Norquist, Warren E. "How the United States Won the Cold War." Intelligencer 13, no. 2 (Winter-Spring 2003): 47-56. Norquist, Warren E. "How the United States Won the Cold War." Intelligencer 13, no. 2 (Winter-Spring 2003): 47-56.
Reagan did it. "A longer version of this paper appeared first in Global Competitiveness Volume 9 (1), 2001 pp. 1-27 and a later version in Advances in Competitiveness Research volume 10, No. 1, 2002."
Risen, James. "Documents Show the C.I.A. Saw Trouble Coming for Gorbachev."
New York Times, 19 Nov. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]
Intelligence estimates declassified by the CIA for a conference being held at Texas A&M University on the role that U.S. intelligence played in the final days of the cold war show that CIA analysts "were deeply pessimistic about the chances of success for President Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts to reform the Soviet Union's Communist system."
Clark comment: Risen carefully does not verify the thrust of the documents, merely noting that the estimates "provide insight into an enduring debate over whether the C.I.A. really 'missed' the collapse of the Soviet Union, as critics charge."
Having had access to many of the estimates on the Soviet Union in the late 1980s (up to June 1990), I have remained convinced that much of the chest pounding (including that by Senator Moynihan) about the CIA's analysis was either misplaced, malicious, or uninformed. Were the analysts cautious? Absolutely! To have been otherwise would have been the height of folly.
Schweizer, Peter. Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1994.
According to Surveillant 3.6, Schweizer "elevate[s] DCI William Casey for his wide-range of anti-Soviet initiatives." This is a "fascinating look at the final days of some of the operations targeting the Soviet menace to help in its destruction."
Palmer, Proceedings, Jan. 1995, adds that Schweizer portrays Casey as masterminding "a new strategy to undermine the Soviet Union. These new policies were incorporated in a series of national security directives aimed at placing Moscow on the defensive and halting what many in ... the administration viewed as the erosion of the U.S. strategic position that had begun in the 1970s.... [The author] argues that the collapse of the Soviet Union was not foreordained. The Soviet system was weak, he admits, but could have continued to amble along -- had the pace of the Cold War remained sluggish. Thus, the Reagan administration's acceleration of the tempo exacerbated the internal contradictions of the Soviet economic system and eventually forced Mikhail Gorbachev into the attempt at internal restructuring that ultimately led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union."
Richard Pipes, "Misinterpreting the Cold War: The Hard-Liners Had It Right," Foreign Affairs 74, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1995), 154-160, notes that this work is a "fraction of the length of Mr. Garthoff's opus and lacks scholarly rigor"; nevertheless, it "comes closer to explaining the end of the Cold War."
Choice, Jan. 1995, sees Schweizer arguing "cogently and confidently that the anti-Soviet Reagan team engineered a high stakes, proactive containment and rollback campaign to undermine Soviet Communism through an economic, technological, and military squeeze and destroy mission. Although he attributes too much dexterity to advisers,... Schweizer's insider report ... makes fascinating reading.... This is an insightful, purposeful, and highly readable exposé, which relies perhaps too much on anecdotes and interview data with partisan players."
For Elliott, WPNWE, 22-28 Aug. 1994, Schweizer's "is a decent point pressed much too far.... [A]bove all, a book that relies almost solely on interviews with a few key protagonists, that does not delve into pre-Reagan times..., and that shows no familiarity with the academic literature ... just can't be trusted to give a nuanced view of history."
Snyder, Alvin A. Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the Winning of the Cold War -- An Insider's Account. New York: Arcade, 1995.
According to Surveillant 4.4/5, the author tells the story of Charles Z. Wick's USIA and that organization's role in American foreign policy in the last decade of the Cold War.
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Ed., Benjamin B. Fischer. At Cold War's End: US Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991. Washington, DC: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999.
Clark comment: The documents and accompanying narrative in this volume, released for the18-20 November 1999 conference at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service, have in the past been available (in PDF format) through the CIA Website. Also listed as Fischer, Benjamin B., ed. At Cold War's End: U.S. Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991. Washington, DC: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999.
Jonkers, AFIO WIN 2-00, 14 Jan. 2000, says that Fischer has written "a masterly Foreword that is worth the price of admission. It is an outstanding summary[,] capturing a set of momentous and convoluted -- almost unexplainable -- events. This is a basic source document -- a contribution to knowledge.... Highly recommended."
For Mapother, IJI&C 14.4, this collection "presents insight as to how the intelligence community kept the White House and upper levels of the national security bureaucracy on notice that strategic changes were coming, and offered reasonable predictions about what directions they would take."
Crome, JIH 1.1, comments that Fischer's "preface is an utmost helpful guide through the documents and at the same time a well written and concise account of U.S. policy toward the the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe."
Westad, Odd Arne, ed. Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretation, Theory. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000.
From advertisement: "Seventeen well-known scholars of international relations and history provide summaries of how they want to approach the Cold War -- or aspects of it -- as a study some ten years after the confrontation ended."
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