The War of Nerves: Inside the Cold War Mind

by Martin Sixsmith

Overview

A major new history of the Cold War that explores the conflict through the minds of the people who lived through it.

More than any other conflict, the Cold War was fought on the battlefield of the human mind. And, nearly thirty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, its legacy still endures—not only in our politics, but in our own thoughts and fears.

Drawing on a vast array of untapped archives and unseen sources, Martin Sixsmith vividly recreates the tensions and paranoia of the Cold War, framing it for the first time from a psychological perspective. Revisiting towering, unique personalities like Khrushchev, Kennedy, and Nixon, as well as the lives of the unknown millions who were caught up in the conflict, this is a gripping narrative of the paranoia of the Cold War—and in today's uncertain times, this story is more resonant than ever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639361816
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	07/05/2022
Pages:	592
Sales rank:	518,564
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.10(d)

About the Author

Martin Sixsmith studied Russian at Oxford, Harvard, the Sorbonne, and in St Petersburg. He witnessed the end of the Cold War first-hand, reporting for the BBC from Moscow during the presidencies of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. He is the author of two novels and several works of non-fiction, including Philomena (a New York Times bestseller) and Russia: A 1,000 Year Chronicle of the Wild East. Martin lives in London.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

1 Individual or Collective - Two National Psyches 1

2 Two Nations; Two Missions 7

3 Kissing Stalin's Bum 13

4 Yalta and the Psychology of Betrayal 26

5 Potsdam and Paranoia 44

6 Stalin the Neurotic 56

7 The Long Telegrams 66

8 Threats and Mind Readers 86

9 War by Inadvertence 102

10 Trouble among Socialist Friends 118

11 Stalin's Ghost - Memory, Fear and the Monster from the Grave 135

12 A Psychological Vacuum 147

13 The Secret Speech and the Psychology of the Crowd 161

14 Psychological Warfare 171

15 McCarthyism and Witch-Hunts 186

16 Brainwashing 201

17 Sputnik and the Psychology of Fear 216

18 The Kitchen: Competing Utopias 232

19 Bricks in the Wall 248

20 The Space Race 266

21 Brinkmanship 288

22 Duck and Cover 307

23 Disinformation 332

24 Double Agents, Double Dealing, Doublethink 351

25 Inventing the Enemy in Books and Film 369

26 Art, Posters and Jokes 387

27 Music 403

28 Religion 422

29 Falling Dominoes 436

30 They Took Away Your Mind - Control through Silence 450

31 The Psychology of the Front Line 466

32 The Madman and Detente 482

33 Reagan's Epiphany 495

34 The Wall Torn Down 515

35 The Evil Empire is No More 526

36 The Misuses of Memory 540

Notes and Selected Bibliography 555

Illustration Credits 556

Index 558

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/20/2022

Novelist and reporter Sixsmith (Russia) deconstructs the psychology of the Cold War in this revelatory history. Detailing the Berlin Airlift, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and other showdowns, Sixsmith masterfully juxtaposes high-level gamesmanship between U.S. and Soviet leaders—Stalin had an edge over the declining Roosevelt; Khrushchev underestimated a cautious John F. Kennedy—with the psychological warfare directed at civilians. The space race, which saw the U.S.S.R. put animals and humans in orbit around the Earth and U.S. astronauts set foot on the moon, captivated the two countries while stoking fears of nuclear armageddon. To prevent panic, American leaders “downplayed the physical and psychological threat of the bomb” and fostered the illusion that citizens could survive a surprise attack in build-it-yourself shelters. In the Soviet Union, the government insisted on a “monolithic artistic style”; artists who veered away from social realism or criticized the state were persecuted. By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Sixsmith contends, ordinary Russians had cultivated a “learned helplessness,” while U.S. elites prematurely celebrated the triumph of “American values” and failed to soothe Russian fears that NATO posed an existential threat. Fluid prose and astute, timely analysis into the history behind Vladimir Putin’s “restorative nostalgia” make this a vital study of world affairs. (July)

Publishers Weekly

As well as many illuminating anecdotes from his time as a journalist in Russia, a country about which he clearly cares deeply, his book is filled with fascinating insights into the psychology of one of the most dangerous periods in world history. Importantly, Sixsmith reminds us that we continue to live with the emotional trauma of the cold war, and today’s decision-makers are no better at examining their psychological assumptions than yesterday’s leaders.

The Guardian

"Sixsmith has the knack of delivering complex material with a clear voice."

The Times (London)

"A lively chronicle.

