Assessing the Soviet Threat: The Early Cold War Years October 24, 1997 Central Intelligence Agency Auditorium

To View Program To View Book: Assessing the Soviet Threat: The Early Cold War Years, 1997

This very popular one-day public conference, sponsored in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Central Intelligence Agency, focused on the first five years of the Cold War and the intelligence the CIA and its predecessor, the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), provided to President Truman. Academics, CIA officers and former administration officials had the chance to address questions like:

How did CIA analysts get their story to the President, and what CIA information did he use?
How accurate was the Agency’s analysis of the Communist expansion in Eastern Europe and of the threat to Western Europe?
What did the CIA tell President Truman about the threat of a Soviet attack?
What assessments did the Agency make before and during the Korean war?
How did CIA evaluate Soviet ties to the Chinese and Vietnamese Communists?

A centerpiece of the conference was an anthology compiled and edited by Dr. Woodrow Kuhns, a staff historian at CSI. That volume, entitled “The Early Cold War Years: Assessing the Soviet Threat,” contained the texts of more than 200 declassified daily and weekly “Summaries” prepared for the President by CIA and CIG on Cold War-related development.

Highlights of the conference included an address by former State Department Policy Planning Director, Paul Nitze and a taped phone address by Ambassador George Kennan. In addition, the book of newly declassified documents from the late 1940s provided unique insight into the Agency’s analytic beginnings.

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