Editor's Note

Editor’s Note

This issue begins with a detailed article by Piero Gleijeses on Cuba’s policy in Africa from 1975 to 1988. The central Cuban archives in Havana are off-limits to almost everyone (whether from Cuba or from abroad), but Gleijeses somehow managed to obtain access to large collections of Cuban documents from the whole

Cold War period and has supplemented them with materials from U.S. archives and Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/8/2/1/700504/jcws.2006.8.2.1.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 the former East German archives. Gleijeses is currently working on a book about Cu- ban policy in Africa in the 1970s and 1980s—a sequel to his 2002 monograph, Conºicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976, published by the University of North Carolina Press. After the new book appears, all the documents he cites here will be made generally available. That way, other scholars will be able to re- trace and check his research. Even before that, however, the lengthy passages Gleijeses quotes from key Cuban (and U.S. and East German) documents will give other scholars a wealth of untapped material about Cuban policy in Africa and U.S.-Cuban rela- tions. I was particularly struck by Gleijeses’s account of the meeting between Cuban and Angolan leaders in March 1984, a month after Angola had signed the Lusaka ac- cord with South Africa. The Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, was deeply annoyed by the Lusaka agreement, and he did not conceal his irritation when addressing his guests. The transcript of his remarks, cited almost in full by Gleijeses, underscores the hierar- chical nature of the Cuban-Angolan relationship. Although Gleijeses depicts Cuban policy in a much more favorable light than I would, the documentary evidence he ad- duces is fascinating. The quoted passages in his article will be an invaluable resource for other scholars, including those who disagree with some of Gleijeses’s interpreta- tions. The next article, by William Odom, explains how U.S. military operations in the Gulf region and Southwest Asia after the Cold War depended on programs launched many years earlier by the Carter administration. Although the United States did not establish a uniªed command structure for the region before Jimmy Carter left ofªce, the origins of the U.S. Central Command lie in key decisions made in 1979 and 1980. Odom’s account is based in part on archival documentation and in part on his own recollections and papers from his time as a senior national security ofªcial in the late 1970s and 1980s. He outlines the conceptual, bureaucratic, and foreign dimen- sions of the story, showing how the National Security Council staff sought to over- come the many obstacles that arose both in Washington and abroad. The third article, by Hal Brands, shows how U.S. policy on nuclear nonproliferation changed signiªcantly during the administration of Lyndon Johnson. When John- son came to ofªce in late 1963, the United States was still supporting a Multilateral Force (MLF) that would have entailed the sharing of nuclear command authority with Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 8, No. 2, Spring 2006, pp. 1–2 © 2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1 Editor’s Note

West European allies. The growing problems besetting the MLF proposal in 1964, China’s detonation of a nuclear bomb in October 1964, and a number of other factors induced Johnson to set up a special committee in November 1964 under Roswell Gilpatric to reexamine U.S. nonproliferation strategy and to recommend new policies that could halt the spread of nuclear weapons. The committee recommended major changes in U.S. strategy, urging the administration to deemphasize (and if necessary forsake) the MLF, to adopt a mixture of incentives and penalties to discourage coun- tries from acquiring nuclear weapons, and to pursue a formal Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) with cooperation from the Soviet Union. The committee’s report proved con- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/8/2/1/700504/jcws.2006.8.2.1.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 troversial within the administration, especially at the State Department, where many ofªcials still backed the MLF and were wary of enlisting Moscow’s support for an NPT. But Johnson himself soon endorsed the report and implemented a number of its key recommendations. Although the administration’s new strategy did not go as far as Gilpatric had hoped, it did mark a far-reaching shift in U.S. efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and pursue arms control with the Soviet Union. The ªnal article, a review essay by Richard Drake, assesses four recently published books that look back on an incident that remains highly controversial in Italy to this day. In 1978 the Red Brigade terrorist organization kidnapped and subsequently executed Aldo Moro, who had served several terms as prime minister and was the most prominent political ªgure in Italy. The Italian government’s refusal to negotiate with the terrorists, and the failure of the Italian police to locate the terrorists in time to prevent Moro’s murder, gave rise to conspiracy theories in Italy involving Cold War politics and allegations of complicity by sinister forces, both foreign and domestic. Ju- dicial and scholarly investigations have repeatedly and conclusively shown that in fact the Red Brigades acted on their own and killed Moro in the hope of sparking a Com- munist revolution. No credible evidence has emerged to support any of the conspiracy theories. But these theories have proven tenacious in Italy itself (much as the Kennedy assassination remains the subject of wild speculation in the United States), and a ma- jority of Italians continue to subscribe to them. Drake provides an insightful overview of the incident and the obfuscations that now surround it. The issue concludes with a section of twenty-seven book reviews.

In July 2005, George Kolt, a former U.S. Air Force ofªcer and analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), died at age 66 after a long battle against cancer. I had known George for more than ªfteen years, beginning around the time he became the chief intelligence analyst covering the Soviet Union. The cancer was ªrst diag- nosed in 2000, but George continued to work for the CIA until his retirement in 2004. In the months before he died, he was planning to help organize a conference that would look back at the CIA’s assessments of the Soviet Union. I regret that he will be unable to contribute his insights to the conference, which is tentatively planned for the spring of 2007. More important, though, I regret losing a kind, amiable, and in- telligent friend.