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‘Cold War Secrets’ Topic Of Jackson Center Panel Discussion

While the Cold War might seem like ages ago, an upcoming event at the Robert H. Jackson Center will shed light on the complex time.

On Thursday, the center will host a panel of speakers throughout the day during the “Cold War Secrets Revealed” educational seminar. Various speakers will present on secrets and little-known facts regarding the Cold War. The event will run from 8:30 a.m. until 2 p.m.

Speakers include David Gill, consul general of Germany in New York; Eli Rosenbaum, director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy section of the Department of Justice; Nancy Thorndike Greenspan, author of “Atomic Spy: The Dark Lives of Kalus Fuchs”; and professor Arthur T. Downey, author of “The Cold War: Law, Lawyers, Spies and Crises” and former staff member of the National Security Council under Henry Kissinger.

Rosenbaum will be joining the event virtually, while all other speakers will be present on site. Greg Peterson, a co-founder of the center, will be moderating the panel.

Executive Director Kristan McMahon said she is looking forward to the event for various reasons, including a return to in-person programming.

“For one, we’re excited to have it, dipping our toes back into in-person programming,” McMahon said. “It’s wonderful to have people back in the building — we’re really looking forward to this. These are such interesting stories and this is a time period where it will be a new topic of conversation for a lot of people in the audience. The Cold War sort of feels like the distant past, and it’s not really. A lot of the roots of how the world was viewing these activities during the Cold War and the tensions and the challenges came out of their experiences during World War II.”

McMahon said tensions remained going forward as nations were trying to figure out who to trust and who not to trust.

“I think these are going to be really interesting stories where we’re going to hear their experiences and their research. I’m looking forward to it,” she said.

McMahon said Downey will be sharing behind-the-scenes stories, while Greenspan will be discussing the story of Klaus Fuchs, a German who emigrated to the U.S. that ended up sharing top-secret plans about the plutonium bomb. Rosenbaum will discuss his experience in being the “chief Nazi hunter” for the United States government.

“He has been looking for those who had emigrated to the United States who had worked in the concentration camps or had been of the German military, or in this particular instance in the Nazi military,” she said. “(He was) working on denaturalizing them and deporting them.”

Those who are interested in attending the free event can visit RobertHJackson.org/events. A luncheon will follow the program, and the center kindly asks that attendees indicate whether they will attend the luncheon to provide adequate meals for those in attendance. The program will also be offered virtually for those who wish to attend in that way.

For more information, visit RobertHJackson.org.

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