The symposium “Building on Success: The Soviet Dissident Movement and American Foreign Policy during the 1980s” brought together former Soviet dissidents, scholars, and policy makers to discuss the methods employed by Soviet dissidents and their Western supporters that contributed to the end of the communist rule of the former USSR. The Hoover Institution hosted the event on April 14.
The Hoover Institution Library and Archives exhibition To Choose Freedom: Soviet Dissidents and Their Supporters offers a glimpse into the era of repression against Soviet human rights activists, focusing on the years that followed Khrushchev’s “thaw” in the late 1950s up through the era of perestroika and glasnost in the 1980s.
The one-day symposium “Building on Success: The Soviet Dissident Movement and American Foreign Policy during the 1980s” examined how dissidents in the former Soviet Union, nongovernmental organizations outside the country, and Western governments interacted to open closed governments and societies to democratic reform. The symposium examined the guiding principles of those groups in hopes that their successful experience could be applied to solving problems beyond the Soviet Union.
The papers of Admiral John Sidney McCain Sr. (August 9, 1884–September 6, 1945), who commanded the Fast Carrier Task Force in World War II, have been deposited at the Hoover Institution Archives.
Session I: Growing Economies - Challenges for Europe and the United States
Session II: Managing the Transatlantic Relationship
Session III: Strengthening Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship – A French Point of View