When the Russians really were coming: citizen diplomacy and the end of Cold War enmity in America

ABSTRACT

Between 1985 and 1989 hundreds of Soviet citizens came to the United States in projects initiated by American activists who feared nuclear war and hoped to improve relations with the USSR. This ambitious citizen diplomacy led to hundreds of thousands of encounters between Soviet visitors and Americans that shattered negative stereotypes. Since the Soviet visitors received extensive media coverage, the programs had broad impacts on attitudes in many American towns and cities. As a result, ‘the Cold War’ ended in the hearts and minds of many Americans long before the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen diplomacy
• enmity
• stereotype
• image
• American
• Russian
• Soviet
• Cold War

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ On the nightmares of Soviet invasions presented in ‘Invasion USA’ (1952), ridiculed in ‘The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming’ (1966), and dramatized in ‘Red Dawn’ (1984), see Tony Shaw, Hollywood’s Cold War (Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007).

² The best studies of the ending of the Cold War include: Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington: Brookings, 1994); Melvyn P. Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2007); Vladislav Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Andrei Grachev, Gorbachev’s Gamble: Soviet Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2008); and James Graham Wilson, The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev’s Adaptability, Reagan’s Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014).

³ See Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); and Sarah B. Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

⁴ Masuda Hajimu, Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2015), 2–4.

⁵ For example: Alison Smale, ‘Gorbachev Heard What he Wanted to Hear,’ Associated Press dispatch published in Petaluma Argus-Courier, 3 June 1988.

⁶ Robert Service, The End of the Cold War, 1985–1991 (New York: Public Affairs, 2015), 3, 31–2, 99–101, 262.

⁷ Matthias Neumann, “Children Diplomacy during the Late Cold War: Samantha Smith’s visit of the ‘Evil Empire,’” History 104, no. 360 (2019): 275–308; and Margaret Peacock, “Samantha Smith in the Land of the Bolsheviks: Peace and the Politics of Childhood in the Late Cold War,” Diplomatic History 43, no. 3 (June 2019): 418–44.

⁸ Peacock, “Samantha Smith in the Land of the Bolsheviks,” 421, 419, 441.

⁹ Douglas C. Waller, Congress and the Nuclear Freeze: An Inside Look at the Politics of a Mass Movement (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987); David S. Meyer, A Winter of Discontent: The Nuclear Freeze and American Politics (New York: Praeger, 1990); J. Michael Hogan, The Nuclear Freeze Campaign: Rhetoric and Foreign Policy in the Telepolitical Age (East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1994); and Bradford Martin, The Other Eighties: A Secret History of America in the Age of Reagan (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011).

¹⁰ Jeffrey W. Knopf, Domestic Society and International Cooperation: The Impact of Protest on US Arms Control Policy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), esp. Chapter 7; Lawrence S. Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement. 1971 to the Present (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2003); and William M. Knoblauch, Nuclear Freeze in a Cold War: The Reagan Administration, Cultural Activism, and the End of the Arms Race (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2017).

¹¹ One brief early study by a leader of the anti-nuclear movement did address citizen diplomacy: David Cortright, Peace Works: The Citizen’s Role in Ending the Cold War (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993).

¹² Kyle Harvey, American Anti-Nuclear Activism, 1975–1990: The Challenge of Peace (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 168, 169.

¹³ Paul Rubinson, Rethinking the American Antinuclear Movement (New York: Routledge, 2018), xv.

¹⁴ For example, a study by one Boston opinion research firm, commissioned by Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament, noted that ‘[m]ost Americans derive their information about the arms race through news coverage of the issue’ and concluded that: ‘If American attitudes are to be changed … they must be changed primarily through the nation’s press.’ ‘Strategic Recommendations,’ Marttila & Kiley, Inc. November 1985, Box 4, Women’s Action for New Directions Records, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.

¹⁵ Matthias Neumann, “Peace Child – American Soviet Youth Encounters during the Cold War” (paper presented at the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies [ASEEES] convention, Boston, December 2018).

