At Cold War's End Us Intelligence on the Soviet Union And Eastern Europe, 1989-1991

The Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) of the Central Intelligence Agency and the George W. Bush Center for Presidential Studies at Texas A&M University co-sponsored a conference on "US Intelligence and the End of the Cold War" on the Texas A&M University campus at College Station from 18 to 20 November 1999. As a contribution to the conference, CSI prepared a compendium of newly declassified US intelligence documents covering the years 1989-1991. This period encompassed events in the USSR and Eastern Europe that transformed the postwar world and much of the 20th century's geopolitical landscape. It was a time when the tempo of history accelerated so rapidly that, as one historian put it, events seemed to be moving beyond human control, if not human comprehension. Benjamin B. Fischer of CIA's History Staff selected, edited, and wrote the preface to the National Intelligence Estimates and other intelligence assessments included in this companion volume. In conjunction with the conference, the Intelligence Community will release to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) the records reprinted in this compendium and those listed in the Appendix. The declassification and release of these documents marks a new stage in the CIA's commitment to openness. The Agency has only rarely declassified and made available to the public and to scholars Cold War records of such recent vintage. The new release complements and supplements the previous declassification of more than 550 National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) and Special National Intelligence Estimates (SNIEs) on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from 1946 to 1985. CIA continues to review and declassify finishedintelligence on these countries. These records are available at NARA's Archives II facility in College Park, Maryland, in Records Group 263 (Central Intelligence Agency Records). Two of the documents reprinted in this volume originated with CIA's Office of Soviet Analysis (SOCentral Intelligence Agency is the author of 'At Cold War's End Us Intelligence on the Soviet Union And Eastern Europe, 1989-1991' with ISBN 9781410220943 and ISBN 141022094X.