3 March 2006

International Conference “From Fulton to Malta: How the Cold War Began and Ended” at the Gorbachev Foundation

     On March 1, 2006, the Gorbachev Foundation hosted the international conference “From Fulton to Malta: How the Cold War Began and Ended.” 

     The speakers at the Conference included prominent political leaders of the 20th century Former German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Lothar de Maizière, former Prime Minister of Eastern Germany and Co-Chairman of the Petersburg Dialogue Russian-German Public Forum and authoritative experts in international affairs from Russia, the United States, Great Britain and France: Professor Viktor Kuvaldin, the Gorbachev Foundation; Christian Ostermann, Director, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson Center, USA; Mikhail Narinsky, Professor, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations; Dr. Pavel Gudev, Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Science; Dr. Aleksandr Bessmertnykh, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR; James G. Hersberg, Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, George Washington University, USA; Nikolai Shmelev, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Vladimir Pechatnov, Professor, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations; Natalia Yegorova, Professor, Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Boris Shiryayev, Professor, the Saint-Petersburg State University; Nikita Zagladin, Professor, the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russia; Professor Anatoly Chernyayev, the Gorbachev Foundation; Dr. Andrei Grachev, Chairman, Scientific Committee, the World Political Forum; Professor Sergey Rogov, Institute for the U.S. and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Dr. Anatoly Adamishin, former Deputy Foreign Minister of the USSR and former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Italy; Archie Brown, Professor, Oxford University, UK; Marie-Pierre Rey, Professor, Université de Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, France; Bill Taubman,  Professor, Amherst College, USA; Professor Fedor Burlatsky, Russia; Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya, Director for Cooperative Projects with Russian Archives and Institutes, the National Security Archive, USA; Aleksandr Nekipelov, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Joseph Nye, Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA; Alexey Bogaturov, Professor, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations; Stephen Cohen, Professor, New York University, USA; Dr. Fedor Lukianov, Editor-in-Chief, journal Russia in Global World; Professor Vyacheslav Nikonov, President, Politika Foundation, Russia; Professor Lilia Shevtsova, Senior Associate, Carnegie Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Russia; Dr. Pavel Palazhchenko, the Gorbachev Foundation; Professor Vladimir Suprun, Director, the Trends Foundation, Russia; and Vladimir Baranovsky, Professor, the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russia.

     The themes discussed at the conference included: the Sources and Causes of the Cold War; New Sources on the Cold War; Origins of the Cold War; North Atlantic Treaty organization: From the Cold War to Detente (1950-1960); Moscow and Mediation: New Evidence on the Soviet-bloc and Conflict Limitation and Termination during the Cold War—the Case of the Vietnam War; How the Cold War Ended; End of the Cold War: History and the Myths; End of the Cold War: Сauses and the Consequences; the Cold War and the Contemporary World; Lessons of the Cold War for the Contemporary World; Did the Cold War Ever Really End?; and Memory about the Cold War as a Factor of Contemporary Politics.

     Opening the Conference Mikhail Gorbachev in his introductory remarks described its genre as an investigation into and reflection on one of the most dramatic and contradictory eras in the history of the 20th century: “The balance in the range of issues to be discussed at the Conference is strongly tilted towards history. Perhaps, this is right and we will finally understand what grew from what and what it led to. We all used to be part of one or another political and ideological system – and we still are trying to leave that system behind. I feel it both here, in Russia, and in the West. Stereotypes are a disastrous thing. And myths are even more so. How many more new myths have emerged! Therefore, historical facts will certainly add to our knowledge of real processes and events which many of us were witnesses to and a part of.”
     A verbatim record of the Conference will be posted on our Web-site shortly.
     Proceedings of the Conference will be published by the Gorbachev Foundation as a separate brochure.