Expert on U.S. foreign relations to speak at OSU

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

(Oct. 14, 2008, STILLWATER, Okla.) – Melvyn P. Leffler, one of the country’s leading authorities on modern U.S. foreign relations, will present a lecture titled “Cold War Lessons and Contemporary Dilemmas” at 7 p.m. on Oct. 20 at Oklahoma State University.

Leffler’s lecture will take an in-depth look at some of America’s most challenging issues.
 
“The U.S. now faces stark problems that range from terrorism to global warming to energy shortfalls,” said Laura Belmonte, the director of the American Studies Program at OSU who is coordinating Leffler’s visit.
 
“Dr. Leffler’s lecture will explore what can be learned from the Cold War,” she said. “I believe the audience will be surprised to discover how much that conflict can teach us about the challenges facing the world today.”
 
Leffler is the Edward Stettinius Professor of American History at the University of Virginia. In 2005, he was appointed the Henry Alfred Kissinger Scholar in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress.
 
He served in the office of the Secretary of Defense during the Carter administration where he worked on arms control and contingency planning as a fellow of the Council of Foreign Relations. He also was a member of the U.S. delegation to a joint Soviet-American symposium on the Cold War in Moscow and Washington in 1990.
 
Leffler is the author of “A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War,” which received the Hoover, Ferrell, and Bancroft Prizes in 1993. Other publications include “To Lead the World: American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine,” “For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War” and “The Origins of the Cold War.”
 
The lecture is in Room 106 in the Noble Research Center at OSU. The event is free and open to the public.
 
For more information, phone (918) 906-2134 e-mail laura.belmonte@okstate.edu.