The Cold War 1946 1961

World politics - 1945-

A look at the beginnings of the Cold War from the front lines of Berlin.For nearly 50 years the German city of Berlin was the living symbol of the Cold War. The setting for innumerable films and novels about spies and Cold War espionage, Berlin was, in truth, at the heart of the intelligence war between the United States and the Soviet bloc. For the United States and its allies, Berlin was a base for strategic intelligence collection that provided unequaled access to Soviet-controlled territory. For the Soviet Union and the captive nations of the Warsaw Pact, the presence of Western intelligence services in occupied Berlin was a constant security threat, but also an opportunity to observe their opponents in action, and possibly to penetrate their operations. Perhaps nowhere else did the Soviet and Western intelligence services confront each other so directly, or so continuously. It thus seems appropriate to refer to this situation as an "Intelligence War"; not because the conflict between the opposing services regularly erupted into organized violence, but because it was a sustained, direct confrontation that otherwise had many of the characteristics of a war.

Traces the events of the fifteen year period following World War II through accounts drawn from letters, diaries, reminiscences, novels, poetry, press reports, selections from key public documents, and other contemporary sources.

This is the fifth volume in a multi-volume collection on Soviet-American relations. The goal is to provide a comprehensive collection of documents which explicates and clarifies the evolving political ties between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.