June 20, 2000 Two Day Conference on Cold War Archives Scheduled

The Library of Congress and the Department of Defense will sponsor a conference, "Cold War Archives in the Decade of Openness," on Wednesday, June 28 and Thursday, June 29, in Dining Room A, sixth floor, James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E. The conference begins at 2:30 p.m. and is open to the public, free of charge.

The conference will consist of three sessions and a reception, with presentations by the directors of the Hungarian, Polish, and Romanian military archives; Cold War scholars and archivists; representatives from the Department of Defense; and library specialists from the European Division of the Library of Congress. The keynote address following the first session will feature Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Walter B. Slocombe. The conference program may be viewed at www.loc.gov/rr/european/milconf.htm. For more information, call (202) 707-3704.

This event commemorates a program, inaugurated in 1996 jointly by the Department of Defense and the Library of Congress, to microfilm military records and inventories in former Soviet-bloc countries. Projects are now under way at three institutions: The Central Military Archives (Centralne Archiwum Wojskowe) in Poland, the War History Archives (Hadtörténelmi Levéltár) in Hungary, and the Military Archives of the Ministry of National Defense (Archivele Militarie ale Ministerului Apÿrÿrii Naÿionale) in Romania. Records are selected for filming by mutual consent of the archives and the Department of Defense and the Library of Congress. One copy of the processed microfilm is housed at the Library of Congress, where it is available to researchers in the European Reading Room, in the Jefferson Building. The Central European archives retain both a positive and negative copy.

SCHEDULE

Wednesday, June 28

2:30 - 4:30 pm
THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN MILITARY ARCHIVES COLLECTION AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Collection contents, subject areas, and special features

Chair: Alfred Goldberg, Historian, Office of the Secretary of Defense
Poland: Ronald Bachman, Area Specialist, Library of Congress
Hungary: Kenneth Nyirady, Reference Librarian, Library of Congress
Romania: Grant Harris, Reference Specialist, Library of Congress

5:00 - 7:00 pm
KEYNOTE ADDRESS AND RECEPTION

Introduction: Jo Ann Jenkins, Chief of Staff, Library of Congress
Speaker: Walter B. Slocombe, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Thursday, June 29

9:30 - 11:30 am
CENTRAL EUROPEAN MILITARY ARCHIVES IN THE DECADE OF OPENNESS

Chair: Brig. Gen. John Sloan Brown, Director, U.S. Army Center of Military History
Poland: Col. Andrzej Bartnik, Director, Central Military Archives
Hungary: Dr. Jolán Szijj, Director, War History Archives
Romania: Col. Alexandru Osca, Chief, Military Archives of the Ministry of National Defense

1:30 - 3:30 pm
COLD WAR DOCUMENTATION PROGRAMS

Chair: Robert S. Litwak, Woodrow Wilson Center
Panel: Mark Kramer, Harvard University
Thomas Blanton, National Security Archive
Vojtech Mastny, National Security Archive and Center for Security Studies and Conflict Research
Christian Ostermann, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson Center
Pavol Salamon, Open Society Archives
John E. Haynes, Library of Congress