A Journey through the Cold War: A Memoir of Containment and Coexistence by Raymond s> Garthoff The Cold War: The Essential Readings by Klaus s> Larres Ann Lane (review)

Abstract

i64 SEER, 8i, I, 2003 Finnish citizen of Petersburgianorigin, had been quite shameful. Kiparsky had been the earliestto suggestthe creation of an Institute,and primarilyfor researchpurposes. But he ran foul of the Soviet embassy,an officialof which openly castigated him. VOKS, the Soviet cultural organization, joined in. Kiparsky left the Institute and a couple of years later left Finland. He did return, however, and in 1977 had the satisfactionof receiving an apology in Helsinki from a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences for his treatment in 1949-50. Sovietology turnedout to be taboo in Finland,though attemptswere made to get going something like it, whetherat the Instituteof Soviet Studiesor the Instituteof InternationalAffairs.In any case, it might have been thought that the Finnswould be in a good position to develop theirown alternativeto that heavy branch of learning. But nothing transpiredand in the end the Institute of Soviet Studies, now out of the sauna building and into the ex-Latvian legation, settled down to a final period of existence running student and teacherexchanges with its difficultneighbour. In Pernaa'sdoctoral disputation, a Finnish historian of Russia got up and queried why the author had not looked at the Russian standpoint from Russian sources. 'Wouldreally have meant another book', Pernaareplied. It would have been good to have had thatbook too, but in themeantime Pernaa's work stands as an important study of how living independently alongside the Bear caused confusion, contention, caution, and a lot of quiet contempt. There are, of course,worse things. University ofTurku, Finland GEORGE MAUDE GarthoW, Raymond. AfJournej 7Through theColdWar: AMemoir ofContainment and Coexistence. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2001. xv + 416 pp. Index. $49.95; $22.95. Larres, Klaus and Lane, Ann (eds). T7he Cold War. 7he EssentialReadings. BlackwellEssentialReadings in History. Blackwell,Oxford and Malden, MA, 2001. Viii + 256 pp. Notes. Index. /15.99: $29.95 (paperback). IN the second post-Cold War decade, the US-Soviet standoff continues to generate a voluminous literature. While some new offerings add nuance to existing historiography, others provide orientation for students who barely remember the firstPresidentBush let alone his predecessorsunderwhom the Cold Warunfolded. These volumes make distinctivecontributionsto these separatecategories. Where Garthoffprovides a personal tour of the Cold War for those already familiar with its topography, Larres and Lane offer sign-posting and key readings(includinga chapterby Garthoffhimself) forthose as yet uninitiated. That Garthoffstraddlesboth volumes is indicative of his accomplishments in the realms of policy formulation and academic scholarship alike. As an ambitiousyoung sovietologist,Garthoffwas verymuch presentat the creation of both the Cold Waritselfand its key US institutions.In AJourney Through the ColdWMar he offersan illuminatingand crisplywrittenaccount of his own Cold REVIEWS I65 War career, which never deviated far from the central loci of US decisionmaking .Indeed, Garthoff likeWoodyAllen'sZelig apparentlypossessed an uncanny ability to be always at the epicentre of American Cold War activity. In Garthoff's case, this insertion into successive Cold War tableaux was facilitatednot by happenstancebut a ratherrarecombination of linguistic aptitudein Russian,detailed appreciationof Soviet ideology, and an abilityto evaluate Moscow's strategyfree from the alarmismthat markedmany of his contemporaries. So, through the decades we find him at one moment in the kitchenin Moscow Nixon and Krushchevtradingepithetsas Mrs Garthoff attempted to demonstrate the latest US gadgetry then at the State Department advisingKennedy duringthe perilousdaysof the early I96os and the Cuban Missile Crisis.As the Cold Warwarmed, Garthoffwas engaged in the SALT and ABM negotiations (on which he has alreadywritten incisively in a previous volume, Detenteand Confrontation, Washington, D.C., I985). Followingthe collapse of detente -of which Garthoffremains both incisive scholar and persuasive advocate he served briefly as US ambassador to Bulgaria.But in i 980 Garthoffopted for a more contemplative conclusion to his career,joining the BrookingsInstitution in Washington, D.C., where he has continued to pursuethe scholarlystudyof US-Soviet relations. This latest volume provides an intriguingglimpse of the usuallyrestrictedaccess world of the scholar-practitioner.It will be especially welcomed by those already familiar with Garthoff's detailed contribution to Cold War scholarship, and interested to learn more of the overlapping professional identities that have made him such a consistentlyinsightfulcommentator on his country'srelationswith the USSR and easternbloc. Larresand Lane, for theirpart, set out to gatherinto...