Remembering a Vietnam War Firefight: Changing Perspectives over Time

Intense, deadly combat is one of the most traumatic of humanexperiences. How veterans remember it and how they retell it,is explored in this article by Marine Corps Oral Historian FredH. Allison. Allison compares two interviews of the same Marinetalking about the same horrific Vietnam firefight in which fiveof eight Marines on a reconnaissance patrol were killed. Oneinterview took place in-country two days after the firefight,the other 34 years later. The early interview is an oral snapshotof the world of a combat Marine, while the later interview isa study in how memory reconstructs a combat experience. In comparingthe two interviews the reader can begin to understand how veterans'memory works to organize and make comprehensible an event thatmight not have been orderly or comprehensible in the first place.     

The Vietnam War as Theo-Drama: Balthasar,Kenosis, and the Cold War's Temporal Desperation

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Vietnam War through the lens of Hans urs von Balthasar's "theological-drama." According to Balthasar, the unfolding of God's eternal self-giving illumines creaturely temporality as desperate when turned inward, no longer desiring its eternal fulfillment but rather idolatrously grasping its own immanent meaning. By contrasting Balthasar's portrayal of divine kenosis with American foreign policy and its "domino theory" view of Southeast Asia, this paper shows how desperation privatizes and colonizes temporal space.     

Intelligence in the Cold War

This paper asserts that Cold War intelligence was essentially military intelligence. It provides a personal perspective on the UK Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) and how Cold War intelligence was influenced by the experiences of individuals in the Second World War. It reviews little-studied aspects of the US–UK intelligence relationship, the NATO intelligence dimension, and the British Commanders'-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in (East) Germany (BRIXMIS), effectively legitimate spies in uniform. It concludes with some reflections on the changes the end of the Cold War brought to the work of the DIS.     

Choosing Sides in the Global Cold War: Switzerland,Neutrality, and the Divided States of Korea and Vietnam

This article examines neutral Switzerland's recognition policy towards the divided states of Korea and Vietnam. Drawing comparisons with other neutrals, notably Austria and Sweden, allows us to assess the credibility of neutrality in the Global Cold War. All three neutrals explicitly or implicitly aimed to reinforce their neutrality through the principle of universality, which entailed the recognition of all regimes, no matter their political couleur. Yet this principle was not applied consistently, but rather pragmatically. Until the beginning of the 1970s, Switzerland, as well as Austria and Sweden, favoured the Western-oriented over the Communist halves of Korea and Vietnam. Thereby, this article argues, they undermined the credibility of neutrality. They were, however, willing to take that risk, because they feared that the recognition of North Korea and North Vietnam could irritate the United States, and provoke East German claims for recognition, which was undesirable due to the Hallstein doctrine and West Germany's economic weight. It was only with the rise of the Third World as a political force, and the softening of the US position that the neutrals, which saw themselves in competition with each other for status and influence, eventually recognised North Korea and North Vietnam.     

Towards the Cold War

ROBERT DALLEK. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Pp. ix, 657; DANIEL YERGIN. Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977. Pp. x, 526; JOHN H. BACKER. The Decision to Divide Germany: American Foreign Policy in Transition. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1978. Pp. x, 212; ROBERT J. DONOVAN. Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1977. Pp. xvii, 473; YONOSUKE NAGAI and AKIRA IRIYE, editors. The Origins of the Cold War in Asia. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1977. Pp. ix, 448; THOMAS G. PATERSON. On Every Front: The Making of the Cold War. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1979. Pp. xii, 210.     

Detente and Deterrence in the Cold War

Keith L. Nelson, The Making of Détente: Soviet-American Relations in the Shadow of Vietnam
Terry Terriff, The Nixon Administration and the Making of U.S. Nuclear Strategy     

Gold Wars in the Cold War

Book reviewed:
Francis J. Gavin. Gold, Dollars, and Power: The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958–1971 . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. 280 pp. Illus., tables, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00 (cloth).     

Soviet Espionage and the Cold War

Book reviewed in this article:
Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov. The Secret World of American Communism
Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Kyrill M. Anderson, The Soviet World of American Communism
John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America
Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response
Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America – The Stalin Era
James G. Ryan. Earl Browder: The Failure of American Communism
Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, Bombshell: The Secret Story of America's Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy
Ted Morgan, A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone, Communist, Anti-Communist, and Spymaster
Ellen Schrecker, Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America
Harvey Klehr and Ronald Radosh, The Amerasia Spy Case: Prelude to McCarthyism
Daniel P. Moynihan, Secrecy: The American Experience     

Cold War Geography

Neil Smith . American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization . Berkeley, CA : University of California Press , 2003 . xxvii+557 pp. $ (hardcover), $ (paper).