¹⁶ Helen Broinowski Caldicott, A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (New York: Norton, 1996), 296–7; and Carol Stocker, “Peace Talks in Leningrad: Western and Soviet Women Discuss the Nuclear Threat,” Boston Globe, 27 September 1984.

¹⁷ Postcard from Sayre Sheldon, received 15 January 1985, and Sheldon to Ksenia Proskurnikova, 19 January 1985, f. 7928, op. 3, d. 6551, State Archive of the Russian Federation (Moscow: GARF).

¹⁸ “First Joint Mountain Climbing Expedition for American, Soviet and Hungarian Youth,” press release, 17 June 1987; Stephen H. Rhinesmith to V.A. Aksenov, Chairman, Committee of Youth Organizations, 10 December 1986; Patricia Schroeder to Cynthia Lazaroff, 19 March 1987; “The US-USSR Rocky Mountain Exchange: June 1987,” all in Box 122, Patricia Schroeder Papers, University of Colorado, Boulder. For a profile of Lazaroff, see Gale Warner and Michael Shuman, Citizen Diplomats: Pathfinders in Soviet-American Relations and How You Can Join Them (New York: Continuum, 1987).

¹⁹ Susan Eisenhower, Breaking Free: A Memoir of Love and Revolution (New York: FSG, 1995), quotation on p. 16; and Ross Mackenzie, When Stars and Stripes Met Hammer and Sickle: The Chautauqua Conferences on U.S.-Soviet Relations, 1985–1989 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006).

²⁰ Press release, July 1988, Box 122, Patricia Schroeder Papers, University of Colorado, Boulder; Rushworth M. Kidder, “US, Soviet Youth Tune Up for Fine Music – and More,” Christian Science Monitor, 21 March 1988; Robert Commanday, “The Russians Are Coming! The Yanks Are Coming!” San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle, February 1988.

²¹ Anna L. Eblen and Martha Jane Eblen, eds., Betty Bumpers: Champion of Childhood Immunization and Peace (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013), 27–8; Dale Bumpers, The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 2003), 243–4; and Paula Curlee Barnes, “Educating the Conscience: Betty Bumpers and Peace Links, A Study of Feminist Peace Work” (PhD dissertation, University of Arkansas, 1996).

²² Bonnie Halprin, coordinator of Nashville Peace Links, letter to the editor of The Tennesseean, 17 October 1985; Vickie Kilgor East, “Four Soviet Women To Be Guests of Peace Links Group,” The Tennessean, 5 May 1985.

²³ Emails to author from Vera Soboleva and Larisa Skuratovskaya, 6 November 2019; Larisa Skuratovskaya, “Kind Acts From Betty,” in Eblen and Eblen, eds., Betty Bumpers, 137–8. The other Soviet visitors to the United States included: Galina Bezrodnaya, Dina Protsenko, Elena Ershova, Ekaterina Orlova (wife of journalist Vladimir Pozner), Uta Renzer, editor of Youth, Zoya Samoleta, Malakat Shakhabova from Tadzhikistan, Margarita Zabelina, and Margarita Ziborya from IMEMO.

²⁴ Sylvia Sachs, “A Message of Peace: Soviet Women Downplay Differences between Nations in Visit Here,” Pittsburgh Press, 22 October 1985.

²⁵ Blair Kamin, “Soviet Women Promoting Peace during Visit to Iowa,” Des Moines Register, 25 October 1985.

²⁶ Patricia McCormack, “Wives, Mothers Key to Fostering World Peace, Women Leaders Say,” United Press International dispatch in Columbus, Indiana Republic, 26 December 1985; Judy Hagey and Janine Calsbeek, “Soviet Delegation Receives Sample of NW Iowa Living,” Sioux City Journal, 25 October 1985. Betty Bumpers made a more complete statement about these beliefs two years later in a speech to the Soviet Committee of Women in Moscow on 13 October 1987. Fond 7928, op. 3, d. 7212, GARF.

²⁷ “Soviet Women will Sample Iowa Life,” Sioux City Journal, 24 October 1985.

