In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Editor’s Note

This issue begins with an article by Nicholas Khoo that examines the triangular relationship between the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and North Vietnam from October 1964, when Nikita Khrushchev was abruptly removed in Moscow and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev, to May 1968, when the Vietnam War was at its height. The Sino-Soviet rift that began under Khrushchev deepened under Brezhnev, and the Soviet Union and the PRC began actively competing for influence in the Third World. Khoo argues that the Sino-Soviet rivalry had a farreaching effect on China’s relations with North Vietnam. The Soviet Union, in seeking to outflank the PRC, expanded its military and economic ties with North Vietnam, and this development in turn caused friction between Beijing and Hanoi. As cooperation between the USSR and North Vietnam rapidly increased, Sino–North Vietnamese tension grew commensurately. The triangular relationship linking both Moscow and Beijing with Hanoi thus involved a zero-sum dynamic. The deterioration of Sino-Soviet ties meant that an improvement of Soviet relations with North Vietnam would cause tension in PRC–North Vietnamese relations, and vice versa.

The second article, by Mircea Munteanu, gives an overview of Romanian foreign policy in the 1960s, before and after the August 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Munteanu traces the emergence of Romania’s bid for an autonomous foreign policy within the Warsaw Pact and then discusses how the policy was affected by the invasion of Czechoslovakia and its immediate aftermath, including rumors that Soviet troops might move next into Romania. Drawing on declassified materials from the Romanian archives, Munteanu argues (as I have previously) that Romania in the mid-1960s was not seeking full independence and did not intend to try to leave the Warsaw Pact, but Munteanu may underestimate how deep the Soviet-Romanian rift had become by 1968. Rightly or wrongly, Soviet leaders at the time feared that if the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia continued unchecked, both Czechoslovakia and Romania would eventually seek to leave the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union’s strong opposition to the Prague Spring greatly complicated matters for Romania, especially because Soviet leaders decided to exclude Romania from Warsaw Pact deliberations about Czechoslovakia. The invasion caused great nervousness in Bucharest, and the Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu quickly toned down his criticism of Soviet actions and curbed his defiance of Soviet hegemony. Nonetheless, as Munteanu rightly argues, Romania continued to be a maverick in the Warsaw Pact and periodically went its own way.

The third article, by Giora Goodman, discusses the reaction of British elites to the wave of anti-Communism in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s that led to the enactment of numerous restrictions on civil liberties, if only temporarily. The anti-Communist campaign came to a head with the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy, [End Page 1] whose demagoguery and proclivity for accusing innocent people tarnished the efforts of government officials, legislators, and political commentators who worried about aggressive Soviet espionage networks in the United States that had recently come to light and about the potential willingness of American Communists (whose party was slavishly beholden to the Soviet Union and had facilitated Soviet spying) to undertake subversion and espionage on behalf of Moscow. Goodman argues that the British government, despite being concerned about Communist inroads in Britain and about the need to maintain strong relations with the United States, tried to distance itself from some of the measures adopted by U.S. officials. In a delicate balancing act, Labour-led governments in Britain assured their domestic supporters that they would not be aiding or emulating the purpoted American “witch-hunt,” but they tried to express their concerns in a way that would not mar relations with the United States.

The fourth article, by Alan P. Dobson, provides an overview of U.S. attempts to restrict strategic trade with Communist countries, especially the Soviet Union. A strategic embargo against the Soviet bloc was adopted in the late 1940s, and the U.S. government was successful in making it a multilateral effort within the newly formed Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), which by the 1950s included...

pdf

Share