I published pro-détente articles in their newsletter and published a lengthy piece on cooperation with the Soviet Union in agricultural and food processing domains, my specialty at that time, in their collection of essays by leaders in the U.S. I was on the business side of the association, which was led by Don Kendall, chairman of Pepsico and also for much of the 1970s chairman of the US-USSR Trade and Economic Council of which I was also a member. With his base in Princeton, he was a protégé of the dean of diplomats then in residence there, George Kennan, who was the leading light on the academic side of the ACEWA. I hasten to add that in the original ACEWA Steve and I were two ships that passed in the night. This was a revival of a pro-détente association of academics and business people that existed from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, when, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the removal of the Communist Party from power, the future of Russia in the family of nations we call the “international community” seemed assured and there appeared to be no further need for such an association as ACEWA. was entrapped in totalitarianism without any prospect for the overthrow of its oppressive regime.īut my recollections of Steve also have a personal dimension going back six years or so when a casual email correspondence between us flowered into a joint project that became the launch of the American Committee for East West Accord (ACEWA). That was when our expert community told us with one voice that the U.S.S.R. I understood this when I read a book of his from the mid-1980s in which he explained why Russian (Soviet) history was no longer attracting young students of quality: because there were no unanswered questions, because we smugly assumed that we knew about that country all that there was to know.

He was one of the very rare cases of an historian deeply attentive to historiography, to causality and to logic. Cohen was among America’s best historians of his generation, putting aside the specific subject matter that he treated: Nikolai Bukharin, his dissertation topic and the material of his first and best known book or, to put it more broadly, the history of Russia (U.S.S.R.) in the 20 th century. I urge those who are today paying tribute to Steve, to buy and read the book, which is his best legacy.įrom start to finish, Stephen F. The narrative style may have been more relaxed, with simplified syntax, but the reasoning remained razor sharp. 18, Professor Steve Cohen passed away in New York City and we, the “dissident” community of Americans standing for peace with Russia – and for peace with the world at large – lost a towering intellectual and skillful defender of our cause who enjoyed an audience of millions by his weekly broadcasts on the John Batchelor Show, WABC Radio.Ī year ago, I reviewed his latest book, War With Russia? which drew upon the material of those programs and took this scholar turned journalist into a new and highly accessible genre of oral readings in print. Americans who stand for peace with Russia – and for peace with the world at large – have lost a towering intellectual leader and a defender of their cause, writes Gilbert Doctorow.

Logic world history