²⁸ Vickie Kilgore East, “Soviet Visit Bridges Gap,” The Tennessean, 27 October 1985.

²⁹ Vickie Kilgore East, “Soviet Visitors ‘Touched’ by Welcome,” The Tennessean, 18 October 1985.

³⁰ Sylvia Sachs, “A Message of Peace: Soviet Women Downplay Differences between Nations in Visit Here,” Pittsburgh Press, 22 October 1985.

³¹ John Gillis, “Peace, Indeed,” Sioux City Journal, 30 October 1985; and Arie J. Oliver, “Reaction to ‘Links’,” Sioux City Journal, 3 November 1985.

³² The Soviet women were surprised by the extent of the media attention they received. See “U.S., Soviet Women Express Hope for a Successful Summit,” Newport News Daily Press, 29 October 1985.

³³ “Strengthening the Links of Peace” (editorial), The Tennessean, 17 October 1985.

³⁴ Ginger Hutton, “Soviet, U.S. Women Join Together in Peace Links,” Arizona Republic, 30 October 1985.

³⁵ Yekaterina Orlova quoted in Sylvia Sachs, “A Message of Peace: Soviet Women Downplay Differences between Nations in Visit Here,” Pittsburgh Press, 22 October 1985; and Antonina Khripkova quoted in Blair Kamin, “Soviet Women Promoting Peace during Visit to Iowa,” Des Moines Register, 25 October 1985; and Vera Soboleva to the author, 9 April 2019.

³⁶ Elena Ershova said that “Americans were more friendly and hospitable than she expected,” according to an Associated Press dispatch, “U.S., Soviet Women Express Hope for a Successful Summit,” Newport News Daily Press, 29 October 1985.

³⁷ Vickie Kilgore East, “Soviet Visit Bridges Gap,” The Tennessean, 27 October 1985.

³⁸ Report on delegation to US by invitation of Peace Links, f. 7928, op. 3, d. 6398, ll. 249–260, GARF. According to one of the leaders of the Soviet Women’s Committee who frequently travelled to the United States, ‘reports about those exchanges reached persons who were on the decision making level at that time in our country for sure.’ Vera Soboleva to the author, 4 April 2019.

³⁹ Vera Soboleva to the author, 9 April 2019; Thomas Grose, “Levin’s Wife Says Soviet Women Enjoy Warm Reception In U.S.,” Saint Joseph, Michigan Herald Palladium, 7 November 1985.

⁴⁰ The autumn 1987 visit was featured in the KSZh magazine: see Nelya Ramazanova, “A Step Towards Each Other,” Soviet Woman, no. 2 (1988): 7.

⁴¹ Description of William Busse, a retired architect who had been a Navy pilot patrolling for Soviet submarines, in Ward Parker, “Joint Program Stresses Need for Peace,” Longmont, Colorado Times-Call, 17 January 1988; and author’s interview with Rick Roney, 5 February 2019.

⁴² Colby College Professor Charles Hauss quoted in John Lovell, “Group Hopes Book Brings End to War,” Portland Press Herald (Maine), 22 January 1988. See also Chris Leppek, “US, Soviet Activists Envision ‘Beyond War’,” Intermountain Jewish News, 22 January 1988; and Deirdre McCrohan, “‘Beyond War’ Group Explores New Way of Thinking,” Tiburon Ark, 20 January 1988. For a sometimes misleading early account of Beyond War and its predecessor, the Creative Initiative Foundation, see Steven M. Gelber and Martin L. Cook, Saving the Earth: The History of a Middle-Class Millenarian Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).

⁴³ On Beyond War, no. 22, September 1986, p. 3.

⁴⁴ On Beyond War, 15 August 1985.

⁴⁵ Elena Loshchenkova quoted in Abby Haight, “A Journey for Peace,” The Olympian (Washington), 22 January 1988.

