U.S.-Czechoslovak Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation in 1948-1953

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U.S.-Czechoslovak Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation in 1948-1953

Ondřej Fišer

Abstract 

This study analyzes the development of U.S.-Czechoslovak economic and scientific-technical cooperation between 1948 and 1953. At a general level, the aim of the present work is to deconstruct the hitherto surviving albeit outdated narrative of the absence of inter-bloc dialogue and the non-porosity of the Iron Curtain. In addition to this, the study also seeks to identify and analyze the heretofore overlooked factors that guided the development of Czechoslovakia's bilateral cooperation with the U.S. economy. Space is devoted to an analysis of the various political and economic obstacles that prevented further intensification in the exchange of goods, capital and know-how. Selected case studies then allow the influence of these generally defined obstacles to be applied to specific inter-bloc cooperation projects. Despite the acknowledgement of the general cooling of transatlantic ties, the paper points to the survival of motives for the development of mutual dialogue. These began to become fully apparent as early as 1953, shortly after the deaths of Gottwald and Stalin.

Introduction

The topic of inter-bloc economic and scientific-technical cooperation in the Gottwald era (1948-1953) has so far been accompanied by a number of ideologizing and subjectivizing pressures that do not offer an unbiased insight into historical reality. Although contemporary historians (Nisonen-Trnka 2011; Olšáková, 2017; Autio-Sarasmo 2018) active especially in the last two decades have begun to apply a new, more technical lens to the analysis of inter-bloc relations, their focus has so far largely avoided the case study of U.S.-Czechoslovak cooperation. However, as primary sources located particularly in the UN archives in Geneva, the Czech National Archive, and the Archives of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicate, it was the cooperation between Czechoslovakia and the United States during the Gottwald era that was characterized by a number of unparalleled features that reveal the hitherto marginalized yet seemingly crucial contexts of inter-bloc cooperation.

The specificity of the relationship between Czechoslovakia and the U.S. economy stemmed from the Czechoslovak role as an intra-bloc “engineering superpower” responsible for disseminating Western technologies to other socialist states and from the U.S. role as the global patron of the values of liberalism and capitalism. The U.S. President Harry S. Truman, Secretaries of State George C. Marshall and Dean Acheson and other U.S. leaders were initiating measures such as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan or the Mutual Defense Assistance Act, all of which suppressed the development of inter-bloc cooperation. Moreover, as Lundestad (1986, 267) has already analyzed in detail, the authoritarian position of the U.S. government had a key impact on the foreign policy of the Western European states, which, under the threat of disruption of U.S. economic and security assistance, often acceded to the Truman’s vision of world order. Under these pressures, Attlee, Adenauer, Erlander, De Gasperi and other leaders of Western governments then began to implement analogous anti-communist measures (Truman, Acheson 1951, 31; Frazier 1999).

However, the situation was not as straightforward as it may seem at first glance. Not only among U.S. entrepreneurs but also at the level of U.S. federal executive departments or among Truman’s advisors there were divergent views on the question of East-West cooperation. A similar situation prevailed among individual leaders of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (CCP) or within the representation of the Czechoslovak recently nationalized economy. As reports of the Czechoslovak Embassy in Washington or individual enterprises indicate, the fact that the USA was traditionally one of Czechoslovakia's most important trading partners may have played a role in fueling pro-American sentiments after the communist coup d’état of 1948. Moreover, as already indicated, the U.S. economy was also seen as a key source of modern technology that would help overcome the development challenges of the Eastern Bloc. Therefore, despite the central role of the Truman administration in the escalation of the Cold War, the highly competitive U.S. economy remained one of the main points of interest of Czechoslovak inter-bloc cooperation of the late 1940s. For this reason, both the more liberal representatives of the Czechoslovak government and individual experts sought access to U.S. goods and scientific-technical know-how even at the time when the Stalinist wings of the CCP tried to implement an isolationist policy along the lines of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

