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On the Edge of the Cold War - American Diplomats and Spies in Postwar Prague (Paperback)
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On the Edge of the Cold War - American Diplomats and Spies in Postwar Prague (Paperback)
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In 1945, both the U.S. State Department and U.S. Intelligence saw
Czechoslovakia as the master key to the balance of power in Europe
and as a chessboard for the power-game between East and West.
Washington believed that the political scene in Prague was the best
available indicator of whether the United States would be able to
coexist with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. In this book, Igor Lukes
illuminates the end of World War II and the early stages of the
Cold War in Prague, showing why the United States failed to prevent
Czechoslovakia from being absorbed into the Soviet bloc. He draws
on documents from archives in the United States and the Czech
Republic, on the testimonies of high ranking officers who served in
the U.S. Embassy from 1945 to 1948, and on unpublished manuscripts,
diaries, and memoirs. Exploiting this wealth of evidence, Lukes
paints a critical portrait of Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt. He
shows that Steinhardt's groundless optimism caused Washington to
ignore clear signs that democracy in Czechoslovakia was in trouble.
Although U.S. Intelligence officials who served in Prague were
committed to the mission of gathering information and protecting
democracy, they were defeated by the Czech and Soviet clandestine
services that proved to be more shrewd, innovative, and eager to
win. Indeed, Lukes reveals that a key American officer may have
been turned by the Russians. For all these reasons, when the
Communists moved to impose their dictatorship, the U.S. Embassy and
its CIA section were unprepared and powerless. The fall of
Czechoslovakia in 1948 helped deepen Cold War tensions for decades
to come. Vividly written and filled with colorful portraits of the
key participants, On the Edge of the Cold War offers an
authoritative account of this key foreign policy debacle.
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