American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) Support. The Inside the Cold War: from Marx to Reagan project has relied critically on the support of the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) and its president, and valued long-time friend, Herman Pirchner, Jr. with whom the author has participated in many U.S. and international conferences and exchanges involving defense and foreign policy issues. The current book was preceded in the year 1999 by a Smith Richardson Foundation-supported CD-ROM titled “How the Soviet Union Fought the Cold War” that sought to introduce new generations to core neglected realities and official primary source documents of the Cold War. The disc featured a short analysis and a unique digital document library of hundreds of Reagan public presidential statements and largely unknown Reagan Administration public diplomacy documents collected by the author. These documents detailed unprecedented official U.S. depictions of the Soviet Union’s global ideological and imperial Cold War challenge to peace and freedom through its doctrines, weapons, “national liberation war” insurgencies, and “active measures” intelligence operations including deceptions, propaganda and fronts.

 

Project Expansion and Support. In the years since then, the author’s plans for an expanded follow-on project were postponed and altered by his return to government service for almost five years after the terror attacks of 9/11/01 and by subsequent illness. During these years, threatening global developments and the author’s policy experience, document research, and concerns expanded into the comprehensive present book and its associated Internet website and document library that contains extensive additional reference materials and digital copies of all of the over 900 official documents referenced in the book. The book’s comprehensive historical narrative and primary source documents uniquely review key principles and realities of the Cold War’s Marxist-Leninist ideological roots and modern totalitarian context, faltering U.S. Cold War strategies before Reagan, and Reagan’s revolutionary winning Cold War grand strategy. It fills large information gaps on major Cold War policy controversies and brings lessons for dealing with rising contemporary threats. During this period, the Smith Richardson Foundation and later the Earhart Foundation provided vital funds to enable  the AFPC to provide technical staff assistance to the author for scanning the official declassified documents from the U.S. National Archives and for implementing the author’s design for the book’s briefing and seminar style formats and its associated internet web site and document library.

 

AFPC Review Process. During the last two years, AFPC fellows and recognized experts including Steven Blank, John Dziak, Peter Huessey, Wayne Merry, Herman Pirchner, and Michael Waller have contributed thoughtful comments on drafts of individual chapters and Elizabeth Wood contributed her exceptional editing skills throughout. In addition, AFPC Vice President Ilan Berman and senior staff members Jeff M. Smith and Richard Harrison worked with AFPC intern researchers to assure the accuracy of hundreds of document citations in the text and endnotes on all cited documents. During the past several years, strong technical support was provided by a sequence of AFPC Junior Fellows: Margot van Loon and Nicholas Grothaus, and Research Associates Amanda Lamb and Maxim Rusnak, each of whom worked with the author for significant portions of their AFPC time. Indispensable to the author’s work was the extraordinary skill and heroic effort during the past year and a half by AFPC Junior Fellow Jared Swanson in the constant and complex updating of the text and package for the publisher, the University Press of America, Inc. Kara Hericks, and Jodi Brignola, contributed importantly to the author's document review, supported by intern researchers Benjamin Ridder, Jason Czerwiec, Jacob Gladysz, and Dmytro Hryckowian. Amanda Azinheira, Richard Harrison, and web designer Tzeitel Sorrosa were critical to the documentation and preparation of the book’s associated website InsidetheColdWar.org. 

 

U.S. National Archives and other Sources and Recommended Readings. The unclassified presidential and other official public statements and public diplomacy reports were gathered by the author over a period of several decades. The redacted/declassified official documents referenced in this book were provided to the author during his research at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland and at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. At the Reagan Library, the Deputy Director, Michael Duggan, has been particularly helpful in facilitating the author’s research throughout many visits. In recent years the National Archive libraries have also made an increasing number of digitized documents available directly through Internet websites.

 

In the interest of historical accuracy in presenting the realities of complex and controversial Cold War ideologies and developments, the author has purposely emphasized authoritative declassified official primary source documents and public diplomacy reports largely ignored by academic, media and policy communities that generally focus on narrow topics and formats and secondary readings. The author has also benefitted from