Exploring the visions of the end of the Cold War that have been put forth since its inception until its actual ending, this volume brings to the fore the reflections, programmes, and strategies that were intended to call into question the bipolar system and replace it with alternative approaches or concepts. These visions were associated not only with prominent individuals, organized groups and civil societies, but were also connected to specific historical processes or events. They ranged from actual, thoroughly conceived programmes, to more blurred, utopian aspirations - or simply the belief that the Cold War had already, in effect, come to an end. Such visions reveal much about the contexts in which they were developed and shed light on crucial moments and phases of the Cold War.

Bernd Rother is a Historian at the Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation in Berlin. He is editor of Willy Brandt: Über Europa hinaus. Dritte Welt und Sozialistische Internationale(2006) and Willy Brandt: Gemeinsame Sicherheit. Internationale Beziehungen und deutsche Frage 1982-1992 (2009).

PART I: CRYSTALLIZING THE COLD WAR

Chapter 1. George Kennan's Course, 1947-49: A Gaullist before de Gaulle
John L. Harper

Chapter 2. The Bilderberg Group and the end of the Cold War: The Disengagement Debates of the 1950s
Thomas W. Gijswijt

PART II: STALIN'S DEATH AND AFTER: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY?

Chapter 3. Moscow's Campaign Against the Cold War, 1945-1955
Geoffrey Roberts

Chapter 4. Stalin's Death and Anglo-American Visions of Ending the Cold War, 1953
Jaclyn Stanke

Chapter 5. Soviet Intellectuals after Stalin's Death and Their Visions of the Cold War's End
Vladislav Zubok

PART III: ALTERNATIVE VISIONS OF THE 1960S

Chapter 6. Towards a New Concert of Europe: De Gaulle's Vision of a Post-Cold War Europe
Garret Martin

Chapter 7. Franz Josef Stauß and the End of the Cold War
Ronald J. Granieri

PART IV: A HELSINKI VISION?

Chapter 8. A Very British Vision of Détente: The United Kingdom's Foreign Policy During the Helsinki Process, 1969-1975
Martin D. Brown

Chapter 9. The EC Nine's Vision and Attempts At Ending the Cold War
Angela Romano

PART V: VISIONS AND DISSENT IN THE 1970S

Chapter 10. 'The Transformation of the Other Side': Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik and the Liberal Peace Concept
Gottfried Niedhart

Chapter 11. Neither in One Bloc, Nor in the Other: Berlinguer's Vision of the End of the Cold War
Laura Fasanaro

Chapter 12. Overcoming Bloc Division from Below: Jirí Hájek and the CSCE Appeal of Charter 77
Christian Domnitz

PART VI: VISION OR STATUS QUO IN THE 1970S

Chapter 13. Henry Kissinger: Vision or Status Quo?
Jussi Hanhimäki

Chapter 14. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and his Vision of the End of the Cold War
Georges-Henri Soutou

PART VII: EVOLUTIONARY VISIONS AND UNEXPECTED RESULTS IN THE 1980S

Chapter 15. Ending the Cold War, Unintentionally
Gregory F. Domber

Chapter 16. Common Security as a Way to Overcome the (Second) Cold War? Willy Brandt's Strategy for Peace in the 1980s
Bernd Rother

Chapter 17. Which Socialism after the Cold War? Gorbachev's Vision and its Impact on the French Left
Marie-Pierre Rey

Chapter 18. Thatcher's Double Track Road to the End of the Cold War: The Irreconcilability of Liberalisation and Preservation
Ilaria Poggiolini

Chapter 19. Mitterand's Vision and the End of the Cold War
Fréderic Bozo

Chapter 20. Visions of Ending the Cold War: Triumphalism and US Soviet Policy in the 1980s
Beth A. Fischer

Chapter 21. The Power of Imagination: How Reagan's SDI Inadvertently Contributed to the End of the Cold War
Marilena Gala

Bibliography