Cold War Propaganda

1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. Whitton

Coincident with the outbreak of the “cold war” the Soviet Union began a series of propagandistic attacks on the United States, its leaders and its policies, using every medium of communication for this purpose, but with special emphasis on radio propaganda. For some time the United States Government suffered these attacks to go unanswered, but in February, 1947, the “Voice of America” began to include among its other foreign programs regular broadcasts in Russian to the Soviet Union. At first these programs were confined almost entirely to music and straight news reports, but gradually more and more time was devoted to answering Soviet attacks considered hostile to the United States or harmful to its national interests.In retaliation Moscow, on April 24, 1949, embarked on a vast effort to jam the American programs, and is at present devoting over 1000 broadcasting stations to this single purpose. The American Government protested through diplomatic channels and to the International Telecommunications Union against this jamming campaign. Furthermore, jamming was condemned by the United Nations Sub-Commission on Freedom of Information and of the Press at its Montevideo meeting in May, 1950, as a violation of accepted principles of freedom of information. Also, the Economic and Social Council, at its eleventh session, held in Geneva during the summer of 1950, adopted a resolution recommending to the General Assembly that it call on all Members to refrain from jamming.

This book uses trust—with its emotional and predictive aspects—to explore international relations in the second half of the Cold War, beginning with the late 1960s. The détente of the 1970s led to the development of some limited trust between the United States and the Soviet Union, which lessened international tensions and enabled advances in areas such as arms control. However, it also created uncertainty in other areas, especially on the part of smaller states that depended on their alliance leaders for protection. The chapters in this volume look at how the “emotional” side of the conflict affected the dynamics of various Cold War relations: between the superpowers, within the two ideological blocs, and inside individual countries on the margins of the East–West confrontation.


Author(s):  
Rósa Magnúsdóttir

Enemy Number One tells the story of Soviet propaganda and ideology toward the United States during the early Cold War. From Stalin’s anti-American campaign to Khrushchev’s peaceful coexistence, this book covers Soviet efforts to control available information about the United States and to influence the development of Soviet-American cultural relations until official cultural exchanges were realized between the two countries. The Soviet and American veterans of the legendary 1945 meeting on the Elbe and their subsequent reunions represent the changes in the superpower relationship: during the late Stalin era, the memory of the wartime alliance was fully silenced, but under Khrushchev it was purposefully revived and celebrated as a part of the propaganda about peaceful coexistence. The author brings to life the propaganda warriors and ideological chiefs of the early Cold War period in the Soviet Union, revealing their confusion and insecurities as they tried to navigate the uncertain world of the late Stalin and early Khrushchev cultural bureaucracy. She also shows how concerned Soviet authorities were with their people’s presumed interest in the United States of America, resorting to monitoring and even repression, thereby exposing the inferiority complex of the Soviet project as it related to the outside world.


Author(s):  
Anne Searcy

During the Cold War, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union developed cultural exchange programs, in which they sent performing artists abroad in order to generate goodwill for their countries. Ballet companies were frequently called on to serve in these programs, particularly in the direct Soviet-American exchange. This book analyzes four of the early ballet exchange tours, demonstrating how this series of encounters changed both geopolitical relations and the history of dance. The ballet tours were enormously popular. Performances functioned as an important symbolic meeting point for Soviet and American officials, creating goodwill and normalizing relations between the two countries in an era when nuclear conflict was a real threat. At the same time, Soviet and American audiences did not understand ballet in the same way. As American companies toured in the Soviet Union and vice versa, audiences saw the performances through the lens of their own local aesthetics. Ballet in the Cold War introduces the concept of transliteration to understand this process, showing how much power viewers wielded in the exchange and explaining how the dynamics of the Cold War continue to shape ballet today.


