ABSTRACT
The Western export control system against the Eastern bloc, the CoCom (Coordinating Committee), has attracted more attention from students of trade and financial relations than probably any other economic aspect of the Cold War.1 This is not surprising. CoCom, which was set up in 1949-50, was an ‘economic arm of NATO’,2 whose purpose was to restrict the flow of strategic materials and technology to the socialist countries. It became, in effect, a vital part of the ‘Iron Curtain’, which is said to have divided Europe firmly into two separate areas. At the macro level the situation therefore appeared to be clear. Yet, at the intermediate level of states and governments, or at the micro level, where companies and businessmen operate, the situation was less clear, as this chapter sets out to show. Small countries and their people did have to take into consideration the policies of the superpowers, often more extensively than was admitted publicly, but this does not mean that the small actors would have been unable to pursue their economic interests and form profitable links through the Iron Curtain.
