ABSTRACT
''Cold War'' itself may well have been of Western origin, and the phrase has been attributed to Walter Lippmann. At that time it was intended to contrast a cold from a hot war, and only now is it the antonym of detente; it was a short form to denote a limited amount of postwar tension among competing national powers. There was also a ''cold war'' of ideas, and it remains difficult to see why this intellectual clash was ever felt to be something negative or evil. The ''cold war'' did not exclude agreements, settlements; understandings; the much oversold era of Detente included wars, military interventions, revolutionary coupe, and armament build-ups. In any event, while the West went about its affairs ''relaxed''—young John F. Kennedy's book popularized the phrase While We Slept—the USSR proceeded to ''catch up and overtake'' in many spheres of the East-West arms race.
