This issue begins with an article by Bas Spliet discussing the impact of two smaller member-states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the alliance's decision in December 1979 to pursue a “dual-track” strategy regarding nuclear weapons in Europe. On the one hand, the fifteen allies unanimously agreed that the United States should deploy new intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in five NATO countries in Western Europe: Great Britain, Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), Belgium, and the Netherlands. On the other hand, the NATO governments voted to pursue reinvigorated arms control talks with the Soviet Union to limit or even prohibit INF in Europe. Spliet shows that the Netherlands and Belgium, despite being the smallest of the five countries, had a significant influence on the deliberations that led to the dual-track decision. In both countries, public opinion was against new INF deployments, and many Dutch and Belgian parliamentarians were also opposed. These sentiments were well known to U.S. officials, and they had to work closely with the Dutch and Belgium governments to tailor the decision in a way that would overcome potential obstacles to a unanimous decision.
The next article, by Kevin Riehle, discusses the efforts by the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB) to track down “enemies” of the Soviet regime in foreign countries in the post-Stalin era. The KGB maintained a “wanted list” of Soviet citizens abroad who were accused of violating Soviet laws, with a particular focus on those who had defected. Comparing two editions of this list—one from 1969 and the other from 1979—Riehle assesses the intelligence and counterintelligence techniques used by the KGB, the impact of the Cold War on the composition of the “wanted list,” and the changing nature of the Soviet regime's perception of defectors and the potential for defection. This analysis sheds light on both the limits and the extraordinary reach of the KGB in its pursuit of “traitors” and “criminals” abroad during the Cold War.
The next article, by Thomas Stock, compares the divergent fates of the Communist parties in the Soviet Union and North Korea during the final years of the Cold War. The long-time North Korean leader, Kim Il-sung, who had turned 70 in 1982, embarked on a revival of orthodox Marxism-Leninism in the 1980s, harkening back to precepts of the Stalin era. Kim took this step at a time when South Korea was beginning to move toward a democratic system along with its dynamic economy, and he sensed that the only way for North Korea to outflank South Korea in the future would be by strengthening the North's ideological foundations. In the USSR, by contrast, the new leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Mikhail Gorbachev, initiated a period of remarkable political and ideological ferment that ultimately led to the widespread discrediting of Marxism-Leninism and the collapse of the CPSU and the whole Soviet state. The far-reaching ideological reassessments in the Soviet Union had a jarring impact in Pyongyang, where Kim Il-sung became more determined than ever to forestall any diminution of ideological orthodoxy. He reached out to leaders in other Communist states who were also dismayed by the changes in the Soviet Union. Drawing on declassified archival sources and North Korean publications, Stock shows how Kim Il-sung made common cause with other hardline Communist regimes, forging an anti-reformist front against the winds of change from Moscow.
The next article, by Ioana Macrea-Toma, looks at interactions between Radio Free Europe (RFE), the shortwave radio station funded by the U.S. government, and its audiences in the Soviet bloc. Because listening to RFE was prohibited in most Warsaw Pact states, listeners could not openly acknowledge that they tuned in. RFE therefore commissioned specialists to use surveys and other techniques, drawing on sophisticated sociological and communications methods, to produce estimates of audience size and also to gauge the topics and programs that were of particular interest to listeners (and prospective listeners). The analysts were aware of the pitfalls of their attempted measurements, but they took the task seriously and accumulated a large body of valuable survey and analytical data, now stored in the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University. Macrea-Toma draws on this material to assess the perspectives and findings that emerge from the RFE surveys and compare these with evidence from other sources, including declassified archival materials in the former Communist states. Her analysis can help researchers understand how to distill accurate information about Cold War events and issues from problematic sources of various types.
The next article, by Vít Smetana, offers a reassessment of Soviet-Czechoslovak relations at the outset of the Cold War. Drawing on declassified Czechoslovak, Soviet, and Western documents, Smetana looks at how the exiled Czechoslovak government's interactions with the Soviet Union during the Second World War largely sealed the country's fate once the Cold War began. In December 1943, the government-in-exile under Edvard Beneš signed a treaty of alliance and postwar cooperation with the Soviet Union. This treaty, and other steps taken voluntarily by Czechoslovak leaders that reflected a high degree of submissiveness toward Joseph Stalin's regime in the USSR, proved important after the war in limiting Czechoslovakia's options in Europe. Smetana argues that although Beneš could not have foreseen the ominous fate that befell Czechoslovakia in February 1948, his staunch support for Soviet foreign policy aims during the war came back to haunt him as the East–West divide in Europe hardened after the war and drew Czechoslovakia into the Soviet orbit.
The final main article, by Fabian Bennewitz and Markus-Michael Müller, explores how a U.S. ally in NATO, the FRG, got involved in supporting U.S. objectives against Soviet- and Cuban-backed insurgents in Central America. The authors focus on the West German police-assistance program undertaken in 1986 in Guatemala, a country that had long been battling Marxist-Leninist insurgents but had also become notorious for egregious human rights abuses. The aim of the West German program was to promote democratic police reform, human rights, and the rule of law. Until late 1990, the FRG provided a large amount of aid, only to find that the program did little to foster democratization and failed to bring an end to abuses. Various modifications and adjustments were of no avail in getting the program on the right track. Bennewitz and Müller examine the transnational dynamics of the assistance program, looking at various connections between external and domestic actors in both Guatemala and the FRG. Analyzing the program through the prism of international political sociology, they contend that local actors who often took the lead in working with external officials played a key role in undermining the program's efficacy.
The issue then moves to a book forum discussing Mary Elise Sarotte's recently published Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post–Cold War Stalemate. Five expert commentators who were at least indirectly involved in the events covered in the book offer their perspectives on Sarotte's account and the questions it raises.
The issue concludes with sixteen shorter book reviews.