Introduction

My interest in foreign policy and international relations dates back to my childhood in Queens, New York. World War II was underway in my neighborhood well before Pearl Harbor as so many of its residents and my childhood friends were refugees from the Nazis, fascists, or communists—or two of the three in the case of an Estonian family on an adjacent block. American entry into the war brought blackouts, oil skin curtains, rationing, scrap drives, and a Saturday morning parade of fathers proudly shouldering farm implements up 65th Avenue to the communal “victory garden,” where they fought fascist weeds and nurtured allied vegetables.