Masterpieces Of History: Peaceful End Of The Cold War, The

Description: Twenty years in the making, this collection presents 122 top-level Soviet, European and American records on the superpowers' role in the annus mirabilis of 1989. Consisting of Politburo minutes; diary entries from Gorbachev's senior aide, Anatoly Chernyaev; meeting notes and private communications of Gorbachev with George H.W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand; and high-level CIA analyses. Complementing the documents is the inclusion for the first time of the proceedings of an extraordinary face-to-face mutual interrogation (with scholars and documents ) in 1998 of Russian and American senior former officials - Gorbachev advisers Anatoly Chernyaev and Georgy Shakhnazarov, Shevardnadze aide Sergei Tarasenko, U.S. Ambassador Jack Matlock and CIA chief Soviet analyst Douglas MacEachin - aimed at assessing and explaining Moscow and Washington's policies during the miraculous year of 1989.

Review: "When, where, why did the Cold War end? How did it manage to end peacefully? The answers are in this wonderful collection of crucial historical documents, penetrating essays by experts, plus the record of a revealing symposium including former Soviet and American officials. An invaluable source book on the end of the 20th century." William C. Taubman, Amherst College, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era "Evocative, illuminating, insightful: This volume is a brilliant collection of documents, conver-sations, and essays. It is absolutely indispensable for understanding the end of the Cold War." Melvyn Leffler, University of Virginia, G.L. Beer Prize-winning author of For the Soul of Mankind "The National Security Archive - deserves the highest praise for its dedication to work and truth, and for overcoming numerous obstacles created by bureaucrats and other excessively cowardly and greedy custodians of the truth about the past." (From the Foreword) Anatoly S. Chernyaev, adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev, author of My Six Years with Gorbachev

Contents: Preface and Acknowledgements Foreword by Anatoly S. Chernyaev Foreword by Jack F. Matlock, Jr. Acronyms Chronology of Events "The Logic of 1989: The Soviet Peaceful Withdrawal from Eastern Europe," by Svetlana Savranskaya "U.S. Policy and the Revolutions of 1989," by Thomas Blanton Dialogue: The Musgrove Conference, May 1 - 3, 1998 122 previously classified documents from Soviet, European and American archives Main Actors Selected Bibliography Index

Author Biography: Svetlana Savranskaya is Director of Russia/Eurasia Programs at the National Security Archive. Thomas Blanton is Executive Director of the National Security Archive. Vladislav Zubok is Professor of history at Temple University.