Perforating the Iron Curtain : European détente, transatlantic relations, and the Cold War, 1965-1985

The relaxation of the Cold War Bloc tensions in the 1970s ? the so-called - détente process ?- was a watershed in the history of the Cold War. Recent research suggests that this process is far more significant than previously believed for understanding and explaining the developments that brought about the peaceful end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. The present collection of essays provides a rich and detailed account of many important yet neglected aspects of these processes. The contributions elucidate the European détente process from NGO grass-root as well as top diplomatic level perspectives, including the Helsinki Conference and the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, and in particular its stipulations on respect of human rights and human contacts across the Iron Curtain. The contributions are original research based on recently opened and not previously used state and private archives in Western and Eastern Europe and in the United States. Together, they shed new and fascination light on a defining chapter in recent European history. "The relaxation of the Cold War Bloc tensions in the 1970s--the so-called détente process--was a watershed in the history of the Cold War. Recent research suggests that this process is far more significant than previously believed for understanding and explaining the developments that brought about the peaceful end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. The present collection of essays provides a rich and detailed account of many important yet neglected aspects of these processes. The contributions elucidate the European détente process from NGO grass-root as well as top diplomatic level perspectives, including the Helsinki Conference and the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, and in particular its stipulations on respect of human rights and human contacts across the Iron Curtain. The contributions are original research based on recently opened and not previously used state and private archives in Western and Eastern Europe and in the United States, written by senior scholars and younger researchers from Germany, Poland, the United States, Switzerland, Italy, Norway and Denmark. Together, they shed new and fascinating light on a defining chapter in recent European history."-- Back cover This chapter focuses on the first task that European Community (EC) member states assigned to their brand new political cooperation mechanism in the early 1970s, i.e. dealing with the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Although the Atlantic alliance was already working on preparation for the CSCE, the EC member states decided to proceed with a parallel work on this issue. First, the chapter assesses the reasons motivating EC governments' decision and reveals their two main goals at the CSCE, namely getting the recognition of the Community and its competences by the Communist bloc, and promoting a specific view of détente as a process aimed at overcoming the Cold War. The chapter then analyses the mechanisms and rules set up on purpose to coordinate EC members' preparation for the CSCE, and the specific goals and tactics designed for the CSCE negotiations. In the conclusions, the chapter offers an assessment of the EC states' performance that highlights its successful results Cold War history research of recent years suggests that the East-West détente process of the 1970s was a more significant element than previously believed in understanding the processes on both sides of the East-West divide which led to the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. This anthology is a contribution to this research