At Cold War's End; US Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991

Washington, DC: CIA History Staff, 1999. Presumed First Edition, First printing Thus. Trade paperback. Very good. Quarto, 378 pages, wraps, maps, footnotes, charts, slight wear to covers and spine. Benjamin B. Fischer has worked for the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for nearly 30 years. He worked at the Center for the Study of Intelligence. The White House Millennium Council selected At Cold War's End: US Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991 (1999) for inclusion in a time capsule at the National Archives to be opened in 2100. Includes Foreword, Preface, Chronology, Appendix, Documents: A Compendium of National Intelligence Estimates and Assessments; The Soviet Crisis: Gorbachevv and the Perils of Perestroika, The End of Empire: Eastern Europe, The End of Empire II: National Secession and Ethnic Conflict in the USSR; "New Thinking": Soviet Foreign Relations; The Military Balance I: Conventional Forces in Europe; and The Military Balance II: Strategic Nuclear Weapons. Collection of declassified intelligence estimates. The declassification and release of these documents marks a new stage in the CIA's commitment to openness. The Agency has only rarely declassified and made available to the public and to scholars Cold War records of such recent vintage. The Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) of the Central Intelligence Agency and the George W. Bush Center for Presidential Studies at Texas A&M University co-sponsored a conference on "US Intelligence and the End of the Cold War" on the Texas A&M University campus at College Station from 18 to 20 November 1999. As a contribution to the conference, CSI prepared a compendium of newly declassified US intelligence documents covering the years 1989-1991. This period encompassed events in the USSR and Eastern Europe that transformed the postwar world and much of the 20th century's geopolitical landscape. It was a time when the tempo of history accelerated so rapidly that, as one historian put it, events seemed to be moving beyond human control, if not human comprehension. Benjamin B. Fischer of CIA's History Staff selected, edited, and wrote the preface to the National Intelligence Estimates and other intelligence assessments included in this companion volume. The Agency has only rarely declassified and made available to the public and to scholars Cold War records of such recent vintage. The new release complements and supplements the previous declassification of more than 550 National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) and Special National Intelligence Estimates (SNIEs) on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from 1946 to 1985. Two of the documents reprinted in this volume originated with CIA's Office of Soviet Analysis (SOVA). Both have been cited in accounts of US-Soviet relations during the Bush administration and have been discussed elsewhere. The complete texts appear here for the first time. Mr. Fischer tried to identify and release the most important analysis available for this period. His selection is comprehensive. Some of the documents, especially those on military-strategic subjects, were only partially declassified, since they contain data from still-sensitive sources and methods. Readers should understand, however, that even the portions reprinted here contain information that until recently was highly classified. We want to note, in addition, that we have selected only estimates and assessments prepared during the Bush administration. The focus is exclusively on what was written during 1989-1991.