the Danes prohibited the stationing of nuclear weapons in Greenland.

The Danes were not the only ones who decided to appoint a government commission to study a controversial aspect of their foreign policy during the Cold War. During this decade, a major debate has taken place in Sweden over its role in the Cold War. One reason was the attempt to keep security policy out of the public domain. It has been argued that Swedish parliamentary debates were well-orchestrated performances with little informative value designed to calm public opinion. What sparked the debate in Sweden was the publication, in the early 1990s, of a number of highly critical revisionist books and articles on the record of Sweden's foreign policy during the Cold War. A double standard - the argument went -guided Swedish foreign policy over the previous decades, when officially neutral Sweden almost seemed like a NATO member. In 1992, the Swedish government set up the Commission on Swedish Policy to study Sweden's military contacts with the Western Powers during the Cold War. In its 1994 report, the Commission revealed that extensive planning and preparatory work had been conducted in Sweden to facilitate wartime cooperation with NATO in the case of a Soviet attack. It concluded, however, that these contacts were not as extensive as the revisionists had claimed. Moreover, it argued that the Swedish government did not overstep the basic selfimposed boundaries of peacetime non-alignment. The Swedes did not enter into any binding military commitments with the Western Powers. In that sense, Sweden remained "neutral," even if the public was not informed of the country's preparations for different contingencies.

All the conference participants in Reykjavik who dealt with Sweden touched on this debate in one way or another. Juhana Aunesluoma (Oxford University) argued that the British played a pivotal role in establishing contacts between the West and Sweden in the early Cold War.19 The British Government showed understanding for Sweden's neutrality policy and influenced the evolution of U.S. thinking on the issue. Having taken a very critical attitude toward Swedish neutrality policies in 1948, the Americans gradually accepted it for geopolitical reasons, albeit without enthusiasm. While taking note of the discrepancy between what was officially said and tacitly done, Mikael af Malmborg (University of Lund) argued that the West and Sweden struck a good deal.20 Through Sweden's significant military resources, the United States. and NATO assured a satisfactory defense along the long northern European Flank without any costs and binding commitments. An overt agreement would have meant a mutual pledge of automatic support in a future war.

Despite its concessions to NATO, Sweden maintained. its policy of non-confrontation towards the Soviet Union, which was regarded as important as a strong military defense. This raises important questions of interdependence. Ingemar Dörfer (Swedish Institute for

Defense Studies) disagreed with Malmborg, arguing that Sweden was totally dependent on the Western Alliance militarily and economically. For this reason, he argues, it should have made a formal commitment to the West by taking sides in the Cold War." Jaakko Iloniemi (former Finnish Ambassador to the United States) went even so far as to argue that despite the 1948 Friendship Treaty with the Soviet Union Finland was, in fact, more neutral than Sweden during the Cold War, since it did not enter into any informal military arrangements with the Soviets.

There was always a strong undercurrent in Swedish society on the center-right to abandon non-alignment under the Social Democrats based on Sweden's Western democratic traditions and ideology. Thus Sune Persson (University of Gothenburg)-co-director of a major research project on Sweden during the Cold War-argued that Swedish security policy was a "consensus under disagreement."22 Domestic contradictions as well as the dramatic change in the implementation of Sweden's security policy during the Cold War was rooted in a failed effort to bridge idealism and Realpolitik. This was reflected in the tension between national sovereignty and international dependence, between ideological proWestern orientation and non-alignment, and between a democratic open society and military demands for secrecy. This is another indication of the important role of public opinion in the calculations of Nordic policymakers. As Krister Wahlbäck (Swedish Foreign Ministry) pointed out, the Swedish Social Democrats always had to take the left-wing of the party into account in the implementation of Sweden's neutrality policy and make sure that leftist voters did not defect to the Communists. This dilemma of juggling Realpolitik and idealism resulted in excessive secrecy and efforts by political leaders to conceal military contacts with the West from their own party members and the public.

