The author of the book from which the below excerpts are taken, Elaine Mokhtefi née Klein, is a US American of Jewish origin born in 1928 in New York. She became politically involved there in the late 1940s. In 1951, she moved to Paris, where she worked as a translator for various anti-racist and anti-colonial movements. It was in the French capital that she met Algerian independence activists and became involved with the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), which was founded in November 1954 and started Algeria’s independence war. She participated in the 1958 All-African People’s Conference in Ghana (for which see also the entry on Frantz Fanon’s FLN speech). In 1960-1962, she worked in New York for the FLN. FLN representatives stationed in the United States sought to contact US politicians and officials, and in New York successfully lobbied at the United Nations headquarters during its war against France, as Matthew Connelly showed inA Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (2002). Moreover, already at this time the FLN was deeply involved with various other anticolonial liberation movements, as Mokhtefi’s fascinating book illustrates. When Algeria became independent, in 1962, she moved there. She worked in various official capacities, inter alia for the Algeria Press Service. And due to her New York experience and command of English, she often was asked to work with representatives of foreign independence movements, including the US Black Panther Party (BPP), whose presence in Algeria in 1969 and its effect on the BPP’s take on the Arab-Israeli conflict has been studied in Michael Fischbach’s Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (2018). Many such movements were assisted by the Algerian government, which saw itself as a player in multiple overlapping anticolonial and postcolonial frameworks, including African unity, Arab unity, Afro-Asianism, and Third Worldism, as Jeffrey Byrnes has shown in his Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order (2016). Mokhtefi was for political reasons forced to leave Algeria in 1974, accompanied by her Algerian husband, the former FLN member Mokhtar Mokhtefi. They settled in Paris, and in 1994 moved to New York.

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 24 August 1991 describes the latest developments in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Lebanon, France, El Salvador, South Africa, China and Iran.

The French Ambassador to London reports that China is eager to open up diplomatic relations with Italy and Canada and to enter into negotiations with the United States.

In a secret supplement to information from the VIII Congress of the People's Socialist Party, Bulgarian delegates Abramov and Tellalov summarize answers that Blas Roca, the Cuban delegation head, provided the congress. Roca claimed that socialism is the end goal of the revolution, but it is not publicly discussed. He explained the Communist party's involvement in the revolution and July 26th Movement. Abramov and Tellalov also describe the reestablishment of relations and disagreements between Cuba and Yugoslavia, including discussions about weapons. Fidel Castro met with socialist country representatives and described Cuba's plans to nationalize enterprises, particularly American. During the congress Castro described the evolution of the July 26th Movement and the consolidation of Communism in Cuba. Abramov and Tellalov endorse Castro's leadership and review the Cuban military's strengths and weaknesses. There is a brief mention Sino-Soviet relations.

Zhivkov lays out his perspective on the place of Bulgaria within the Communist Camp. He also talks about the Balkans and the rift between Bulgaria and Romania. Both leaders discuss the Chinese accusations of Soviet Revisionism. Raul Castro talks about the strength of the communist movements in Latin America and the prospects for successful social revolutions in Venezuela, Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Brazil.

The Soviet leadership discusses the state of Soviet foreign policy after the Hungarian crisis and Khrushchev’s visit to the US. Molotov criticizes Khrushchev for recklessness in foreign policy direction. Soviet inroads in the Middle East and the Third World are analyzed. The effects of the crises in Eastern Europe are placed in the context of the struggle against US imperialism.

This report by the National Security Council discusses Soviet control over Eastern Europe, barriers to Soviet control of the satellites, and the power threat that consolidation poses to the United States. As a result, the NSC recommends that United States pursue a policy of resistance towards Soviet domination of its Eastern European satellites, and should impose pressure and propaganda to weaken Soviet influence.

Anastas Mikoyan and Mao Zedong converse about the mediation talks between the CCP and the Guomindang, Yugoslavia, coordination between the communist parties of the Asian countries, and the history of the CCP.