Obstacles to mutual Rapprochement

However, efforts to develop U.S.-Czechoslovak economic and scientific-technical cooperation during the Gottwald era (1948-1953) had to face a number of insurmountable challenges. New findings from the archives of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs supplemented by the analyses of Procházka (1960, 123-128) and Kaiser & Schot (2018, 157) reveal that one of the key obstacles in this regard became diplomatic disputes. A typical example here was the ongoing disagreement on compensation for confiscated and nationalized property. In 1948, the U.S. authorities imposed a ban on the repatriation of Czechoslovak gold from West Germany and were similarly reticent about repatriating rolling stock and other Czechoslovak property. At the same time, the Czechoslovak government refused to compensate American citizens for the nationalization of their property in Czechoslovakia. These mutual demands were not successfully resolved throughout the Gottwald era, which had a major impact on the further development of cooperation. This was stated by the Czechoslovak ambassador to the U.S., who in 1949 argued that especially unresolved compensations complicated the issuance of U.S. export licenses. Later, in September 1951, unresolved compensation for nationalized property, political efforts to isolate communist regimes, and fears of further dumping by socialist markets even led the U.S. government to withdraw from its GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) obligations to Czechoslovakia (GATT 1951; Procházka 1960).

As internal correspondence between the representatives of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs show, diplomatic obstacles to the development of constructive cooperation were also visible in the work of embassies. The U.S. Embassy in Prague complained in 1951 that one of the main reasons for the stagnation of U.S.-Czechoslovak economic and scientific-technical cooperation was the attitude of the Czechoslovak authorities to the work of the American diplomatic mission. In this matter, U.S. Ambassador Ellis O. Briggs claimed that the Czechoslovak-enforced reduction of the U.S. Embassy's staff had reduced its capacity to issue consular invoices necessary for the realization of Czechoslovak exports to the States. Briggs's complaints were also directed at the excessive control by the Czechoslovak Public Security (Veřejná bezpečnost, Czechoslovak police force) in front of the U.S. Embassy building, which also slowed down the work of the diplomatic mission.

The development of bilateral technical cooperation has also been hampered by the tightening of mutual conditions for issuing travel visas. In the early 1950s, U.S. authorities not only severely restricted the issuance of U.S. visas to delegates of Czechoslovak enterprises, but also considerably limited the opportunities for American citizens to travel to Czechoslovakia. The argument of Truman's cabinet for these measures was the inability to ensure the safety of Americans in socialist countries.

As Alwood (2010) adds, the development of mutual economic cooperation was complicated at the diplomatic level also by the occasional imprisonment of American citizens in Czechoslovakia. A key case in this regard in the early 1950s was that of the U.S. correspondent William Oatis, who was charged with espionage and held in custody between 1951 and 1953. Czechoslovak diplomat in Washington, Karel Švec, in 1951 suggested that the interruption in the issuance of U.S. consular invoices was largely due to Oatis's imprisonment. The U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia confirmed Švec's words by claiming that his office is too busy negotiating the release of Oatis and other U.S. citizens and thus does not have sufficient resources to focus on the development of economic and scientific-technical cooperation. According to reports to the Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Viliam Široký, the Oatis affair played a significant role also in freezing mutual cooperation in the textile industry in the second half of the Gottwald era. An example is provided by the Czechoslovak Centrotex (foreign trade enterprise), which was unable to carry out the agreed textile exports due to non-receipt of the necessary invoices. Ideological-political disagreements thus spilled over into the economic sphere through the diplomatic platform and led both governments to adopt a passive-aggressive attitude towards the eventuality of further development of inter-bloc cooperation.

Economic protectionism proved to be another key obstacle to the development of U.S.-Czechoslovak cooperation. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that the U.S. had a long history of economic protectionism even before the outbreak of the Cold War. An example may be the U.S. Antidumping Act of 1921, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, the Buy American Act of 1933 or the Agriculture Adjustment Act passed in the same year. These laws were intended to encourage domestic production at the expense of any form of imports (Kaplan 1996). However, shortly after the Cold War erupted, the U.S. government imposed its first trade restrictions aimed exclusively at communist countries. In 1949, the U.S. Congress pushed through a new Export Control Act which gave Truman the right to suspend the export of any goods deemed to threaten national interests. Other discriminatory laws followed soon after, including the McCarran Act of 1950 and the Battle Act of 1951, which made it difficult for Czechoslovak trade delegations to travel to the USA and banned U.S. assistance to countries doing business with the Socialist Bloc.   

As the GATT archives supplemented by Grossfeld and Junker (1991) indicate, the U.S. government justified these measures by the need to protect the domestic economy and ensure international security. This reasoning was not accepted by the Czechoslovak government, which led to its increased criticism of the U.S. foreign policy on international platforms including the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the International Monetary Fund and the GATT (GATT 1953). However, the escalation of Czechoslovak complaints had no effect and, in turn, sparked another wave of further restrictions on mutual trade. In September 1951, the U.S. government suspended its trade obligations towards Czechoslovakia. This included the abolition of the most-favored-nation treatment and the introduction of a new export licensing system which disadvantaged Czechoslovak exports to USA against those of other GATT members. As an analysis of secondary sources indicates, Czechoslovak goods had to face increased import duties that were in average by 15.5% greater than those applied to other U.S. importers (Naray 1979, 145-158; Hampl 1976, 29).

The newly presented arguments defending this measure concerned mainly the manipulation of the market by the Czechoslovak government, which frustrated any benefits of reciprocal trade for American economic circles. The complaints were also aimed at the lack of credibility of the information provided by the Czechoslovak government on the state of its economy, the unresolved compensations for the nationalization of U.S. assets, the criminalization of U.S. business activities in Czechoslovakia, as well as the forced reduction of the capacity of the U.S. Embassy in Prague (GATT 1951a; Procházka 1960). The Czechoslovak representation in the GATT rejected the U.S. arguments, claiming that there had been no violation of mutual trade agreements by the Czechoslovak side. Moreover, U.S. government officials were accused of interfering in Czechoslovak internal affairs and of bringing political reasoning into international trade (GATT 1951b). The politicized GATT platform failed to reverse the deteriorating situation and the U.S. request to suspend trade obligations against Czechoslovakia passed with the support of the majority of other GATT members. The reaction to the U.S. abolition of the most-favored-nation clause was the introduction of similar retaliatory measures by the Czechoslovak government, which imposed equally high tariffs on American exporters (GATTc 1951).

The Impact of Policitial Discord on Economic Cooperation 

The consequence of the suspension of U.S. trade obligations towards Czechoslovakia was a further stagnation in the development of bilateral economic and scientific-technical cooperation in the second half of the Gottwald era. As Procházka (1960) indicates, the sudden cancellation of trade obligations by the USA had a far-reaching negative impact on the Czechoslovak economy, as the U.S. Secretary of Treasure prevented the delivery of goods that had already been paid for by the Czechoslovak side. This concerned in particular equipment for the food and mining industries, wires, electrodes, aluminum foil and other goods worth a total of USD 27 million (Procházka 1960, 112-123). The Czechoslovak situation was further aggravated by additional measures taken by the U.S. government, including a ban on state insurance for goods exported to socialist countries, restrictions on the issuance of checks, or a prohibition on the handling of Czechoslovak goods in U.S. free ports. The situation in this respect went so far in 1951-1953 that Procházka (1960, 120, 125-127) in this context spoke of an “economic war” between the two countries.

Průcha (2009, 261-262, 463), supplemented by reports from the archives of Czechoslovak industrial ministries, give specific examples of the complications that the discriminatory practices of the U.S. government caused to Czechoslovak enterprises. For instance, the delivery of a rolling mill ordered in 1947 and paid for by the Czechoslovak side was not realized during the Gottwald era after increasing pressures from the U.S. government. The U.S. producer, however, refused to provide a refund because of the already incurred production costs. The Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Trade was therefore forced to look for an alternative buyer and eventually sold the machine to Argentina at a loss of 50% of the original price. A similar example is the license for the production of sheet glass, whose purchase was also negotiated during the period of the Third Czechoslovak Republic (1945-1948). After the February 1948 coup d'état, Czechoslovak Foreign Trade Enterprise Kovostroj was unable to enforce its delivery and neither the associated dispatch of American technicians. However, it is necessary to admit that the U.S. embargo policy was also hurting American businesses, as it not only reduced the size of their potential market, but also enforced the cancellation of already negotiated supplies. An example could be the American manufacturer of specialized machines Pfaudler, which received only a down payment from Czechoslovak importers and the difficulty to resell the order to a third party caused a financial loss also to the American producer.

The analysis of the U.S. Code indicates that the deterioration of the conditions of the Czechoslovak-American foreign trade had a negative impact also on the development of other Czechoslovak inter-bloc ties, as the U.S. Department of State began to impose its foreign policy on other governments in its sphere of influence. The introduction of the Export Control Act or the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act (Battle act) was associated with the possibility of refusing U.S. assistance to capitalist countries trading with the Eastern Bloc. Since the early 1950s, the pressures of the U.S. government have been formalized in the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom), through which the Truman administration was able to restrict the development of Czechoslovak inter-bloc cooperation with other capitalist states more directly. As Procházka (1960, 144-145) and Fordham (1998, 388) show, the US leadership interfered in this way with the development of Czechoslovak inter-bloc cooperation with other capitalist states throughout the entire second half of the Gottwald era. This was visible, for example, during the Korean War by the adoption and the subsequent strict enforcement of the Mutual Security Act (1951), which was intended to further facilitate the economic disengagement of all capitalist countries from the Eastern Bloc (Morgner 1967).

