ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the superpower assessments of the geopolitical and economic context of Austria’s position and analyses these external ‘floating’ geostrategic perspectives with domestic views. It discusses case study that deals with the Western powers’ ‘negative forecasts’ for Austrian neutrality. The chapter highlights the acceptance by the Kennedy administration of an active and positive role for Austria, and the conflicting interpretations of the role of neutrals in the European Economic Community. The declassification of internal documents from the US, British, Russian and Austrian primary sources mean that the period immediately after 1955 is the best documented. In Austria, the Eisenhower administration favoured the split-neutrality/secret North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally concept, but never feared that Austria would be satellized and drawn into the communist orbit — even when fighting the ‘Soviet-Austrian honeymoon’ in 1958. Austrian neutrality was never seen by the superpowers as a concept of free-riding within the economic and military Western integration trends of the 1950s and 1960s.
