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Tweaking The Nose Of The Russians: Fifty Years Of American-Romanian Relations, 1940-1990

Joseph F. Harrington and Bruce J. Courtney
Reviewed by By Elizabeth K. Valkenier
Summer 1991
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Joseph F. Harrington and Bruce J. Courtney
East European Monographs
1991
657 pp.

This long and detailed study, thoroughly exploiting all sources on the American side, stands as the sole substantial scholarly work on America's relations with Romania, and it is not likely to be displaced although more light may be shed as the Romanian documentation becomes available. No aspect of the relationship is neglected, but the authors, like the U.S. government, have their eyes always on the larger East-West context. Much of the story is about trade policy and American efforts to encourage Romania's differences with Moscow, but in the final analysis the tweaking was no more than a minor nuisance to the Soviets.

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