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Cold War Resources in the Manuscript Division

Policy

The papers of elected political leaders and appointed government officials on different sides of the ideological spectrum document competing approaches to perceived communist threats during the Cold War. The Manuscript Division also holds the papers of think tank experts who helped to build the intellectual framework for Cold War policies, and those of activists who tried to influence policy by mobilizing public opinion. The collections include the papers of members of the Communist Party of the United States, along with letters of a Soviet political prisoner and documents collected by a member of the Soviet parliament. Among the subjects addressed are US support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other allies, nuclear testing and proliferation, arms control, and joint approaches to environmental protection.

The following collection titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content, including finding aids for the collections, are included when available.