Long regarded as a monolithic entity where any dissension was ruthlessly suppressed by the KGB, Western audiences often ignored the…
Strobe Talbott: From Foreign Affairs Journalist to Number Two at the Department of State
What is it like to transition from the senior ranks of American journalism to a top job in an agency…
Negotiating the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT)
Due to rising concern about radioactive fallout from increasingly big nuclear tests underwater, in space, in the atmosphere and underground,…
East Germany Builds the Berlin Wall
The summer of 1961 was fraught with tensions between Moscow and Washington. Berlin, which had been a Cold War flash…
We Don’t Give a Dam — The Feud Over Financing the Aswan High Dam
Egypt’s agriculture has always depended on the water of the Nile; the river’s perennial floods, while critical in replenishing the…
Strobe Talbott — “We’re Menaced by the Zombie Behavior of Nations”
Strobe Talbott assumed the presidency of the Brookings Institution in July 2002 after a career in journalism, government and academia.…
Two Shades of Red: the Sino-Soviet Split
After the 1949 defeat of the Chinese Nationalists at the hands of Mao Zedong’s People’s Liberation Army, the newly-proclaimed People’s…
Stop the MADness — Arms Control and Disarmament
The end of World War II ushered in an era of intense arms competition between the Soviet Union and the…
The U-2 Spy Plane Incident
On May 1, 1960, an America U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace, causing great embarrassment to the…
The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 14-28, 1962
The early years of the Kennedy Administration proved to be a tense time in relations with the Soviet Union. Kennedy…