Further evidence of the negative impact of the U.S.-Czechoslovak political rift on inter-bloc cooperation is provided by Schipper (2008, 179) and the archives of the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), which show that the U.S. delegates have at times resigned to the possibilities of inter-bloc cooperation offered by the Commission and have not sought to overcome the deadlock created in many of its politicized committees. The counter-cooperative approach of the USA can be presented, for example, in the work of the Committee on Agricultural Problems or the Electric Power Committee which, due to the negative attitude of the U.S. delegates, failed to implement the proposed inter-bloc cooperation projects, including the assistance to small and medium-sized farms or the construction of an East-West energy grid (Lagendijk 2008, 173). The lack of interest of the U.S. leadership in the development of inter-bloc cooperation within the ECE was also presented by the statements of the President of the American Section of the International Chamber of Commerce, who in 1951 proposed to dissolve the entire Commission and to strengthen only the cooperation between capitalist countries within the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation. These archival findings are supported by the analyses of a number of scholars such as Walker L. Cisler (1955, 12), who argued that the primary U.S goal in the ECE was to contain the spread of Soviet ideology by strengthening cooperation among capitalist states and isolating the Eastern Bloc. Similar views were presented by Lagendijk (2008, 173, 181), who also saw the U.S. approach as the reason for the failure of many potential inter-bloc projects.

Czechoslovak Interest in the Revival of Cooperation

The archives of Czechoslovak industrial ministries indicate that the CCP’s approach to the issue of bilateral cooperation differed from the vision of the Truman’s cabinet. In fact, Czechoslovak delegates to international organizations were often more open to the idea of inter-bloc cooperation than their American counterparts. As Kaplan (1995, 276-282) indicates, this phenomenon could be explained to some extent by the needs of the stagnant Czechoslovak economy, which was additionally subject to substantial responsibilities within the Bloc. This fact, combined with the greater strength and innovativeness of the American economy, reinforced by other factors, suggests that Czechoslovak enterprises and scientific-research institutes needed American goods and know-how to a greater extent than vice versa.

For this reason, Czechoslovak experts defended their membership in American scientific societies such as the American Society for Testing Materials or the American Chemical Society, which offered a unique and needed access to Western journals, standards, studies, statistics and other forms of know-how. The proactive approach to deepening U.S.-Czechoslovak cooperation was also visible in the work of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Trade, which sought to channel imports of U.S. goods through Italy, Finland, Switzerland, France and other more liberal capitalist countries. For example, in the context of trade negotiations with the Netherlands, representatives of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Trade sought additional information on the state of the U.S. economy and on the possibilities of circumventing the U.S. embargo by re-exporting American non-ferrous metals through Dutch companies.

Archives of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that an important role in the development of U.S.-Czechoslovak economic and scientific-technical cooperation during the Gottwald era was played by the Czechoslovak diplomatic mission in the USA, represented by both the Embassy in Washington and a network of consulates. These offices closely monitored the development of the American/CoCom embargoes and sent the gathered findings to Prague. In addition, they also analyzed the impact of these anti-communist measures on the further development of mutual trade relations. In this respect, for example, they successfully warned against the future decline in Czechoslovak exports of clothing accessories, against which the pressure of American trade unions intensified in the late 1940s. Similarly, the Embassy in Washington also correctly predicted the negative impact of the activities of the U.S. Economic Cooperation Administration and its newly established Trade Promotion Division, which, according to its analyses, was preparing further measures to restrict inter-bloc trade.

However, the key advantage of the Czechoslovak diplomatic mission in the USA seemed to be its ability to monitor and analyze the potential for cooperation of individual American companies. For example, towards the end of the 1940s, the Czechoslovak Consulate in Cleveland was providing the Czechoslovak government with detailed information on the activities of leading American companies, including Ford and Goodyear. The Consulate also maintained direct contacts with U.S. industrialists and in negotiations with them obtained information on their import needs or their vision for the further development of the international market. An important role in this respect was played by commercial attachés working at the Czechoslovak Embassy. These experts were trained economists with good knowledge of foreign languages responsible for carrying out individual analyses of the American market. In 1948, for example, they collected U.S. trade statistics and later, in agreement with the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Trade, helped negotiate U.S. export licenses.

Indications of Possible Convergence

The records of the cooperation of the commercial attachés with various representatives of the American economy are a testament to the contradictions between the needs of American businesses and the goals of Truman's foreign policy. The interest of American manufacturers and traders in cooperation with Czechoslovakia is evident also in the case of the embargo on the debarkation of socialist goods declared by the American Federation of Labor in 1950, which raised a wave of protest by U.S. importers. In addition, there was no uniformity of opinion on restricting inter-bloc trade even within the Truman cabinet. For example, the archives of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that Willard Thorp, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, expressed opposition to the further strengthening of U.S. discriminatory measures in foreign trade in late 1948. Therefore, not only in Czechoslovakia, but also on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, there was a contradiction between practical economic needs and the official ideological-political orientation of the ruling establishment.

Thanks to the practical needs of the stagnating Czechoslovak economy, the proactive approach of Czechoslovak experts, the interest of American businessmen and selected officials, and the still relatively relaxed bilateral relations in the first half of the Gottwald era, it was possible to implement a limited number of U.S.-Czechoslovak economic and scientific-technical cooperation projects. In this respect, Pulos' (1990, 225) analysis of the development of American industrial designs, supplemented by the findings of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs, provides some evidence. In 1949, the New York Museum of Science and Industry invited Czechoslovak companies to exhibit their goods at a special Czechoslovak Exhibition of Industrial Products called “Let's Do Business”. Thanks to the vehement support of Czechoslovak industrial ministries, the invitation to the exhibition was accepted. The approach and presentation of Czechoslovak industrialists in New York gave the impression of their serious interest in the further development of mutual trade. As a result of the exhibition, Czechoslovak foreign trade enterprises, including Chemapol, Ligna and Kovo, entered into concrete business negotiations that led to increased exports of the Czechoslovak food industry to the USA. The positive impact of the exhibition on the development of inter-bloc trade had a lasting character, as it prompted the Czechoslovak government to engage the Czechoslovak Chamber of Commerce in exploring other possible channels for trade with American businessmen.

A similar positive approach to the development of mutual commercial cooperation was evident among U.S. entrepreneurs, who at times sought new ways to circumvent U.S. laws prohibiting the export of strategic goods to Czechoslovakia. An example here may be provided by the International Manufacturing and Equipment Co. exporting mining equipment through Portugal and Switzerland. Exports of U.S. industrial licenses have also been occasionally successful. In 1949, for example, the American company Wildman Mfg. Co. supplied the Czechoslovak manufacturer Svit with a license for the production of looms. The archives of the Czechoslovak Works of Precision Engineering show that American companies were as late as 1951 still one of the main Czechoslovak suppliers of industrial licenses, patents and technology from the Western Bloc. In 1950, Czechoslovak Works of Precision Engineering paid CSK 4,668,000 to U.S. companies for patents, licenses, leases of IBM machines and other forms of cooperation. This put the scientific-technical assistance from the U.S. to the Czechoslovak Works of Precision Engineering ahead of most other capitalist countries, including Sweden, France, Italy, Belgium and West Germany. 

The Year 1953 as a Turning Point 

The year 1953 can in many respects be considered as a certain turning point in the development of U.S.-Czechoslovak economic and scientific-technical cooperation. In the spring of 1953, both Stalin and the strongly Stalinist CCP leader Klement Gottwald died, which had a strong impact on the reduction of international tensions and the opening of the door to large-scale transformation processes.

Although the still rather Stalinist convictions of the other members of the CCP did not immediately make it possible to adopt a clearly pro-Western course of international politics, on the level of practical economic needs there was a rapidly growing rationale for strengthening inter-bloc cooperation. This rationale was given space especially after the monetary reform of June 1953, whose unsuccessful execution brought the Czechoslovak economy to the brink of an economic crisis. Growing protests threatening to destabilize the communist regime forced even the strongly Stalinist wings of the CCP to pursue a certain renewal of economic and scientific-technical cooperation with the U.S. economy.

These efforts could be observed both on the domestic and international scene. As findings from the archives of the ECE show, many of the new Czechoslovak draft resolutions could be interpreted as genuinely constructive as they were supposed to lead to tangible increases in the U.S.-Czechoslovak commercial exchange. Similar proofs are provided by the archives of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the beginning of the 1950s, which demonstrate a clear will of Czechoslovak foreign trade representatives to achieve advantageous pricing of Western goods, better conditions for the provision of Western credits and an easier access to Western know-how and technologies.

