Giles Scott-Smith

The European Web

By early 1962 the relationship with the Information Research Department (IRD) in London had become clearer: the British would provide all necessary information regarding communist meetings and organizations, in particular youth festivals.2 Working relations were soon tested. Foreign Office cutbacks that year meant that the embassy in The Hague lost its IRD post. As a result the ambassador, Sir Andrew Noble, proposed that all IRD material should be sent direct to Van den Heuvel, “leaving Interdoc and the Dutch themselves to fight the anti-Communist battle”.3 The response from London was unanimously negative. Reversing the opinion expressed in 1957, the new head of IRD, C.F.R. (Kit) Barclay, protested that all direct contacts with “influentials” in Dutch society should be maintained.4 Passing control over the recipient list to Interdoc would also make the credibility of the material more opaque for the recipient. Further, “In no country in the world do we rely solely on a local anti-Communist organisation to undertake distribution.”5 Views were decidedly mixed: nWe do not think very highly of Interdoc […] moreover Interdoc clearly resents French and German tendencies to regard them mainly or primarily as a convenient clearing house, a translation bureau, and a distribution centre for research material and information […] It does not appear from this that they would take great interest in distributing our material.6

The Benelux and the Cold War: Re-interpreting West-West Relations

What is there new to say on the Low Countries and transatlantic relations during the Cold War? How do recent trends in Cold War research open up uncharted areas to explore these relations from new angles and perspectives? With attention shifting to cultural, global, transnational and multi-centric approaches to the international history of the twentieth century, it would seem that the transatlantic is long passé as a primary frame of reference. As the first special issue in this series claimed (The Low Countries and Eastern Europe during the Cold War), existing scholarship on the Benelux nations has tended to emphasise the ‘loyal ally’ thesis, the uniqueness of small states among larger powers and the importance of traditional diplomacy. With this special issue, a set of articles has been brought together that open up new ways to consider the changing relations both within and between the Benelux nations and their Western allies during the Cold War. As a starting point, it takes the dual approach of the Benelux nations as both actors in the Cold War and as sites where Cold War dynamics were played out and influenced local political and social outcomes. By applying such a structure-agency approach, new perspectives on the importance of the Cold War for Benelux history, and the relevance of the Benelux for Cold War history, can be mapped out.

Bretton Woods: A Global Perspective

The historiography of the Bretton Woods conference of July 1944 is dominated by the personal clash between the principal negotiators, Harry Dexter White of the United States and John Maynard Keynes of Britain. Their contest over different blueprints for the structure of post-war economic and financial management was set in the context of American designs to dismantle the protective measures of the British imperial system and pave the way toward a US-led world order. Yet 42 other nations were also present at the conference. This book examines Bretton Woods as a seminal moment in international diplomacy, with new partners and players expressing their demands on the global stage. Six themes are explored: North–South relations, Rooseveltian ideals, policy coalitions, public and private interests, key personalities, and trade.

Introduction: Journals of Freedom?

The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) is one of the most controversial institutions of the Cold War. Founded in 1950 to unite intellectuals against the repressive demands of Communist doctrine, it promoted its cause of Western cultural integrity until it was revealed in the 1960s that it had benefited from large-scale funding from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and its independence and motives were seriously questioned. Up till now, most studies of the CCF have focused on the CIA connection and the principal actors who ran the Congress in America and Europe. Aiming to broaden understanding of the CCF’s cultural legacy, this volume examines the global reach of its most important form of influence: its journals and magazines, published on five continents, several of which are still in print today. By investigating the circumstances of their creation, the editors who ran them, and their cultural significance in their national contexts, this volume breaks new ground in exploring the global impact of the Congress from the 1950s to the present day.

Tracking the Bear: Survey

Survey—originally Soviet Survey—was established in 1956, and stayed in print—similar to Encounter—until the end of the Cold War, at which point its job was symbolically done. Its formation epitomised the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) as a network of exiled intellectuals speaking out against the ravages of totalitarianism, but it continued long after the CCF folded. Its founder, Walter Laqueur, and long-time editor, Leo Labedz, were both survivors and emigres from Central Europe, and their mid-century experiences and resulting political convictions drove Survey to become one of the principal outlets for Sovietology. Labedz’s relentless accumulation of facts outlining the crimes and failures of the Soviet Union and global Communism were the journal’s trademark. Survey, along with China Quarterly, occupied a special place among the CCF journals as the only publications focused on developments in the ideological adversaires of the Soviet Union and the Peoples’ Republic of China.

