Cold War experience
Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell and Communism in Europe began to collapse. The Cold War celebrates that anniversary with a graphic account of the long-running global drama that played from the end of World War II until the era of Gorbachev and glasnost. During that time, such high-tension eve...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
London, UK
Carlton Books
2009
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| Summary: | Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell and Communism in Europe began to collapse. The Cold War celebrates that anniversary with a graphic account of the long-running global drama that played from the end of World War II until the era of Gorbachev and glasnost. During that time, such high-tension events as the Cuban Missile Crisis brought us to the brink of Armageddon-but both sides always drew back. Follow spread by spread the development of each important stage in the long, chilly conflict that divided the world into two spheres of influence. More than 30 facsimile items of Cold War memorabilia allow readers to hold and examine diaries, letters, telegrams, decoded intercepts, and newspapers that, up till now, were confined to filing cabinets and museum exhibitions. |
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| Item Description: | Book held closed by magnetic strips. Book is accompanied by 15 facimilie materials bearing the same call number and available at the circulation counter. Includes index Facsimile materials (p.11) : 1. US Central Intelligence Group Top Secret report, dated 23 July 1946, on Soviet Foreign and Military Police. -- 2. Early Communist propaganda brochure with a moral tale in rhyme for Berliners: listen to Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) and you'll be on the slippery slope that ends in jail; listen to trustworthy East Berlin radio (Berliner Rundfunk) and will go well. -- 3. "Yankee Beetles: Stop!" East German propaganda leaflet alleging that the Berlin Airlift was a cover for American airdrops of Colorado beetles to ruin East German potato crops. "Colorado beetles are smaller than atom bombs, but they are another American imperialist weapon against the peace-loving and hard-working population." (cont.) Facsimile materials (p.23) : An 8 November 1950 top-secret departmental memo to Dean Rusk, the Assistant US Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, reviewing the possibility of employing the atomic bomb against China. It notes that the "unilateral decision by the United States to use the atomic bomb against China would in all likelihood destroy the unity preserved thus far in the combined UN action in Korea". -- 5. US Civil Defence recruitment poster, 1951. -- 6. A 1963 nuclear attack protection booklet produced for homeowners by the British Government. 7. A flyer distributed during the Hungarian Uprising by the University Student Revolutionary Committee, entitles "Our Trust is in Imre Nagy". Among other things, it demands that Nagy must "organize the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from the country". (cont.) Facsimile materials (p.41) : 8. Official pack for US troops passing through Checkpoint Charlie, with practical advice on visiting Communist-controlled East Berlin. -- 9. Classified STASI document showing a cross-section of the Wall and listing its post (190) and anti-tank obstacles (38,000). -- 10. President Kennedy's 22 October letter to Khrushchev and the US State Department translation of Khrushchev's 23 October reply to Kennedy. -- 11. Famous edition of Rudé Právo, the official Czechoslovak Communist Party newspaper sympathetic at that time, in 1968, to Dubček's reforms, published on the day after Soviet and other Eastern Bloc tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia. The Stop Press section, top right, is an announcement by the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party advising people to stay calm and not to resist the troops, but making clear that it considers the invasion to be contrary to the "basic norms of international law". The newspaper staff did not have time to print anthing beyond page 1. (cont.) Facsimile materials (p.59) : 12. Top Secret 23 May 1969 memo from Henry Kissinger to President Nixon with an analysis of the Strategic Arms Limitation proposals. It ends with a chilling Strategic Exchange Results chart which estimates the number of deaths on each side in a variety of nuclear conflict scenarios. A MIRV (or Multiple Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicle) is an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) with multiple nuclear warheads. -- 13. A Solidarity poster designed by Bielecki in 1980, showing graphically the years in which the popular pressure for freedom surged in Poland : 1944, '56, '68, '70, 76 and '80. --14. Vaclav Havel election poster which reads, "Havel for the Castle". This meant "Havel for President", as the Castle in Prague was the official residence of the Czech President. -- 15. Boris Yeltsin's thank-you letter to those who had supported him against the coup to topple Gorbachev. "To the defender of the seat of government of the Russian Federation! I want to thank you wholeheartedly for the courage and the love for your homeland and the freedom shown by you during those difficult days for Russia on the 19, 20, 21 and 22 August 1991. It took you many hours to defend the democratically elected power organs of the people, the Chief Soviet and the President of the Russian Federation against the troops of the rioters. Owing to your determination and self-sacrifice the reactionary riot was frustrated. Russia now definitively enters the path of progress, democracy, culture and prosperity for the people. The President of the Russian Federation. B. Yeltsin. 22 August 1991; 05.00." "Published to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in Europe that led to the end of the Cold War"--Back Cover. |
| Physical Description: | 61 p. ill. (some col.), maps 29 cm. 15 facimilie materials |
| ISBN: | 9780233002866 |