Description

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Czech Republic, on the testimonies of high ranking officers who served in the U.S. Embassy from 1945 to 1948, and on unpublished manuscripts, diaries, and memoirs.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.

Features

• Based on new archival documents from the United States and Prague and offers personal testimonies of U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers who served in the U.S. Embassy,
• Highly narrative account, featuring colorful portraits of key players.
• Author is respected senior scholar of Czech history.

Reviews

"With inventive research and skillful storytelling, Igor Lukes reconstructs the crucial Cold War history of Czechoslovakia between the collapse of the Third Reich and the momentous February 1948 Czech coup. A striking cast of characters--adventurous spies, naive diplomats, secret police rogues, and seductive women--inhabits this intriguing, if ultimately tragic, tale of the fecklessness of the U.S. government when facing the destruction of Czechoslovak democracy." --Norman M. Naimark, Stanford University

"Though full of thrilling detail, this excellent history of the failure of American diplomats and spies to support Czechoslovak democracy before the communist takeover is ultimately quite sobering. Deep research in both American and Czech archives reveals some of the lessons that Americans had to learn in order to become a great power." --Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands

"Espionage and intelligence-gathering have often been described as the 'missing dimension' in the historiography of the Cold War. Igor Lukes's fascinating book fills in this dimension in great detail. By showing how U.S. intelligence agencies went astray in early postwar Czechoslovakia, Lukes's gripping narrative sheds invaluable light on the initial years of the Cold War." --Mark Kramer, Cold War Studies Program, Harvard University

"Superb and unique--I know of no account of the Cold War's beginnings as vivid and entertaining as this or as full of lessons and warnings for today. Igor Lukes presents these three postwar years as a high-stake drama, full of suspense. Had that drama ended differently--and he reminds us that it could have--it would have changed the shape of the Cold War that was to beset the world for two generations. With sinking hearts we watch Czechoslovak democracy--this pivot point, this 'master key to Europe'--being lost, step by step, by wrong-headed Western policies, naivete, lack of will, and inept intelligence work." --Tennent H. Bagley, author of Spy Wars

"Unique among studies of the history of the Cold War, Lukes's book is a penetrating account of the human cost of U.S. diplomacy and intelligence for their practitioners as well as their unintended victims during the formative period of the global conflict. A result of prodigious multi-archival research, the absorbing narrative puts the catalytic role of Czechoslovakia into a new light." --Vojtech Mastny, author of The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity

Product Details

296 pages; 10 halftones; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-516679-8ISBN10: 0-19-516679-5

About the Author(s)