In 1953, pro-Western measures were also promoted on the domestic scene in the form of the “New Course” policy, which was intended to cut the arms budget, boost investment in light industry and increase the inflow of Western know-how (Leonard 1959, 122). This reform package included a limited restoration of pre-Cold War trade ties, which was facilitated by the fact that not all of the complementarity between the Czechoslovak and American markets was broken during the brief Gottwald era. This theory is supported by Kolder (1966) and Metcalf (1993), who show that it was possible for Czechoslovakia to export energy, textiles, foodstuff, cars and other goods to the West even at the beginning of the Novotný era (1953-1968) as the market gap left by Czechoslovak enterprises had not yet been fully filled by capitalist competition.

The rapprochement between Czechoslovakia and the USA after the death of Gottwald and Stalin was facilitated not only by the transformation of the CCP leadership's approach, but also by the developments in Soviet and American politics that were taking place in 1953. In addition to Khrushchev's ascension to the post of the First Secretary of the CPSU and his initiation of the policy of East-West détente known as the “Khrushchev Thaw”, Kaufman (1982) supplemented by findings from the Foreign Relations of the United States book series show that equally important were the often overlooked changes in U.S. leadership that took place after the 1952 presidential elections. Eisenhower’s presidency offered new export opportunities for Czechoslovak foreign trade enterprises, since the 34th President of the United States saw the strengthening of U.S.-Czechoslovak trade as a way of diminishing the influence of Moscow and discrediting the socialist economic model. Therefore, as early as October 1953, Eisenhower proposed to strike several items from the CoCom lists.

However, Eisenhower's efforts to revive East-West contacts would likely have been insufficiently fruitful had they not been supported by the changing sentiment of the British Conservative Party led by Churchill. As Funigiello (1988, 77) shows, first substantial shift in the approach of Western powers to the concept of East-West economic and scientific-technical cooperation occurred in early 1954, when Winston Churchill in the House of Commons requested a significant reduction of CoCom export control lists, believing that the geopolitical situation had changed and the Eastern Bloc no longer posed as much of a threat as it had under Stalin’s leadership.

On April 27, 1954, thanks to Churchill's urging, a special conference of the CoCom member states was held, where Great Britain put forward a proposal to significantly reduce the items on the CoCom lists. After initial counter-arguments, especially from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Eisenhower was at first driven to reject the motion. However, under pressure from other Western European governments, the American delegation acquiesced to the British proposals. The CoCom lists were reduced by one third in the case of total embargoes and by more than 50% in the case of quantitative restrictions (Procházka 1960). These measures constituted a significant impetus for the Czechoslovak economy to grasp the rediscovered benefits of inter-bloc trade. Although the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Trade wasn’t immediately and fully capable of profiting from the new market conditions, the partial abolition of Western discriminatory measures was nevertheless regarded favorably among Czechoslovak economists and proactive measures were taken to ensure a better exploitation of the East-West cooperation potential in the remaining years of the Novotný era.

Conclusion

An analysis of primary sources from Czech and Swiss archives, supplemented by limited secondary literature, revealed that although the narrative of the Cold War as a period of two completely antagonistic, isolated and mutually non-communicating blocs has been generally accepted in contemporary historiography until recently, it should be considered outdated. While it must be admitted that the U.S., as the main patron of political liberalism and economic capitalism, opposed the concept of inter-bloc cooperation more vehemently than most Western European economies, it cannot be assumed that U.S.-Czechoslovak cooperation was non-existent during the Stalinist Gottwald era (1948-1953). Especially the late 1940s were marked not only by persistent flows of basic goods, but also of modern technology and industrial licenses.

However, the progressing politicization of East-West relations in the early 1950s did not avoid the cooperation between the Czechoslovak and American economies. After the pressures of the CPSU, the leadership of the CCP transformed into a strongly Stalinist one and, under the supervision of Stalin and Mikoyan, began to reduce transatlantic cooperation ties. The role of the main Czechoslovak source of economic and scientific-technical assistance was taken on by the USSR, and the aim of mutual cooperation became the achievement of independence in all capitalist markets. In the early 1950s, the escalation of the Cold War then forced the Truman administration to withdraw from its trade obligations to Czechoslovakia. The subsequent imposition of high tariffs led, especially in 1952 and 1953, to a reduction of US-Czechoslovak trade to a bare minimum. The volume of reciprocal commercial exchange in 1953 reached only about 5% of its 1948 level (Procházka 1960).

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