ABSTRACT
In the case of the USSR, virtually no Russian source between 1917 and 1988 criticized the government's policies or chose to report them as in the slightest departing from the straight and narrow path of proletarian internationalism and love of peace. Some of the official "myths" about Moscow's foreign policy from 1917 on have found some acceptance in the West. The Russian leaders were prudent, was the general US view; Mao and his people were fanatics and possibly mentally unhinged, as the insanities of the "Great Leap Forward" made one suspect. The new "coexistential" attitude of the Soviet leaders was demonstrated in 1963 in their signing a treaty with Britain and the US which banned above-ground and underwater atomic tests. As to the Soviet authorities under glasnost and their Russian successors, their unwillingness to reveal the entire story of what had led to the October 1962 crisis can be easily understood.
