Interview with Valentin Falin, 1986 [1]

Item Information

Title:
Interview with Valentin Falin, 1986 [1]
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 recalls the onset of the Cold War whose roots, he believes, are to be found in World War II itself. He cites the Soviets' concerns about threatening views they believed were held by influential figures in the U.S. government as early as 1943, calling for Washington to control Europe after the war and to turn German power against the Soviet Union for that purpose. He points to the impact of nuclear weapons and the arms race, among other factors, on the development of these attitudes, which he says resulted in a divided Europe by the time the superpowers could agree on conditions for reducing tensions. World War II, he notes, helped create a broad international coalition of leftist forces, including the communists whom he calls an important "corrective element" in the bourgeois system. He discusses events in Greece and Austria in the war's aftermath as well as the Suez crisis of 1956 and its implications for future events in the region. As a participant in the 1961 Vienna summit, he offers his recollections of the meeting and the atmosphere at the time, then comments on the Cuban missile crisis before turning briefly to the question of MAD, of which he says the Soviets were always critical.
Interviewee:
Falin, V. M.
Date:
April 7, 1986
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
U-2 (Reconnaissance aircraft)
Berlin (Germany)--History--Blockade, 1948-1949
World War II
Mutual assured destruction
Cold War
Communism
Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
Soviet Union
Photographic reconnaissance systems
Berlin (Germany)--History--Crisis, 1961
Sinai Campaign, 1956, Israel--History--Suez Campaign, 1956
Great Britain
Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961)
Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 1894-1971
Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945
Powers, Francis Gary, 1929-1977
Donovan, William J. (William Joseph), 1883-1959
Places:
Belarus
New York > Monroe (county) > Greece
France
Austria
Israel
Moscow, USSR
Extent:
00:49:57:00
Link to Item:
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_9C935351D7E2443FA1AC49509AC83C7F
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_9C935351D7E2443FA1AC49509AC83C7F