The Journal of Cold War Studies features peer-reviewed articles based on archival research in the former Communist world and in Western countries. Articles in the journal draw on declassified materials and new memoirs to illuminate and raise questions about numerous historical and theoretical concerns: theories of decision-making, deterrence, bureaucratic politics, institutional formation, bargaining, diplomacy, foreign policy conduct, and international relations.
Editor's Note
Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 1–3. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_e_00947?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Articles
Swiss Counterintelligence and Chinese Espionage during the Cold War Ariane Knüsel Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 4–31. This article discusses Swiss counterintelligence measures against Chinese espionage during the Cold War, focusing on the problems the Swiss Federal Police encountered when trying to uncover and eliminate the national and transnational intelligence networks the PRC operated from Switzerland in the 1950s and 1960s. Using newly declassified Swiss Federal Police files, the article details the Swiss federal counterintelligence system as well as the Federal Police filing system, showing the effects this had on the surveillance and investigation of Chinese officials and their contacts in Switzerland and abroad. It also describes Swiss Federal Police methods for identifying intelligence agents among the Chinese diplomatic staff, as well as the problems encountered with wiretapping and surveillance by car. Finally, the article details the Federal Police's cooperation with other countries in investigating China's international espionage networks and trade in embargoed goods. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00949?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
The Cold War and the Communist Party of Saudi Arabia, 1975–1991 Toby Matthiesen Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 32–62. The Communist Party of Saudi Arabia was a pro-Soviet Marxist-Leninist party that existed from 1975 until the early 1990s. Its roots lay in the labor movement of the 1950s in the oil-producing Eastern Province. The history of this province is a hitherto almost unknown aspect of modern Saudi history, Arab Marxism, and the broader Cold War. The Saudi Communist Party helped to launch an uprising in 1979 in the Eastern Province and was particularly active in propagating its ideas throughout the 1980s as the Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia fought a proxy war in Afghanistan. Despite opposing the monarchy's use of Islam as a tool of legitimacy and a propaganda instrument against Communism in the Cold War, the party called for a common front with Islamic groups opposed to the monarchy at home. After the dissolution of the party in 1991, former party members became key actors in the reformist petitions of 1990–1991, 2003, and 2011. This article is based on fieldwork in Saudi Arabia, interviews with veteran leftists from the region, and hitherto unexamined primary sources in Arabic, German, and English, including party publications and archival sources. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00950?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Framing William Albertson: The FBI's “Solo” Operation and the Cold War John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 63–85. William Albertson, who was executive secretary of the New York Communist Party and a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), was framed as an informant for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1964. Only in recent years have newly released FBI records enabled scholars to understand why the FBI undertook the operation and how much damage it did to the CPUSA. In 1964 two leaks from the FBI hinted that the bureau had a high-level informant in the CPUSA who was providing information about secret Soviet subsidies. The leaks were accurate and endangered one of the FBI's most successful intelligence operations, Operation Solo, which involved the use of two brothers, Morris Childs and Jack Childs, who were confidants of CPUSA General Secretary Gus Hall, as key informants. The framing of Albertson was intended to deflect CPUSA and Soviet attention from the real FBI informants to a bogus one. The ploy succeeded. The forged documents the FBI planted convinced Hall and other senior CPUSA officials that Albertson was the FBI informant. Despite Albertson's vehement denials and energetic defense, he was expelled. The CPUSA thought it had eliminated the informant, and the Childs brothers were able to continue in their role until old age forced their retirement in 1977. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00951?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
The War Scare That Wasn't: Able Archer 83 and the Myths of the Second Cold War Simon Miles Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 86–118. Did the Cold War of the 1980s nearly turn hot? Much has been made of the November 1983 Able Archer 83 command-post exercise, which is often described as having nearly precipitated a nuclear war when paranoid Warsaw Pact policymakers suspected that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was using the exercise to launch a preemptive nuclear strike. This article challenges that narrative, using new evidence from the archives of the former Warsaw Pact countries. It shows that the much-touted intelligence effort to assess Western intentions and capabilities, Project RYaN, which supposedly triggered fears of a surprise attack, was nowhere near operational at the time of Able Archer 83. It also presents an account of the Pact's sanguine observations of Able Archer 83. In doing so, it advances key debates in the historiography of the late Cold War pertaining to the stability and durability of the nuclear peace. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00952?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
The Sanctuary and the Glacis: France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Nuclear Weapons in the 1980s (Part 1) Frédéric Bozo Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 119–179. This article explores efforts at bridging the nuclear gap between France and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) during the last decade of the Cold War. It does so by examining the various manifestations of this gap: the two sides’ relative international standing in light of France's possession of nuclear weapons and the FRG's decision to forswear them; the two countries’ different commitments to the military components of NATO; their shared but differing aspirations for a more autonomous Western Europe; and their differing outlooks on conventional and tactical nuclear military options, an issue on which they found it particularly hard to reconcile their views. Ultimately, they were not able to overcome the dilemmas of nuclear sharing, but progress was made during that crucial period in narrowing the differences between these two important countries whose bilateral relationship was essential for the West at large. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00929?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Changing the World from “Below”: U.S. Peace Activists and the Transnational Struggle for Peace and Détente in the 1980s Christian Philip Peterson Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 180–224. Much more so than previous works in the field of U.S. foreign relations, this article explores the relationship between the Helsinki Accords and peace activism in the United States. The article explains how well-known groups such as U.S. Helsinki Watch and lesser-known ones such as Campaign for Peace and Democracy West/East used the Helsinki Final Act when they challenged U.S. peace activists to defend the rights of imprisoned anti-nuclear activists in the Soviet bloc and to link the causes of peace and human rights. The article also demonstrates how the exchanges between U.S. human rights and anti-nuclear activists fit into transnational debates about linkages between the issues of human rights, peace, détente, and the “Helsinki process.” https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00926?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
“Cartographic Aggression”: Media Politics, Propaganda, and the Sino-Indian Border Dispute Reed Chervin Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 225–247. The middle of the twentieth century witnessed a serious border dispute between China and India. This article explores how these countries used multiple media (e.g., historical documents and film) to support their respective territorial claims. The two countries pursued similar authoritarian approaches by expanding their archival holdings, banning books, and selectively redrawing maps. They regarded dissenting views not only as incorrect but as national security threats. China and India policed domestic media to legitimize government policies and to present their cases to the international community. The British government, for its part, demonstrated its support for India. Because British leaders sympathized with their former colony and because the borders of India were a product of the British Empire, leaders in the United Kingdom endorsed Indian propaganda. Nevertheless, democracy in India and the United Kingdom rendered complete control of the media difficult. The Sino-Indian conflict therefore represented a war over information as well as territory. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00911?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Book Reviews
Cold Warriors: Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold War Joshua Rubenstein Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 248–250. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_r_00953?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Shadow Archives: The Lifecycles of African American Literature George B. Hutchinson Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 250–253. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_r_00954?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Books Are Weapons: The Polish Opposition Press and the Overthrow of Communism A. Ross Johnson Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 253–256. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_r_00955?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Between East and South: Spaces of Interaction in the Globalizing Economy of the Cold War David Engerman Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 256–258. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_r_00956?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
A People's Music: Jazz in East Germany, 1945–1990 Sven Kube Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 258–259. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_r_00957?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Decolonization and the Cold War: Negotiating Independence Radoslav Yordanov Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 260–262. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_r_00958?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
The Warsaw Pact Reconsidered: International Relations in Eastern Europe, 1955–69 Sheldon Anderson Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 262–264. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_r_00959?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Boy on the Bridge: The Story of John Shalikashvili's American Success Richard J. Norton Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 264–266. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_r_00960?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Kleinstaaten und sekundäre Akteure im Kalten Krieg: Politische, wirtschaftliche, militärische und kulturelle Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Europa und Lateinamerika Teresa Huhle Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 266–268. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_r_00961?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
The Hijacked War: The Story of Chinese POWs in the Korean War James I. Matray Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3: 268–270. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_r_00962?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T