Orlando Figes

The extraordinary story of an extraordinary woman. It reveals a remarkable human being with astonishing fortitude and a truly humbling willingness to forgive. I hope Philomena’s heroic search and her courage in allowing her story to be told will bring comfort to all who have suffered a similar fate.

Judi Dench

There have been many histories of the cold war, but the virtue and originality of Mr. Sixsmith’s is to see almost every aspect of the stand-off in psychological terms. Deranged Stalin, volatile, bombastic Nikita Khrushchev, plodding, insecure Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev’s desperate optimism—he sketches the leaders’ states of mind, and the means used to stimulate fear of ‘the other’... The author, a Russian scholar and journalist who, as the BBC’s Moscow correspondent, covered Mr. Gorbachev’s presidency and Boris Yeltsin’s, uses the tools of psychoanalysis to illuminate events and motivations.

The Economist

A powerful testament to the strength of the bond between mother and child.

Shelf Awareness

Praise for Martin Sixsmith’s Russia: A 1,000 Year Chronicle of the Wild East:

From the Publisher

"Russia, a 1,000 Year Chronicle of the Wild East contains many of the required ingredients to become the leading popular history of Russia. Colloquial, persona,l and anecdotal in style. Well researched and factually sound.

The Times Literary Supplement

"In War of Nerves, Sixsmith examines the reasons why the relationship between the [US and Russia] has been—and is—so fraught, citing a number of both similarities and distinct differences as the root causes. The similarities include the fact that both countries are very large geographically, with a strong expansionist mindset. The differences are more pronounced, in fact even diametrically opposed. Sixsmith explores how these and other issues have informed the historical interactions between the two countries from WWII to Reagan and beyond, and how conflicts between the two could possibly be resolved—or could possibly be perpetually inevitable. These insights are especially relevant given recent developments."

Booklist

06/01/2022

Sixsmith (Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East) delivers a gripping interpretation of Cold War diplomacy, culture, and politics through the lens of psychology. Drawing on scholarly sources, recently declassified documents, and his experiences as a BBC foreign correspondent in Moscow in the 1980s, Sixsmith shows how the Cold War both reflected and accentuated the mental processes and national psyches of hundreds of millions of people on both sides of the Soviet and Anglo American confrontation. Like countless analysts before him, he contrasts Russia's centuries of collectivism with American individualism and explores the Soviet Union's inferiority complex relative to Western prosperity and progress. More insightful is his depiction of the U.S. and USSR as doppelgangers, with both nations devolving into Cold War "paroxysm[s] of paranoia and conspiratorial thinking." Each was convinced that their archrival was pursuing world domination, each projecting its own fears and suspicions onto the other, and each waging worldwide psychological warfare to win hearts and minds, while sowing doubts and discord among its rival's supporters. This vicious cycle faltered with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, only to resurge under authoritarian Russian president Vladimir Putin. VERDICT A shrewd and remarkably timely examination of Cold War mentalities.—Michael Rodriguez

Library Journal

2022-03-29
An intriguing new history about how the Cold War was primarily a conflict of psychology.

Sixsmith, who reported on Russia for the BBC during the 1980s, delves into the psychological issues of the time, especially the thinking of the leaders and the reactions of ordinary people. He believes that the two sides continually failed to comprehend each other’s beliefs and motivations, seeing themselves as morally superior and the other as the font of all evil. The Americans never grasped the nexus between communist ideology and the Russian cultural tradition of centralized power, and Soviet leaders always believed that the U.S. was controlled by a secret cabal of billionaires and generals. This lack of understanding was crucial given the nuclear arsenals involved. “The inherent flaw of brinkmanship is to assume that each side agrees where the brink is,” writes the author. “But as Washington and Moscow pushed each other into increasingly aggressive stances, it was never completely clear that the Soviets and Americans truly knew where or when the tipping point might come.” To build popular support, the two superpowers churned out propaganda, particularly cinema. Sixsmith notes that Vladimir Putin decided to join the KGB after seeing a movie about secret agent Belov, a Soviet version of James Bond. However, the essential weakness of autocracy is that it cannot renew itself through self-criticism or elections. Eventually, in the long decay of the Brezhnev era, there was no way to match the Soviet regime’s message of prosperity and freedom with the lived reality. Russians simply ceased to believe in socialism, as the author’s chapter on the jokes of the period reveals. The U.S., for all its deficiencies, has retained many of its core beliefs. Sixsmith covers a great deal of territory, and the text is long and often dense. But there are useful lessons for the current geopolitical landscape, and the author’s essential point—know yourself in order to know the Other—is as valuable as ever.

An original analysis of a crucial period of history, providing important context for the present.

Kirkus Reviews