The impact of the Cold War on Nordic culture remains an understudied field. One need not dwell on the pervasive influence of American culture in the Nordic countries. Jussi Hanhimäki (London School of Economics) argued, however, that no major cultural conflicts existed between Scandinavia and the United States during this period.23 There were certainly tensions in some areas, reaching a climax with the near breakdown in Swedish-American relations during the Vietnam War. And the presence of U.S. forces in Iceland was so unpopular that it led to a ban on off-base movements of soldiers. Indeed, as Ólafur Hardarsson (University of Iceland) pointed out, a large majority of the Icelanders wanted to close down the base in Keflavik in 1955 on cultural grounds, according to a secret public opinion poll sponsored by the U.S. Government.24 There were also persistent Nordic criticisms of McCarthyism and the reputedly excessive role of religion, racism, and poverty in American society. Conversely, the Americans found fault with "the godless Middle Way" as expressedstereotypically-in “sin, suicide, socialism, and

smorgasbord." Yet, Hanhimäki maintained that there were many more factors drawing the countries together than apart and that the Scandinavians thought of themselves as part of the same Western value system as the Americans. Soviet cultural influence was, of course, far less pronounced in the Nordic countries. Again, Finland and Iceland seem to have provided the most fertile ground. Given the proximity and close political relations with the Soviet Union, this was logical in the Finnish case. In Iceland, the Soviets were surprisingly active, not least because of the strong position of the Icelandic Socialist Party, because of the high level of trade between the two countries, and because of the U.S. military presence. Apart from funding the activities of the Soviet-Icelandic Friendship Society, the Soviets sponsored lavish cultural events in Iceland. Americans realized that they could did not sit idly by, and what followed was a sort of a Kulturkampf: in the 1950s, both superpowers spent large sums of money to influence the hearts and minds of the Icelanders in the political-cultural sphere. As it turned out, this worked both ways. As Árni Bergmann (University of Iceland) argued, the Soviets began to project an image of Iceland that was far more positive than of Western societies in general.25 To be sure, the Nordic countries in general got much credit for their cultural achievement— and Finland and Sweden some extra bonus for their neutrality policies in the late 1950s. But Iceland was somehow put in a special category in terms of the level of Soviet praise heaped upon its culture.

Given the divergent paths taken by the Nordic countries in the Cold War, one is reluctant to lump them together in a geopolitical sense. Pan-Nordic interests were never allowed to determine the direction of the foreign policies of the states involved. Indeed, the Cold War tended to underscore Nordic disunity rather than harmony. That the Nordic countries belonged to the West, andwith the exception of Finland-were closely integrated into Western economic structures is, of course, a well known fact. Yet, they all had to take into account the policies of the Soviet Union for political, economic, or security reasons. As reluctant participants in the Cold War, they were striving for an imaginary middle ground designed to lessen (or remain aloof from) East-West tensions. For this reason, they could never be taken for granted by the Great Powers. Whether "non-aligned" (Sweden and Finland) or “aligned" (Denmark, Norway, and Iceland), they were dressed in gray—and they adopted a foreign policy stance that closely matched the color, laying somewhere between solidarity and neutrality.

1

Alexei A. Komarov, "From World War II to the Cold War: Soviet Interests in Finland and Norway, 1944-47.”

2 Kimmo Rentola, "The Spring of 1948: Which Way Finland?" 3 Maxim L. Korobochkin, "Soviet Policies toward Finland and Norway, 1947-1953."

* Bent Jensen, "The Soviet Union and Denmark, 1945-1965: Perceptions and Policies."

"Georgi Arbatov, "The Cold War and the Nordic Countries." "K.G.H. Hillingsø, "The Role of Denmark in Warsaw Pact War Plans."

7 Jón Ólafsson, "The Icelandic Socialists in the Fifties: Resisting Petit-Bourgeois Degeneration - The Reasoning Process."

* Memorandum, “Information über ein Gespräch mit Genossen Einar Olgeirsson," 28 September 1961, Nachlaß Walter Ulbricht, 182/1279, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv (Berlin).

9 Jordan Baev, "Two Poles of the Cold War Confrontation in Europe: Bulgaria and the Nordic Countries."

9a

Mikko Majander, "The Finnish Communists and the Soviet Union."

10 Thorsten Boring Olesen, “The Jewel in the Crown': Denmark, the United States, and Greenland, 1941-1951.” "Rolf Tamnes, "Military Buildup and Nordic Stability in the 1970s."