⁴⁶ Boris Raushenbakh cited in Don Kazak, “A Challenge to Build a World Beyond War,” Palo Alto Weekly, 10 February 1988; Elena Loshchenkova and Craig S. Barnes, “Writing This Book,” in Anatoly Gromyko and Martin Hellman, eds, Breakthrough/Proryv: Emerging New Thinking. Soviet and Western Scholars Issue a Challenge to Build a World Beyond War (New York: Walker and Company, 1989), 269–72.

⁴⁷ Raushenbakh and Gromyko quoted in Don Kazak, “A Challenge to Build a World Beyond War,” Palo Alto Weekly, 10 February 1988; and Stanislav K. Roshchin quoted in “Is ‘Beyond War’ Really Possible?” Marin Independent Journal, 18 January 1988.

⁴⁸ Beyond War staff collected the newspaper articles, editorials, and reviews in a ‘Press Information’ book, which is in the possession of the author. Gromyko and Hellman, Breakthrough/Proryv; Rick Roney, “Task Force to Soviet Union,” 23 March 1988, Beyond War Papers, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, California; Doug Ireland, “Soviet Author Visits Portsmouth,” Foster’s Daily Democrat (Dover, New Hampshire), 23 January 1988.

⁴⁹ Andre Stepankovsky, “American, Russian Hope to Change Attitudes Toward War,” Longview WA Daily News, 15 January 1988; Craig Carter (“Old Message, New Friends,” The Metro, 21–27 January 1988) and Edward Luttwak claim that the Soviets were controlled individuals cited in “Authors Discuss Peace,” Davis Enterprise, 4 January 1988.

⁵⁰ Charles A. Radin, “Gorbachev’s Shifts are Akin to New Deal, Russian Says,” Boston Globe, 21 January 1988.

⁵¹ Doug Levy, “Soviet, American Co-Editors will Discuss Nuclear Threat,” The Columbian (Vancouver, Washington), 7 January 1988.

⁵² Bruce Westfall, “Advocates of World Peace Voice Optimism,” The Columbian, 17 January 1988.

⁵³ Jan Castle Renander, Editor, Red Oak Express (Iowa), “Perception Doesn’t Match Reality,” 29 January 1988.

⁵⁴ Jonathan Nichols, “Reds Not under Beds – at Rotary!” The Oregonian, 21 January 1988. Nikitin felt from the warm receptions that something had changed in comparison since his six earlier trips to the United States. Joan Herman, “Soviet Writer Gives Message of Peace,” Daily Astorian (OR), 22 January 1988.

⁵⁵ William Johnson, “Bringing Glasnost into the American Living Room,” Peninsula Times Tribune, 17 January 1988.

⁵⁶ John Gates, Editorial Page Editor, “Changing the Way People Think About Nuclear War,” Winston-Salem Journal, 24 January 1988. Bekhtereva’s lack of bitterness about her family’s suffering during the siege of Leningrad made another journalist ‘believe in the “new thinking”’. Ray Jenkins, “New Thinking,” Baltimore Sun, 23 January 1988.

⁵⁷ Keith Muraoka, “Soviet Author Urges End to Nuclear Arms,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, 13 January 1988.

⁵⁸ Alexander Nikitin quoted in Tim Preso, “Teens see Glasnost with Scholar’s Visit,” Deschutes County Bulletin (Oregon), n.d.

⁵⁹ Bob Gingher, “Soviet-American Dialogue Promotes Global Thinking,” Greensboro News & Record, 27 December 1987; and Linda Brinson, “Essays by Scientists Face Challenge of War,” Winston-Salem Journal, 10 January 1988.

⁶⁰ Paul Craig, “Empathy Pulls in New Thinking on Peace,” Sacramento Bee, 7 January 1988; Elisabeth Sherwin, “This Book will Convince You to End Nuclear War,” Davis Enterprise, 24 January 1988.

⁶¹ The Daily Astorian (Astoria, Oregon), 26 January 1988.

⁶² Intermountain Jewish News, 22 January 1988.

⁶³ Bruce Westfall, “Advocates of World Peace Voice Optimism,” The Columbian, 17 January 1988.