Realizing the Kennedy Vision: The John F. Kennedy Institute, Paradiplomacy, and Dutch Foreign Relations, 1960s–1980s

This article examines the role of the John F. Kennedy Institute as a “paradiplomatic actor” during Detente. Inspired by Kennedy’s vision for a transformation of both transatlantic and West–East relations, the Institute sought to contribute to a Europe-wide peace system through contacts with counterparts in Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia. Relations with the Dutch Foreign Ministry were close, despite the fact that the ministry’s contacts with these Central European regimes were limited.

Inequality in Urban America

When the English translation of Thomas Pikettys Le capital au XXIe siecle came out in the spring of 2014, it struck a raw nerve. It is rare for a weighty tome on economic theory to achieve widespread attention, but Piketty, a Parisian researcher known more for sober analysis than any Left Bank outbursts, has produced some conclusions on wealth creation and distribution that are both provocative and disturbing. His research analyses tax records spread over many decades and more than twenty countries, enabling him to study historical patterns and irregularities in the distribution of wealth. His main thesis is based on an economic formula: “The Central Contradiction of Capitalism: rxa0>xa0g.” In this equation, the return on capital ( r ) grows more rapidly than income or output ( g ). As a result, this drives relentlessly expanding levels of inequality, whereby “the entrepreneur inevitably tends to become a rentier, more and more dominant over those who own nothing but their labour.” There is plenty of evidence out there to support this view. Thus, a recent report from Credit Suisse:n Although the global economic environment has remained challenging, total global wealth has grown to a new record, rising by USD 20.1 trillion between mid-2013 and mid-2014, an increase of 8.3%, to reach USD 263 trillionxa0–xa0more than twice the USD 117 trillion recorded for the year 2000. With an 11.4% year-on-year increase, wealth creation was particularly strong in North America, where it now stands at USD 91 trillion, or 34.7% of total wealth … capital markets were a key source of wealth growth: equity market capitalization grew by 22.6% in the United States …

The Low Countries and Eastern Europe during the Cold War: Introduction

This introductory article critically assesses the main themes and issues that have dominated the historiography of the Low Countries and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. It reflects on the ways in which new archival sources and trends in international historical research can make the picture of East-West relations more diversified and complex in terms of actors, ideas, and directions. Rather than showing the importance and singularity of the Benelux countries as ‘small states among big powers’, it stresses transnational connections and perspectives, and dismantles some important premises with regards to these countries’ position within the Cold War. In sum, this article wants to make clear that the Low Countries certainly deserve their place in Cold War historiography, not as a primus inter pares, but as an integral part of a wider transnational phenomenon with global but also often very local aspirations and dimensions.

Anti-Communism and PsyWar in the 1950s

While the input for Interdoc came from various nationalities and institutions through the 1950s, the origins can best be located in West Germany, the front-line state of the Cold War, and it was the Germans who became the driving force behind the institution in the 1960s. The reasons for this are not hard to find. The establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany in May 1949 had been followed by that of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in October of the same year. The occupying forces of the Americans, British, French, and Russians were still effectively in charge, but from this point on the relations between the two Germanies would be at the centre of East-West relations. The regimes in Bonn and East Berlin would regard each other as illegitimate upstarts, equally claiming the mantle of the one true Germany. They would also work hard to undermine each other. The Federal Republic’s first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, wasted no time in setting out the basis for the Western attitude. Germany was divided only because of Soviet design, not popular will, and until it could be reunited only the government in Bonn would be its legitimate representative. For the time being the GDR — referred to as “The Zone” or “Pankow” — must be denied recognition and diplomatically isolated. This approach was codified in the mid-1950s by the so-called Hallstein doctrine, named after State Secretary Walter Hallstein of the Federal Republic’s Foreign Ministry.

East-West Engagement and Interdoc Youth

The relevance of youth to international politics during the Cold War, and particularly the impact of an increasing transnational radicalism during the 1960s, has been noted in recent years. Jeremi Suri wrote of the growing “international language of dissent”, claiming that popular dissatisfaction with the static reality of the East-West divide pushed world leaders into the accommodations of detente. More recently, Martin Klimke has demonstrated how the radical “transnational subcultures” of the decade saw themselves as being part of a cause that transcended national divisions. Governments, looking for evidence of outside influence in domestic upheaval, tried to trace and respond to these transnational networks. This chapter covers the involvement of Interdoc in youth politics, beginning with its attempts to employ students in the East-West contest and ending with its analysis of and efforts to counter the New Left. While Suri claims that detente was deeply conservative in outlook, for the Interdoc circle any rapprochement with the East necessarily offered new opportunities for cross-border engagement and the possibility of fomenting social change. In this sense the need of the West Germans to adapt to recognizing a permanent German Democratic Republic combined with the Dutch wish to unpack and dismantle communist ideology. Youth was a prime element within this strategy.2