12 Albert Jónsson, "Iceland and Soviet Military Activity During the Second Cold War."

13 Mats Berdal, "Norway and U.S. Maritime Strategy in the 1950s."

14 Bent Jensen, "The Soviet Union and Denmark, 1945-1965: Perceptions and Policies."

15 Poul Villaume, "Reluctant Ideological Cold Warrior: Denmark and U.S./NATO Propaganda Warfare, 1948-1954.” 16 Valur Ingimundarson, "The Illogic of Passivity: The Role of Iceland in NATO and U.S. Strategic Thinking, 1945-1965." 17 Svend Aage Christensen et al.: “Greenland in Danish and American Nuclear Policy, 1951-1968."

18 Valur Ingimundarson, "The Illogic of Passivity."

19 Juhana Aunesluoma, “Limits of Neutrality: Sweden and the Western Powers in the Early Cold War, 1945-54."

20 Mikael af Malmborg, "Neutrality as Political Identity: Sweden in the Cold War."

21 Ingemar Dörfer, "Swedish Neutrality and the Second Cold War."

22 Sune Persson, "Sweden: The Reluctant Peacekeeper." 23 Jussi Hanhimäki, “A Culture Clash? The United States and Scandinavia during the Cold War."

24 Ólafur Th. Hardarsson, “Public Opinion and Iceland's Western Integration."

25 Árni Bergmann, "Soviet Perceptions of Icelandic Culture."

Dr. Valur Ingimundarson teaches at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. He was the main organizer and host of the CWIHP-sponsored conference "The Nordic Countries and the Cold War." He has published extensively on Iceland's and East Germany's role in the Cold War.

By David Wolff

In July 1998 I visited Hanoi to attend the first International Conference of Vietnamese Studies on behalf of the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP). The conference, sponsored by two of Vietnam's most prestigious academic units, the National Centre for Social and Human Sciences and Vietnam National University, was a big success. A projected attendance of 300 mushroomed to 700, drawing attention from governmental top brass. Not only were the proceedings opened by the Prime Minister and a meeting arranged with the Party General Secretary (as described in Vietnam News coverage), but when the conference outgrew the International Convention Center Facilities, it was moved to the National Assembly building, an appropriate setting for what was probably Vietnam's largest and most open exchange of views to date between foreign and Vietnamese academics and specialists in a wide range of fields.

The conference's multiple sections met simultaneously, so I alternated between "Contemporary History" and "Archives." In the former session, papers by Stein Tønnesson, Amer Ramses, and Pierre Asselin highlighted such key Cold War Vietnam subjects as the 1946 Constitution, the expulsion of the Chinese minority, and the life of Le Duan, respectively. David Elliott noted the as yet insufficient answers to the most basic questions about the Southern revolutionary movement, the 1959 decision for armed struggle, and the roots of the Tet offensive. Unfortunately, none of the Vietnamese participants seemed to be in a position to shed new light on any of these issues.

The Archives session, chaired by the general director of the archival administration, Dr. Duong Van Kham, covered matters from antiquity to the present. Of greatest interest was the paper by the director of National Archives Center No. 3, Nguyen Thi Man, describing the holdings of her repository. These materials cover the governmental files of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (later, Socialist Republic of Vietnam) from 1945 until 10 October 1995, the founding date of Archives No. 3. Nguyen expressed the wish that "cooperative relation[s] between Archives of the [foreign] countries would be broadened," while assuring that Archives No. 3 was "ready to serve all kinds of readers who come to us to do research about Vietnam."

Although it should be mentioned that Archives 3 does not contain documents from the Communist Party (Lao Dong; Vietnamese Workers' Party), the Army or the Foreign Ministry, materials from the National Assembly, Government Council and Premier's Office may add to our knowledge of Cold War topics related to Southeast Asia.

In the hopes that the recent opening of Archives No. 3 will inspire scholars to try to make use of this new resource for contemporary history, I will conclude this brief note with a rough translation of the general, handwritten finding aid as provided in the archive's reading room. Please forward updates on holdings that you may receive to CWIHP. In 1999-2000, CWIHP will be preparing a special Bulletin issue on the Cold War in Southeast Asia and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars. All those with new documents or other suggested contributions are invited to contact CWIHP.

National Archives Center No. 3 - Finding Aid (Excerpt)

1. Industry Ministry 2. Finance Ministry 3. Heavy Industry 4. Light Industry [...]

6. Ministry of Food and Food Processing 7. Labor

8. Communications 9. Water Resources

10. Public Works

11. Water Resources

12. Water Resources and Construction

13. Veterans Affairs

14. Economics

15. Commerce

16, 18, 27, 31. Communications [...]