⁶⁴ Author’s interview with Rick Roney, 5 February 2019.

⁶⁵ Interview with Rick Roney by author, 5 February 2019.

⁶⁶ “Nuzhno bol’she znat’ drug o druge,” Sovetskaia Sibir’, 5 April 1988; “Mir stroitsia na doverii,” Vechernii Novosibirsk, 5 April 1988; “K novomu myshleniiu,” Nauka v Sibirii, 14 April 1988; Pat Stromberg, “Report #1 from Novosibirsk,” 3 April 1988; Beyond War Papers, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, California.

⁶⁷ “O khode realizatsii Sovetsko-amerikanskikh proekhtov i rabote na SShA v 1988–1989 gg.,” fond 9539, opis 1, delo 2213, GARF.

⁶⁸ Sharon Tennison, The Power of Impossible Ideas: Ordinary Citizens’ Extraordinary Efforts to Avert International Crisis (Temple, Texas: Odenwald Press, 2012); Interview with Tennison, 22 December 2015, San Mateo, California. For a portrait of Tennison see Gale Warner and Michael Shuman, Citizen Diplomats: Pathfinders in Soviet-American Relations and How You Can Join Them (New York: Continuum, 1987), 131–51.

⁶⁹ Some correspondence between Soviet Peace Committee officials and CUUI leaders is preserved in the records of the Sovetskii komitet zashchity mira, fond 9539, opis 1, delo 2204.

⁷⁰ Tennison, The Power of Impossible Ideas, 67–71. On the ideas of the Bay Area philanthropists who supported Tennison, see Don Carlson and Craig Comstock, Citizen Summitry: Keeping the Peace When It Matters Too Much to Be Left to Politicians (Los Angeles: Jeremy Tarcher, Inc., 1986). On Alferenko and his Foundation for Social Inventions, which was supported by Gorbachev, see Gale Warner, The Invisible Threads: Independent Soviets Working for Global Awareness and Social Transformation (Washington, DC: Seven Locks Press, 1991), 189–215.

⁷¹ Barbara Rinman, director of the Chicago chapter of CUUI, quoted by Jim Quinlan, “Oak Park Residents Prepare ‘Glasnost’ for Soviet Guests,” Chicago Sun-Times, 22 March 1988.

⁷² Leon McFadden quoted by Rebecca Lloyd in “Four Russians visiting Yreka in citizen project,” Mail Tribune Extra (Medford, Oregon), 7–13 January 1988; Carol Swanson paraphrased by Marjorie Morris in “Soviet-American Exchange Seeks to Shatter cultural Myths,” Carrollwood News (Florida), 13 April 1988; and Ray Gatchalian quoted by Sam Delson in “Soviets Take Aim at Culture Gap,” Hayward Review (California), 15 April 1988.

⁷³ Ralph R. Patterson (chairman of Citizens for America), “Be Civil to Soviet Visitors; Don’t Forget Communist Goal of Deception,” 7 April 1988; Barry B. Hawkins, “Visit by Four Soviets a Cause for Concern,” 24 March 1988; Suann W. Prigmore, “Time to Explore Real Reason for Soviet Visit,” 24 March 1988; Clair A. Hill, “Soviet Brainwashing Teams Headed Our Way,” 18 March 1988; and Alger N. Johanson, “Ambassadors Really Agents of Deception,” 1 April 1988, Redding Record Searchlight.

⁷⁴ Patrick Moriarty, “People Should be Nice to the Soviet Visitors”; and Joan Lauer, “Community Should Not be Afraid of 4 Soviets,” undated letters, Redding Record Searchlight, clippings files, Center for Citizen Initiatives Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California.

⁷⁵ John Lawson, “Soviets Leave Redding with Good Feelings,” Redding Record Searchlight, 18 April 1988.

⁷⁶ Robert W. Edkin, “Soft Questions Spawn Fuzzy Answers,” Redding Record Searchlight, 19 April 1988.

⁷⁷ John Lawson, “‘Glasnost’ Lacking in Visit to Redding,” Redding Record Searchlight, 20 April 1988.

⁷⁸ “Soviets, Afghans to Debate in Yreka,” Redding Record Searchlight, 6 January 1988; and “Yreka’s Theater Filled for Soviets,” Redding Record Searchlight, 9 January 1988.

⁷⁹ “Getting Close to the Soviets in This Country and Theirs,” Los Angeles Times, 8 May 1988 (four letters). Other letter writers expressed similar sentiments after four Soviets visited Irvine, California in early June. “Glasnost in Irvine: Varied Views of the Soviet Union,” Los Angeles Times, no date, Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI) Papers, Hoover Institution Archives. The most vehement opponents of the Soviets often had names that suggested their families came from Russia or Eastern Europe. See, for example, the letters from Vera Melnykovycz and Bogdan Shepilov, Orange County Register, 28 June 1988, B12.

⁸⁰ “Against Visit,” Hammond Times, 1 December 1988; “Closer Ties is Theme Voiced by 3 Soviets Touring Area,” Northwest Indiana Post-Tribune, 4 December 1988; “Soviet Visit,” Hammond Times, 5 December 1988; and “Soviet Visitors Encounter First Protesters,” Northwest Indiana Post-Tribune, 5 December 1988.

⁸¹ Artemy Kalinovsky, A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2011).

⁸² “Soviets Tell their Views of America,” Hammond Times, 2 December 1988; and “Soviet Visitors Encounter First Protesters,” Northwest Indiana Post-Tribune, 5 December 1988.

⁸³ “Soviets give Nashoba Teens a Powerful Lesson in World Peace,” The Beacon (Vermont), 16 June 1988; “Stow Embraces Soviet Citizens,” The Stow Villager (Massachusetts), 24 June 1988; “Soviets Visit,” Laramie Daily Boomerang, 16 January 1988; “Soviets visit Hardin to Meet People of ‘Middle America,’” Elizabethtown (Kentucky) News-Enterprise, 18 January 1988; “Touring Soviet Activists Laud Peace – and Quiet – in Visit to Fredonia,” The Buffalo News, 12 July 1988; and “Soviet Visitors Bring Hope for Better Relations,” The Lawrence Ledger (New Jersey), 19 July 1988.

⁸⁴ Andrea Cook, “Peace-Making Project a Success,” Wyoming State Tribune, 26 January 1988; “Visit Reminds us of Interdependence,” Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, 9 April 1988; “U.S.S.R.-U.S. Relations Helped by Dialogues,” The Prairie, 13 April 1988; and Perry Flippin, “Soviets Find the Summit,” Sherman Democrat, 23 October 1988. Sharon Tennison, founder of CUUI, had been raised in Owensboro.

⁸⁵ Verne Peyser, “Peace Initiative Promoters Deserve Tip of the Hat,” Ojai Valley News, 13 July1988; and Glenn Dromgoole, “Getting to Know You,” Abilene Reporter-News, 1 December 1988.

⁸⁶ Ed Sterling, “Hosts Reflect on Soviets,” The Canyon News, 17 April 1988; and “Along the King’s Highway,” Atascadero News, 12 October 1988.

⁸⁷ Lisa Ladd, “Mayor: ‘Arcata is a City of Hope, Peace,’” The Union, 5 July 1988; and Bill Scanlon, “From Cold War to Lick Skillet,” Boulder Daily Camera, 10 July 1988.

⁸⁸ “U.S.-Soviet Relations: A Shift From Confrontation to Cooperation,” National Survey No. 7, July 1988, Americans Talk Security Project, Robert Teeter Collection, Box 42, George H. W. Bush Library, College Station, Texas.

⁸⁹ Entry for 6 December 1982 in Douglas Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 117; and Caldicott recollection in “The Cold War: Star Wars,” CNN documentary, 1998.

⁹⁰ Entry for 6 January 1984 in Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries, 210; and Suzanne Massie, Trust But Verify: Reagan, Russia and Me (Rockland, Maine: Maine Authors Publishing, 2013), 16–9, 78.

