Interview with Valentin Falin, 1986 [2]
Item Information
- Title:
- Interview with Valentin Falin, 1986 [2]
- Description:
-
Valentin Falin was an influential career Soviet diplomat, and later journalist, who specialized in European and particularly German affairs for most of the Cold War. In this interview he details the German problem, during which, he alleges, the U.S. pushed for imposing decisions on the Germans and recreating the German military for its own objectives. He provides personal recollections on German rearmament, including the deep concerns generated by what he describes as American plans to use ex-Nazis to rebuild the country's military capabilities. By contrast, he asserts, the USSR initially hoped only for the creation of a neutral and friendly German state along with other unaligned states in the region. The Marshall Plan, he declares, was primarily a means of forcing Europe to toe the American political line. He describes a "complex" Soviet reaction to the formation of NATO and the decision later to create the Warsaw Pact, challenging Western portrayals of the threat posed by Soviet forces after the war. He also offers a description of nuclear developments in the late 1940s, including his views on the formation of British and French atomic forces. The Suez and Berlin crises are also discussed from the point of view of Soviet thinking, as is the 1961 Vienna summit. On nuclear issues, Mr. Falin provides Moscow's conceptions of the Cuban missile crisis and of America's massive retaliation and flexible response strategies. He also reviews the Sino-Soviet split and the Korean war, including the threat of nuclear deployments during that period. He closes with a description of the Czechoslovak coup of 1948.
- Interviewee:
- Falin, V. M.
- Date:
-
December 9, 1986
- Format:
-
Film/Video
- Location:
- WGBH
- Collection (local):
-
WGBH Open Vault
- Series:
- War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
- Subjects:
-
German rearmament
Soviet Union
Massive retaliation (Nuclear strategy)
Yalta Conference (1945)
Czechoslovakia--History--Coup dÂ’etat, 1948
Potsdam Conference (1945 : Potsdam, Germany)
Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
Marshall Plan
Warsaw Treaty Organization
Flexible response (Nuclear strategy)
Berlin (Germany)--History--Crisis, 1961
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Korean War, 1950-1953
Sinai Campaign, 1956, Israel--History--Suez Campaign, 1956
Great Britain
Byrnes, James F. (James Francis), 1882-1972
Dulles, John Foster, 1888-1959
Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972
Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 1894-1971
McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969
- Places:
-
Belarus
China
France
United States
Moscow, USSR
- Extent:
- 01:00:13:27
- Link to Item:
- http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_1008082DBA5E43558D585CE8795C35FD
- Terms of Use:
-
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
- Publisher:
-
WGBH Educational Foundation
- Identifier:
-
V_1008082DBA5E43558D585CE8795C35FD