Archie Brown - The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

African National Congress

British Broadcasting Corporation Summary of World Broadcasts

Central Committee [of Communist Party]

Conventional Forces in Europe

Central Intelligence Agency (US foreign intelligence service)

Commonwealth of Independent States

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (of USSR and Eastern Europe, known in the West as Comecon)

Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls

Centre for Policy Studies (UK)

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe

Federal Bureau of Investigation (US domestic intelligence and security organization)

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (USA)

Foreign and Commonwealth Office (UK) [also FO, Foreign Office]

Freedom of Information (Act, UK)

Federal German Republic (West Germany, prior to German unification, and united Germany today)

Government Communications Headquarters (UK government intelligence-gathering organization)

German Democratic Republic (East Germany when under Communist rule)

transparency, openness

State Planning Committee of USSR

Hoover Institution Archives (Stanford, California)

intercontinental ballistic missile

International Department (of the Central Committee of the CPSU)

Institute of World Economy and International Relations

intermediate-range nuclear forces

researchers in academic, especially policy-related, institutes

Komitet gusudarstvennoy bezopastnosti (Committee of State Security)

Mutually Assured Destruction

memorandum of conversation

Soviet specialists on international affairs

Ministry of Foreign Affairs (USSR)

common name for UK Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)

Multiple Independently Targeted Re-Entry Vehicle

Narodnyy komissariat vnutrennikh del (Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs, a forerunner of the KGB)

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

National Intelligence Estimate (USA)

National Security Agency (US Department of Defense)

National Security Archive (George Washington University)

National Security Council (USA)

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (formerly CSCE)

reconstruction; and the name for the period (198591) when Mikhail Gorbachev was Soviet leader

Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party)

Royal United Services Institute (UK)

Screen Actors Guild

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

Strategic Defense Initiative (Reagans anti-ballistic missile project)

Russian term for those who work in agencies with coercive force at their disposal (internal security forces and the military), also known as the power ministries

submarine-launched ballistic missile

Strategic Arms Reduction Talks

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union)

Collective defence treaty of Soviet and East European Communist states

I use East Europe, with capital letters, to refer to that part of Europe under Communist rule. This term was in use throughout the Cold War to describe what was a political, rather than geographical, entity. East (or Eastern) Europe contained both east and central European states, but the longer and geographically more precise wording is used only occasionally in the book, for its repetition would be a cumbersome substitute for the easily understood politically defined term. For the post-Communist period, in contrast, it would be nonsensical to refer to the Czech Republic (for example) as part of east (or East) Europe.

There is always a tension between consistency and familiarity in transliteration from Russian, especially where peoples names are concerned. In the bibliographical references in the endnotes and, for the most part, in the main text, I have used y for and also for , yu for , ya for , and iy for . I have made exceptions, however. Thus, Andrei Gromyko and Andrei Sakharov were better known in the West as Andrei than as Andrey and they remain Andrei in this book. With names such as Georgiy and Anatoliy, I have preferred familiarity to precise transliteration: thus, Georgy and Anatoly. Use of the Russian soft sign has been avoided, other than in the endnote referencesthus, Yeltsin rather than Yeltsin and glasnost rather than glasnost