⁹¹ Jack Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (New York: Random House, 2004), 92–3, 98, 139, 175; and “When Diplomacy Begins at Home,” New York Times, 28 May 1986.

⁹² Svetlana Savranskaya quoted in Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Superpower Illusions: How Myths and False Ideologies Led America Astray – and How to Return to Reality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 46.

⁹³ Alexander Yakovlev, On the Edge of an Abyss: From Truman to Reagan. The Doctrines and Realities of the Nuclear Age (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1985), 11–4, 394–9. First published in Russian as Ot Trumena do Reigana in 1984.

⁹⁴ 12 March 1985 memorandum for Gorbachev, “About Reagan,” in Svetlana Savranksaya, “Alexander Yakovlev and the Roots of Soviet Reforms,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 168 (posted 26 October 2005), 14 March 2020.

⁹⁵ Already in September 1985 the Soviet Peace Committee noted a significant increase in the number of foreign, and especially American, delegations to the USSR. Stenogramma zasedaniia Prezidiuma Sovetskogo Komiteta Zashchity Mira ot Sentiabria 1985g, f. 9539, op. 1, d. 2170, GARF.

⁹⁶ Alan H. Levy, The Political Life of Bella Abzug, 1976–1988 (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2014), 225–6. Levy scornfully dismissed the idea that Abzug and the other women could have had any impact on Gorbachev.

⁹⁷ Evangelista, Unarmed Forces, 271–5.

⁹⁸ Memorandum to Gorbachev, “To the Analysis of the Fact of the Visit of Prominent American Political Leaders to the USSR,” in Savranksaya, “Alexander Yakovlev and the Roots of Soviet Reforms.” The undated memorandum was written ‘almost half a year after Reykjavik’. Gorbachev met with US scientists and senators, including Alan Cranston, on 11 March 1987. Otvechaia na vyzov vremeni. Vneshnaia politika perestroiki: dokumental’nye svidetelstva (Moscow: Ves’ Mir, 2010), 181–2.

⁹⁹ The Diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev, 28 August 1987; and M.S. Gorbachev, On My Country and the World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 194–5.

¹⁰⁰ William Safire, “The Risks of Distrust,” New York Times, 9 December 1987; see also Jean Davidson, “UCI Scientists Told Moscow’s Aim Is to Deprive U.S. of Foe,” Los Angeles Times, 12 December 1988.

¹⁰¹ Warren H. Phillips, “Gorbachev Faults U.S. Media Coverage, Discloses Barbs in Talks with Reagan,” Wall Street Journal, 10 December 1987.

¹⁰² Louis Sell, From Washington to Moscow: US-Soviet Relations and the Collapse of the USSR (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 233; and William Taubman, Gorbachev: His Life and Times (New York: W.W. Norton, 2017), 411.

¹⁰³ Report from P.G. Bogdanov, deputy director of ISKRAN to G.A. Borovik, head of the Soviet Peace Committee, “Nekotorye momenty v ideino-politicheskikh pozitsiiakh antivoennogo dvizheniia v SShA,” 1988, Sovetskii komitet zashchity mira, F. 9539, Op. 1, d. 2213, GARF.

¹⁰⁴ David Shipler, “The View from America,” New York Times, 10 November 1985; and “Americans, Soviets Are of a Mind,” Associated Press story in Rutland Daily Herald (Vermont), 7 December 1987.

¹⁰⁵ Richard Morin, “Americans View Soviets As Threat, Poll Shows,” Washington Post, 7 December 1987; and Michael McQueen, “Summit, Changes in East Bloc Leave Americans Hopeful but Skeptical About Soviets, Cold War,” Wall Street Journal, 6 December 1989.

¹⁰⁶ Terry Atlas, “Gorbachev Winning Greater Western Support,” Chicago Tribune article reprinted in York Daily Record (Pennsylvania), 29 November 1987; and Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind, 462.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Scott Foglesong

David Scott Foglesong is the author of The American Mission and the “Evil Empire” (2007) and America’s Secret War Against Bolshevism (1995).