19. Statistics

20. Food

20b. Prime Minister

21. Land/Water Transport

22. Commerce Commission

23. State Planning

24. American Imperialist Crimes in Vietnam 25. Denunciations of American and Puppet Crimes 26. Committee to Protect Mothers and Children 28. NW Autonomous Region Communications Office 29. Railroad Bureau

30. Nha Cong chinh

32. Water Resources

33. Central Statistical Office

34. Minerals

35.-41. Resistance and Administration in Nambo (1945-54)

By Nina Tannenwald

n 7-10 May 1998, a dozen former Soviet and Reagan administration high-ranking officials convened at Brown University in Providence, RI, for a three-and-a-half-day conference reexamining key issues and events leading to the end of the Cold War, focusing on the years 1980-87. The conference, the first in a series of four conferences that will probe key causes of the end of the Cold War, was sponsored by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, and the Mershon Center at Ohio State University. Participants included both former policymakers of the Reagan administration and the Gorbachev government, as well as academic experts in Soviet and post-Soviet studies and international relations. A briefing book of newly declassified documents from Russian and U.S. archives, assembled by the National Security Archive and the Cold War International History Project, provided the documentary basis for the discussions. Especially noteworthy were extensive excerpts of the diary notes of Anatoly Chernyaev, senior foreign policy adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev, on Politburo sessions. A number of newly declassified U.S. documents, including the background materials for the 1986 Reykjavik summit, were also made available.

The U.S. side was represented by Michael Guhin, counselor in the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Douglas MacEachin, Soviet analyst at the CIA during the early 1980s; Jack Matlock, Jr., the Soviet specialist on President Reagan's National Security Council and then U.S. Ambassador to Moscow from 1987-1991; Robert McFarlane, National Security Adviser 1983-86; General Edward Rowny, chief U.S. negotiator on the START talks; and John Whitehead, deputy to Secretary of State George Shultz.

The former Soviet participants included the senior foreign policy advisers to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, Anatoly Chernyaev and Georgy Shakhnazarov; Sergei Tarasenko, chief foreign policy adviser to Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze; Oleg Grinevsky, ambassador and head of the Soviet delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) arms control negotiations in Stockholm from 1983-86; General Nikolai Detinov, arms control expert in

the Soviet Ministry of Defense; and Gen. Vladimir Slipchenko, a military scientist who served on the general staff. Yegor Ligachev, secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee [CPSU CC] and the "number two" man in the Soviet government, was expected but had to cancel at the last minute for health reasons.

Absent from the conference were the hardliners within the Soviet leadership, those who had disagreed with Gorbachev's reformist course. Four conservatives who declined to attend (Oleg Baklanov, CPSU CC secretary of defense and a key figure resisting Gorbachev's reforms; Army Gen. Valentin Varennikov; and top KGB officials Vladimir Kryuchkov and Nicolai Leonov) stated in a joint letter to the organizers that they were very interested in the project in principle and pleased to be invited, but had two objections: they were offended by being asked to sit at the same table as close associates of Gorbachev (who they feel "lost" the Soviet Union), and they felt that the Cold War was not over yet. In their view, what needed to be explored were links between the end of the Cold War and current US-Russian relations - an issue which came up near the end of the conference.

The conference began by examining the initial mindsets on both sides at the beginning of the 1980s and the rise of Gorbachev. A fair amount is already known about this early period, and the session covered a certain amount of familiar terrain, as participants easily fell into their old roles and found themselves arguing old debates about who was ahead or behind in the arms race in the early 1980s and about measures of the strategic balance.

The most revealing new information emerged on the Soviet side. The conference filled in gaps in several areas, particularly on the national security decisions were made in the Soviet Union. We learned some interesting details about the role of Marshal Akhromeev, Chief of the General Staff, and the origins of Soviet arms control policies. For example, Sergei Tarasenko recounted for the first time the origins of Gorbachev's proposal to abolish all nuclear weapons. He and a colleague originally came up with the idea in April 1985, but it later surfaced as an official proposal from Akhromeev in December 1985. It was thus "planted" in the military, contradicting Ahkromeev's account in his memoirs, that this was the