America and Romania in the
Cold War
This book examines the US foreign policy of differentiation towards the socialist regimes of Eastern Europe as it was implemented by various administrations towards Ceausescus Romania from 1969 to 1980.
Drawing from multi-archival research from both US and Romanian sources, this is the first comprehensive analysis of differentiation and shows that Washingtons Eastern European policy in the 1970s was more nuanced than the common East vs. West narrative suggests. By examining systemic Cold War factors such as the rise of dtente between the two superpowers and the role of agency, the study deals with the dynamics that shaped the evolution of AmericanRomanian relations after Bucharests opening towards the West, and the subsequent embrace of this initiative by Washington as an instrument to undermine the unity of the Soviet bloc. Furthermore, it revises interpretations about Carters celebrated human rights policy based on the Romanian case, pointing towards a remarkable continuity between the three administrations under examination (Nixon, Ford and Carter). By doing so, this study contributes to the field by highlighting a largely neglected aspect of US foreign policy and uncovers the subtleties of Washingtons relations with one of the most vigorous actors of the Eastern European bloc.
This book will be of much interest to students of Cold War Studies, US foreign policy, Eastern European politics and International Relations in general.
Paschalis Pechlivanis is a Lecturer in the History of International Relations at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Bucharest, Romania.
Cold War History
Series editors:
Odd Arne Westad
John F. Kennedy School of Government, USA
Michael Cox
London School of Economics & Political Science, UK
In the new history of the Cold War that has been forming since 1989, many of the established truths about the international conflict that shaped the latter half of the twentieth century have come up for revision. The present series is an attempt to make interpretations and materials available that will further help the development of this new history, and it will concentrate in particular on the publishing expositions of key historical issues and critical surveys of newly available sources.
Origins of the North Korean Garrison State
The Peoples Army and the Korean War
Youngjun Kim
German Reunification
A multinational history
Edited by Frdric Bozo, Andreas Rdder and Mary Elise Sarotte
New Perspectives on the End of the Cold War
Unexpected Transformations?
Edited by Bernhard Blumenau, Jussi M. Hanhimki and Barbara Zanchetta
The Diplomacy of Dtente
Cooperative Security Policies from Helmut Schmidt to George Shultz
Stephan Kieninger
America and Romania in the Cold War
A Differentiated Dtente, 196980
Paschalis Pechlivanis
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Cold-War-History/book-series/SE0220
America and Romania in the
Cold War
A Differentiated Dtente, 196980
Paschalis Pechlivanis
First published 2019
by Routledge
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2019 Paschalis Pechlivanis
The right of Paschalis Pechlivanis to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-39371-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-40159-6 (ebk)
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This book has been published with a financial subsidy from the European University Institute
To Sanne, ....
Contents
It is often said that writing a book is a lonely process. My experience has proven otherwise. This monograph is based on my PhD thesis, which was defended at the European University Institute, Florence, in 2017. In the course of the almost five years of research, many people contributed, consciously or unconsciously, to the completion of this book and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them.
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my PhD supervisor Federico Romero for giving me the opportunity to pursue my research in the first place and for his guidance, advice and help. Having a supervisor who is always available to answer every question you might have and always willing to meet you in the shortest notice is a rarity and a privilege in academia, and I am grateful for this. I would also like to thank the members of my examination committee Youssef Cassis, Mario Del Pero and Svetozar Rajak as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable and insightful comments and suggestions. I am also indebted to all the people who have read, commented, advised or discussed parts of my thesis: Angela Romano, Dennis Deletant, Eirini Karamouzi, Mary Nolan, Mircea Raceanu, Ioannis Stefanidis and Campbell Craig. I also thank Serena Belligoli and Anna Coda Nunziante for their logistic support. I am also grateful to the editing team at Routledge, Andrew Humphrys and Bethany Lund Yates, for their excellent cooperation.
Since my graduation, Utrecht University has been my academic home, and I would like to especially thank Beatrice de Graaf and Laurien Crump for this opportunity. During the very final stages of the writing process, I have also been fortunate to experience the hospitality of the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB) while on a fellowship for a different project which nonetheless enabled me to consult Romanian sources once again.
Historical research inevitably leads you to different places in pursuit of archival sources and a historians life would be much more difficult without the assistance of archivists. Thus, I would like to thank the archival staff of the National Archives of Romania and the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest and especially Alina Iancu, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park Maryland, the Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford Presidential Libraries. I am also grateful for a generous research travel grant by the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation. I also thank Mihaela Stroe for her invaluable help in the Romanian Archives taking thousands of photos for me.