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November 27, 2020

Interview with Yezid Sayigh

Yezid Sayigh is a former Palestinian diplomat. He served as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to ACRS. 

September 13, 2020

Interview with Fred Axelgard

Fred Axelgard is a former US diplomat. He served as a member of the US delegation to ACRS.

July 2, 1957

Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy in the Senate, Washington, D.C., July 2, 1957

On July 2, 1957, US senator John F. Kennedy made his perhaps best-known senatorial speech—on Algeria.

Home to about 8 million Muslims, 1.2 million European settlers, and 130,000 Jews, it was from October 1954 embroiled in what France dubbed “events”—domestic events, to be precise. Virtually all settlers and most metropolitan French saw Algeria as an indivisible part of France. Algeria had been integrated into metropolitan administrative structures in 1847, towards the end of a structurally if not intentionally genocidal pacification campaign; Algeria’s population dropped by half between 1830, when France invaded, and the early 1870s. Eighty years and many political turns later (see e.g. Messali Hadj’s 1927 speech in this collection), in 1954, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) launched a war for independence. Kennedy did not quite see eye to eye with the FLN.

As Kennedy's speech shows, he did not want France entirely out of North Africa. However, he had criticized French action already in early 1950s Indochina. And in 1957 he met with Abdelkader Chanderli (1915-1993), an unaccredited representative of the FLN at the United Nations in New York and in Washington, DC, and a linchpin of the FLN’s successful international offensive described in Matthew Connelly’s A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (2002). Thus, Kennedy supported the FLN’s demand for independence, which explains its very positive reaction to his speech.

And thus, unlike the 1952-1960 Republican administration of Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) that officially backed the views of NATO ally France and kept delivering arms, the Democratic senator diagnosed a “war” by “Western imperialism” that, together with if different from “Soviet imperialism,” is “the great enemy of … the most powerful single force in the world today: ... man's eternal desire to be free and independent.” (In fact, Kennedy’s speech on the Algerian example of Western imperialism was the first of two, the second concerning the Polish example of Sovietimperialism. On another, domestic note, to support African Algeria’s independence was an attempt to woe civil-rights-movement-era African Americans without enraging white voters.) To be sure, Kennedy saw France as an ally, too. But France’s war was tainting Washington too much, which helped Moscow. In Kennedy’s eyes, to support the US Cold War against the Soviet Union meant granting Algeria independence. The official French line was the exact opposite: only continued French presence in Algeria could keep Moscow and its Egyptian puppet, President Gamal Abdel Nasser, from controlling the Mediterranean and encroaching on Africa.

June 29, 2020

Interview and Discussion with Sir Malcolm Rifkind

Discussion with Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Defense Secretary and Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, about the 1990s and the new relationship that formed after the Cold War.

June 17, 2020

Interview and Discussion with Andrzej Olechowski

Discussion with Polish Minister Andrzej Olechowski about his life and Poland in the 1990s.

September 1, 1944

George Kennan's Assessment of Soviet Political Figures

Kennan assess Soviet officials. He focuses on Stalin to create a profile from his history and experiences.

August 9, 1944

Conversation Between Mikolajczyk and Stalin

Stalin and Mikolajczyk discuss aid to Polish fighters in Warsaw and Post War Poland and Germany

May 17, 1944

Professor Oscar Lange’s Report on his Meeting with Stalin, Submitted to President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Stettinius

Prof. Oscar Lange sends a briefing to the President and Secretary of State about his meeting with Stalin where they discussed Polish Politics.

June 27, 1990

National Intelligence Daily for Wednesday, 27 June 1990

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 27 June 1990 describes the latest developments in the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, the European Community, Zambia, Iran and China.

November 16, 1945

Note to the Soviet Ambassador in China

Letter to the Soviet Ambassador in China instructing him to present a note to Chinese Minister Wang Shijie assuring him that the Soviets are upholding and will continue to uphold the Soviet-Chinese agreement and are providing no assistance to the Chinese communists.

Pagination