Author(s):  
Benjamin Tromly

During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, the United States government unleashed covert operations intended to weaken the Soviet Union. As part of these efforts, the CIA undertook support of Russian exiles, populations uprooted either during World War II or by the Russian Revolution decades before. No one seemed better prepared to fight in the American secret war against communism than the uprooted Russians, whom the CIA directed to carry out propaganda, espionage, and subversion operations from their home base in West Germany. Yet the American engagement of Russian exiles had unpredictable outcomes. Drawing on recently declassified and previously untapped sources, Cold War Exiles and the CIA examines how the CIA’s Russian operations became entangled with the internal struggles of Russia abroad and also the espionage wars of the superpowers in divided Germany. What resulted was a transnational political sphere involving different groups of Russian exiles, American and German anti-communists, and spies operating on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Inadvertently, CIA’s patronage of Russian exiles forged a complex sub-front in the wider Cold War, demonstrating the ways in which the hostilities of the Cold War played out in ancillary conflicts involving proxies and non-state actors.


Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-115
Author(s):  
Jon Brook Wolfsthal

America survived the nuclear age through a complex combination of diplomatic and military decisions, and a good deal of luck. One of the tools that proved its value in both reducing the risks of nuclear use and setting rules for the ongoing nuclear competition were negotiated, legally binding, and verified arms control agreements. Such pacts between the United States and the Soviet Union arguably prevented the nuclear arms racing from getting worse and helped both sides climb off the Cold War nuclear precipice. Several important agreements remain in place between the United States and Russia, to the benefit of both states. Arms control is under threat, however, from domestic forces in the United States and from Russian actions that range from treaty violations to the broader weaponization of risk. But arms control can and should play a useful role in reducing the risk of nuclear war and forging a new agreement between Moscow and Washington on the new rules of the nuclear road.


1963 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 226-230

The Security Council discussed this question at its 1022nd–1025th meetings, on October 23–25, 1962. It had before it a letter dated October 22, 1962, from the permanent representative of the United States, in which it was stated that the establishment of missile bases in Cuba constituted a grave threat to the peace and security of the world; a letter of the same date from the permanent representative of Cuba, claiming that the United States naval blockade of Cuba constituted an act of war; and a letter also dated October 22 from the deputy permanent representative of the Soviet Union, emphasizing that Soviet assistance to Cuba was exclusively designed to improve Cuba's defensive capacity and that the United States government had committed a provocative act and an unprecedented violation of international law in its blockade.


2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 151-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul C. Avey

Many self-identified realist, liberal, and constructivist scholars contend that ideology played a critical role in generating and shaping the United States' decision to confront the Soviet Union in the early Cold War. A close look at the history reveals that these ideological arguments fail to explain key aspects of U.S. policy. Contrary to ideological explanations, the United States initially sought to cooperate with the Soviet Union, did not initially pressure communist groups outside the Soviet orbit, and later sought to engage communist groups that promised to undermine Soviet power. The U.S. decision to confront the Soviets stemmed instead from the distribution of power. U.S. policy shifted toward a confrontational approach as the balance of power in Eurasia tilted in favor of the Soviet Union. In addition, U.S. leaders tended to think and act in a manner consistent with balance of power logic. The primacy of power over ideology in U.S. policymaking—given the strong liberal tradition in the United States and the large differences between U.S. and Soviet ideology—suggests that relative power concerns are the most important factors in generating and shaping confrontational foreign policies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-156
Author(s):  
Mediel Hove

This article evaluates the emergence of the new Cold War using the Syrian and Ukraine conflicts, among others. Incompatible interests between the United States (US) and Russia, short of open conflict, increased after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. This article argues that the struggle for dominance between the two superpowers, both in speeches and deed, to a greater degree resembles what the world once witnessed before the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991. It asserts that despite the US’ unfettered power, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it is now being checked by Russia in a Cold War fashion.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Novita Mujiyati ◽  
Kuswono Kuswono ◽  
Sunarjo Sunarjo

United States and the Soviet Union is a country on the part of allies who emerged as the winner during World War II. However, after reaching the Allied victory in the situation soon changed, man has become an opponent. United States and the Soviet Union are competing to expand the influence and power. To compete the United States strive continuously strengthen itself both in the economic and military by establishing a defense pact and aid agencies in the field of economy. During the Cold War the two are not fighting directly in one of the countries of the former Soviet Union and the United States. However, if understood, teradinya the Korean War and the Vietnam War is a result of tensions between the two countries and is a direct warfare conducted by the United States and the Soviet Union. Cold War ended in conflict with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the winner of the country.


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