Yale Richmond on the Cold War

E-mail message from Yale Richmond:

"Patricia Kushlis of Whirled View says she has not seen any evidence that foreign radios caused the downfall of the Soviet Union. She will also not see any evidence that the Soviet downfall was caused by U.S.-Soviet scholarly and scientific exchanges, U.S exhibitions, American jazz bands, Hollywood movies, the Amerika magazines read by Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders, or even rock’n roll. Yet, when you add up all those exchanges with the Soviet Union over the years following the death of Stalin, plus similar exchanges conducted by the West Europeans, it can be argued that cultural exchanges were one of several factors that, taken all together, led to Soviet reforms that eventually brought about the downfall of the entire communist system. For more on this read my keynote address, “Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: How the West Won,” delivered October 30 at a conference in Helsinki held by the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki."