This book examines the US foreign policy of differentiation towards the socialist regimes of Eastern Europe as it was implemented by various administrations towards Ceausescu’s Romania from 1969 to 1980. Drawing from multi-archival research from both US and Romanian sources, this is the first comprehensive analysis of differentiation and shows that Washington’s Eastern European policy in the 1970s was more nuanced than the common East vs. West narrative suggests. By examining systemic Cold War factors such as the rise of détente between the two superpowers and the role of agency, the study deals with the dynamics that shaped the evolution of American-Romanian relations after Bucharest’s opening towards the West, and the subsequent embrace of this initiative by Washington as an instrument to undermine the unity of the Soviet bloc. Furthermore, it revises interpretations about Carter’s celebrated human rights policy based on the Romanian case, pointing towards a remarkable continuity between the three administrations under examination (Nixon, Ford and Carter). By doing so, this study contributes to the field by highlighting a largely neglected aspect of US foreign policy and uncovers the subtleties of Washington’s relations with one of the most vigorous actors of the Eastern European bloc. This book will be of much interest to students of Cold War Studies, US foreign policy, Eastern European politics and International Relations in general.

After 1948, the 370,000 Jews of Romania who survived the Holocaust became one of the main sources of immigration for the new state of Israel as almost all left their homeland to settle in Palestine and Israel. Romania's decision to allow its Jews to leave was baldly practical: Israel paid for them, and Romania wanted influence in the Middle East. For its part, Israel was rescuing a community threatened by economic and cultural extinction and at the same time strengthening itself with a massive infusion of new immigrants. Radu Ioanid traces the secret history of the longest and most expensive ransom arrangement in recent times, a hidden exchange that lasted until the fall of the Communist regime. Including a wealth of recently declassified documents from the archives of the Romanian secret police, this updated edition follows Israel’s long and expensive ransom arrangement with Communist Romania. Ioanid uncovers the elaborate mechanisms that made it successful for decades, the shadowy figures responsible, and the secret channels of communication and payment. As suspenseful as a Cold-War thriller, his book tells the full, startling story of an unprecedented slave trade.

"It was not a matter of propaganda ... black and white ideological broadcasts ... What made [Radio Free Europe] important were its impartiality, independence, and objectivity."---Vaclav Havel "Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were critically important weapons in the free world's competition with Soviet totalitarianism---and without them the Soviet bloc might even have not disintegrated ... The account in this book of their activities is therefore not only informative, but critical to understanding recent history."---Zbigniew Brzezinski "The studies and translated Soviet bloc documents published in this book demonstrate the enormous impact of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Voice of America during the Cold War. By promoting democratic values and undermining the monopoly of information on which Communist regimes relied, the Radios contributed greatly to the end of the Cold War."---George P. Shultz "I know of no other mass media organization that has done more than RFE/RL to help create the Europe in which we live today---a Europe not divided into two opposing camps."---Elena Bonner Examines the role of Western broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the Cold War, with a focus on Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. It includes chapters by radio veterans and by scholars who have conducted research on the subject in once-secret Soviet bloc archives and in Western records. It also contains a selection of translated documents from formerly secret Soviet and East European archives, most of them published here for the first time.

“A creative, carefully researched, and incisive analysis of U.S. strategy during the long struggle against the Soviet Union.” —Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy “Craig and Logevall remind us that American foreign policy is decided as much by domestic pressures as external threats. America’s Cold War is history at its provocative best.” —Mark Atwood Lawrence, author of The Vietnam War The Cold War dominated world affairs during the half century following World War II. America prevailed, but only after fifty years of grim international struggle, costly wars in Korea and Vietnam, trillions of dollars in military spending, and decades of nuclear showdowns. Was all of that necessary? In this new edition of their landmark history, Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall engage with recent scholarship on the late Cold War, including the Reagan and Bush administrations and the collapse of the Soviet regime, and expand their discussion of the nuclear revolution and origins of the Vietnam War. Yet they maintain their original argument: that America’s response to a very real Soviet threat gave rise to a military and political system in Washington that is addicted to insecurity and the endless pursuit of enemies to destroy. America’s Cold War speaks vividly to debates about forever wars and threat inflation at the center of American politics today.

"A history of Romania traces the author's intellectual development throughout his extensive visits to the country, sharing his observations about its reflection of European politics, geography and key events while exploring the indelible role of Vladimir Putin."--NoveList.

For Latin America, the Cold War was anything but cold. Nor was it the so-called “long peace” afforded the world’s superpowers by their nuclear standoff. In this book, the first to take an international perspective on the postwar decades in the region, Hal Brands sets out to explain what exactly happened in Latin America during the Cold War, and why it was so traumatic. Tracing the tumultuous course of regional affairs from the late 1940s through the early 1990s, Latin America’s Cold War delves into the myriad crises and turning points of the period—the Cuban revolution and its aftermath; the recurring cycles of insurgency and counter-insurgency; the emergence of currents like the National Security Doctrine, liberation theology, and dependency theory; the rise and demise of a hemispheric diplomatic challenge to U.S. hegemony in the 1970s; the conflagration that engulfed Central America from the Nicaraguan revolution onward; and the democratic and economic reforms of the 1980s. Most important, the book chronicles these events in a way that is both multinational and multilayered, weaving the experiences of a diverse cast of characters into an understanding of how global, regional, and local influences interacted to shape Cold War crises in Latin America. Ultimately, Brands exposes Latin America’s Cold War as not a single conflict, but rather a series of overlapping political, social, geostrategic, and ideological struggles whose repercussions can be felt to this day.

In this exciting book, distinguished Romanian diplomat and scholar George Cristian Maior - currently serving as Romania's ambassador in Washington - recounts the thrilling tale of America's first spy drama - the legendary Frank Wisner's intelligence operations in Romania as World War II ended and the Cold War dawned. An Office of Strategic Services operative who later rose to become the Central Intelligence Agency's operations chief before his tragic suicide, Wisner's mission bestrode two worlds and witnessed profound changes that global politics have grappled with ever since. Painstakingly reconstructed with the aid of specialized literature and relevant archival collections, especially those of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the U .S. Department of State's Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), Ambassador Maior also worked extensively with the declassified documents of Romania's wartime and immediate postwar espionage agency, the Special Intelligence Service (Serviciul Special de Informaţii: SSI). Maior also had unprecedented access to previously unpublished materials from the personal archive of Frank Wisner's son, the leading American diplomat Frank G. Wisner, II. The picture that emerges is one of danger and stealth, a real-life spy thriller unfolding just as the Cold War began.