2. Quantifying and Qualifying Freedom of Information During the Early Cold War

Barriers Down ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 48-79
2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 159-183
Author(s):  
Erik Esselstrom

This article examines archival evidence related to the abduction and interrogation of the leftwing Japanese writer Kaji Wataru by U.S. military intelligence operatives in Tokyo in the early 1950s. The detention of Kaji became a cause célèbre in December 1952 when he publicly claimed that he had been seized in November 1951 and held against his will until late 1952, some seven months beyond the formal end of the U.S. occupation. Kaji said that U.S. officials had accused him of being a Soviet spy, but he denied those charges vehemently. As both sides presented vastly different versions of what had transpired during Kaji's captivity, the truth of the case became enshrouded within the politics of the early Cold War in East Asia. By exploring the Kaji affair through available archival sources, including two important documents released in 2013 in response to a Freedom of Information Act petition, this article casts new light on the incident and connects it to broader interpretive themes in early postwar U.S-Japan relations.


2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Archie Brown

Using previously unseen British Cabinet Office and Foreign Office papers obtained through the UK Freedom of Information Act, this article shows how a change in Britain's stance in the Cold War was initiated in 1983. As a result of this process, the British government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to move to greater engagement with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Distrusting the Foreign Office as an institution, Thatcher asked for papers from eight outside academic specialists, on whose analyses she placed considerable weight. The desire for East-West dialogue was strongly favored by Foreign Office ministers and officials, whose advice, paradoxically, was more readily accepted by Thatcher when similar policy recommendations (though with some differences in analysis) were made by the academics. The invitation to Mikhail Gorbachev to visit Britain in 1984, prior to his becoming leader of the Soviet Union, had its origins in a Chequers seminar involving both academics and officials on 8–9 September 1983. This was the beginning of an important, and surprising, political relationship that transformed Britain's militantly anti-socialist prime minister into the strongest supporter—certainly among conservative politicians worldwide—of the new leader of the Soviet Communist Party.


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.


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