KGB and CIA in Journal of Cold War Studies, Spring 2026

Below you’ll find article abstracts from the JCWS’s Spring 2026 issue, available from MIT Press in hard copy. We’ll update this page once the issue is online!

Coup d´État KGB Style? A New Look at the Conflict Within the Soviet Communist Hierarchy During the Early Brezhnev Era

Tomas Sniegon and Nikita Pivovarov

In October 1964, the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Nikita Khrushchev, was abruptly removed from office by the ruling CPSU Presidium. His successor, Leonid Brezhnev, had to solidify his own political position for some time afterward. Rumors soon circulated that Brezhnev might be removed himself by younger members of the ruling elite, particularly Aleksandr Shelepin and Vladimir Semichastnyi, both of whom were closely involved with the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB) and the Communist Youth League (Komsomol). This article traces the power struggle in Moscow in the mid-1960s (after Khrushchev’s ouster), including the central role of the KGB. The article debunks the persistent rumors of a planned move against Brezhnev and shows that he himself stayed well ahead of potential rivals, demoting or ousting anyone who could potentially have tried to replace him. The article shows how the KGB’s role in the power structure helped Brezhnev consolidate his political position and fend off any challenges.

British International Broadcasting and the Cold War: The Genesis of the Modern BBC Global Relay “Chain,” 1953–1963

Benjamin J. Sacks

The BBC External Services played a crucial role in Great Britain’s Cold War international propaganda. Although some scholars have examined the impact of BBC broadcast stations on UK foreign policy, they have not yet seriously examined the development of the critical global communications infrastructure needed to facilitate this mission. This article examines the origins, experiences, and consequences of Operation Beryl, the genesis of the External Services’ modern international high-frequency transmitter relay network. In response to Britain’s embarrassment in the 1956 Suez Crisis, engineers secretly developed the world’s then-most powerful medium-wave transmitter. In 1960, the Foreign Office and BBC installed it in Berbera, intending to useit to counter Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s influential Voice of the Arabs and to convince skeptical British government departments of the need to construct a global radio “chain” similar in reach, but not in scale, to the “radio ring” then under development by the U.S. State Department. Operation Beryl, active only until 1963, did little to stop Nasser, but it did convince British policymakers to invest in a proper international relay network, with a truly global reach during the Cold War. Operation Beryl established the Foreign Office’s dominant role in the chain’s development and provided valuable lessons for subsequent relays.

The North Korean-North Vietnamese-Cuban Triangle and the Dispatch of Troops to Vietnam in 1966 

Minako Wakasugi

In 1966, as U.S. military operations in Vietnam were escalating, the North Korean leader Kim Il Sung sent troops to assist the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Scholars who have examined this decision have tended to divide Kim’s objectives into three categories: enhancing North Korea’s prestige at home, strengthening the unity of the international Communist movement, and using the Vietnam War to facilitate Kim’s goal of unifying the Korean peninsula under Communist rule. Most scholarship has focused on the bilateral relationship between North Korea and the DRV, but it is important to recognize that North Korean by the mid-1960s was emphasizing multilateral ties with smaller Communist countries. This article draws on primary sources from Cuba and Vietnam to show how the emerging triangular relationship between the DRV, Cuba, and North Korea helped bring about North Korea’s deployment of military forces to Vietnam in late 1966. Kim’s pursuit of solidarity among smaller Communist countries should be examined in other contexts as well.

Émigrés, “Cowboys,” and “Librarians”: The CIA’s Covert Operations in Poland, 1948–1952

Anna Mazurkiewicz

In the late 1940s, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran a variety of psychological operations and clandestine actions behind the Iron Curtain. The CIA in its early years included two offices that oversaw covert programs in Poland: the Office of Special Operations (OSO) and the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). From 1948 to 1952, the Communist regime in Poland successfully deceived the OSO and OPC into believing that they were supporting the anti-Communist underground network in Poland. Drawing on an invaluable account by a key insider—William J. Tonesk, a CIA officer of Polish ancestry—who worked at the Polish Branch within the OSO, this article reassesses the failure of U.S. intelligence operations in Poland by shifting attention away from émigré “paper mills” to the CIA’s organizational setup marked by deficient coordination of activities and an unfavorable work culture.

The Cases of Vasilii Sidorenko (1942–1944) and Raoul Wallenberg (1945–1947): A Comparative Study of Consular Diplomacy, Intelligence, and Retaliation 

Johan Matz

This article examines intriguing links between the case of Vasilii Sidorenko, arrested on 26 September 1942 in Stockholm and later sentenced to 12 years of hard labor on charges of espionage, and the case of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who was arrested by the Soviet SMERSH military counterintelligence service in Budapest on 17 January 1945 and later imprisoned in the notorious Lubyanka and Lefortovo prisons in Moscow. The article discusses the nature of these links and discusses whether actions taken with regard to Wallenberg might have been influenced by the lessons the Soviet Union derived from the Sidorenko case.

Diplomacy of Youth: The Teenage Exchange Program of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, 1949–1955

Jonas B. Anderson

From 1949 to 1955, more than 2,000 West German teenagers went to the United States as part of an exchange-of-persons program overseen by the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany (HICOG). These high school students lived for a year with a U.S. family and attended a U.S. high school. HICOG attached great importance to the program, seeing it as a crucial element in the reorientation and democratization of Germany. Against the backdrop of growing Cold War tensions, U.S. officials were especially eager to accelerate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) firmly into the West, making it a reliable ally. The West German teenagers, during their yearlong stays in the United States, became acquainted with a living democracy and subsequently used their experiences to contribute to the democratic development of the FRG as well as to promote a positive image of the United States. This article examines HICOG’s planning and implementation of the program and shows how it was influenced by U.S. national security policy during the early Cold War.

Book Fora: