The Khrushchev Détente and Emerging Internationalism in Particle Physics

JAN 01, 1990

Nikito Khrushchev initiated a period of growing Soviet‐American cooperation in particle physics, rudely interrupted by the 1960 spy‐plane incident.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881236

Robert E. Marshak

Mikhail Gorbachev’s program of glasnost and perestroika—now in its fifth year—has wrought striking changes inside the Soviet Union, and even more spectacular metamorphoses outside its borders. Among the positive repercussions of the Gorbachev program on the international scene, we have seen major improvements in international scientific cooperation. In particle physics the improvement during the years of the Gorbachev détente appears less dramatic than it does in space science, for example. But that’s largely because the opportunity to solidify East‐West cooperation in particle physics had been seized much earlier—during the Khrushchev détente of 1956–60, a time when this field, with its large and expensive accelerators, stood alone as the epitome of “big science.”

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References

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More about the authors

Robert E. Marshak, State University, Blacksburg, Virginia.