking the direct access to information, many evaluations were based on various interpretations local media or on testimonies of various disidents who escaped, having various reasons to tell their stories. The archives of Radio Free Europe, mainly the evaluation reports, from Open Society Archives from Central European University in Budapest are a valuable source in this respect. Nowadays, it is possible to fully use critical perspectives and a variety of sources before making statements. Here it is an example of a background report regarding intellectual purges in 1958 Romania. Background reports at Radio Free Europe were of internal use of the editors from the radio stations, as well as for decision-makers in US. Among other things, it involved a careful daily research of the communist media, both articles and photos (for example, the dissapearance from an official photography of a representative of a ruling communist elite was interpreted as a possible political isolation). Recently National Security Archives from George Washington University published new declassified documents regarding the Cold War.
For a long time from now, it will still be impossible to have a history of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, but various histories. A coherent narrative of these years is still impossible to achieve, mainly because the clarity of sources is concerned.