Comments on the Cold War

I have lived through the Cold War. My first year in high school occurred during the outbreak of the Korean War. My college days saw the Army McCarthy hearings. My graduate years at Princeton saw the visit of much admired Fidel Castro to campus, as well as Konrad Adenauer. And my years of university teaching in California brought home the various attempts of several European countries to break the ties they themselves had not forged with the Soviet Union. Then came the collapse of Communism in the Soviet state, the apparent beginnings of democracy there, cut short quickly enough by the same Vladimir Putin who is now engaged in the murder of the Ukrainian people and the destruction of their heritage which was not part of Muscovy at all.

So what should be said about Mr. Schevitz? The alumni who commented show the influence of the Cold War upon themselves, both those defending the Princeton spy and those denigrating him. They have done a good job, both sets of antagonists. I conclude that the Cold Was not as noble as American politicians pretended nor the noble defense of the Worker’s Motherland as the Soviet leaders never failed to claim.