Join the Wilson Center's Kennan Center for a conference on the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. The conference will explore the events leading to and influencing the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in the Autumn of 1989. A panel comprised of former officers from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and scholars will discuss the ways in which analysis from the time informed policymakers, assisting them in formulating the US policies and response to Communism’s collapse in the region.

Discussions will focus primarily on analysis from National Intelligence Daily (NIDs)--the CIA’s principal form of current intelligence analysis at the time--written to cover the events of 1989 and early 1990, along with references to other more lengthy pieces of analysis covering the issues related to transformation underway in Eastern Europe. Panelists will discuss opportunities and threats from this period and how they continue to evolve today. A public release of 105 of these NIDs, covering much of the Agency’s short-term analysis of events unfolding in Central and Eastern Europe, will accompany the panel discussion. Attendees to the event will be able to view these never-before-seen documents, which represent a major source of information and insight for US policymakers into what was happening in Eastern Europe, where it was heading and what the implications were for the collapse of Communist rule.

RSVP is requested and can be found at this link. 

Speakers:

Cynthia “Didi” Rapp, deputy director for analysis, CIA

Mariusz Kaminski, Polish Minister Coordinator for Special Services

Christian Ostermann (moderator), director of the History and Public Policy Program, Woodrow Wilson Center

John McLaughlin, former Deputy Director of CIA

John Gannon, former Director of the Office of European Analysis

Mark Kramer, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University

Constanze Stelzenmuller, Kissinger Chair, John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress