Nikolaus Graf Vitzthum

Nikolaus is a Ph.D. student in Yale's Department of History interested in relations between the “Second World” and the “Third World” during the Cold War. Trained as a lawyer in Germany (Heidelberg University) and France (Aix-en-Provence University), and a graduate of the French École Nationale d’Administration, Nikolaus worked as a litigation agent for the German government at the Court of Justice of the European Union and as a counselor at the German Embassy in Moscow before returning to academia. At Harvard he earned a master’s degree in regional studies — Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia — in 2020 through the Davis Center's REECA program.

My Events:

Photograph of President Gerald Ford, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Other U.S. Representatives Meeting with Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, Foreign Secretary Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, and Others aboard a Soviet Train Headed for Vladivostok

US and Soviet Public Diplomacy in Africa During the Cold War

Friday, September 8, 2023
12:30 to 2pm EDT

In person

From the 1950s through the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States made extensive efforts to win "hearts and minds" in the newly independent countries of Africa and Asia. The speakers draw on recently declassified archival documents to trace U.S. and Soviet public diplomacy activities, especially educational exchanges, to build influence in Africa.

Fungisai Musoni-Chikede

Assistant Professor of History and Director of African Studies Program, Marist College

Nikolaus Graf Vitzthum

Ph.D. Student, Department of History, Yale University

Mark Kramer

Director, Cold War Studies Project, Davis Center

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