“I realized it wasn’t the Soviet Union that was the great danger, it was the potential of nuclear war, and it’s still the case today,” Stephen Cohen said in an interview with Paul Jay in May 2019.
Archive | Stephen F. Cohen
Stephen F. Cohen was Professor of Politics at Princeton University, where for many years he was also director of the Russian Studies Program, and Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies and History at New York University.
He grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky, received his undergraduate and master's degrees at Indiana University, and his Ph.D. at Columbia University.
For his scholarly work, Cohen received several honors, including two Guggenheim Fellowships and a National Book Award nomination.
Throughout his long and storied career, Cohen visited and lived in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia regularly for more than forty years.
Steve was a frequent contributor to American media, including for many years as a CBS News commentator where he covered the historic Bush-Gorbachev Summit in Malta. With the producer Rosemary Reed, he served as a project adviser and correspondent for three PBS documentary films about Russia.
Cohen served on the Board of the original American Committee on East-West Accord in the 1970s and 80s and served as the founding Board member of the second iteration of the Committee in 2015. The current American Committee for US-Russia Accord hopes to carry on Steve's considerable legacy.
From the Archive: Russia Betrayed? Voices of the Opposition, Part 1
Part I of a documentary film by Rosemarie Reed examining Russia in the chaotic 1990s through interviews between Professor Stephen F. Cohen and oppositionists Aleksandr Lebed, Aleksandr Rutskoi, Grigory Yavlinsky, and Gennady Zyuganov. From November 22, 1995.
From the Archive: Kiev’s Atrocities and the Silence of the Hawks by Stephen F. Cohen
In light of the photographs that have surfaced showing the US military attache to Kiev, USAF Col. Brittney Stewart, saluting the grave marker of a member of the neo-Nazi Ukrainian battalion Right Sector, we publish Professor Stephen Cohen’s article from July 2014 which chronicled the wartime atrocities carried out by the American-supported government in Kiev.
From the Archive: PBS Documentary: Conversations with Gorbachev, With Stephen F. Cohen
Part I of a 1994 documentary film by Rosemarie Reed featuring conversations between former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Professor of Soviet Studies at NYU and Princeton Stephen F. Cohen.
From the Archive: “Russian Odysseys” Part 2 Featuring Stephen F. Cohen and Alexander Rabinowitch
Stephen F. Cohen and Alexander Rabinowitch Reflect on Six+ Decades of Scholarly and Personal Engagement with Russia. At Indiana University Bloomington they were interviewed by their wives: Katrina vanden Heuvel and Janet Rabinowitch.
VIDEO: War with Russia? Stephen F. Cohen and Dan Rather in Conversation with Katrina Vanden Heuvel
From June 17, 2019 at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan: Stephen Cohen, Dan Rather and Katrina vanden Heuvel tackled the following issues: Are we in a new Cold War with Russia? How does a new Cold War affect the safety and security of the US? Does Vladimir Putin really want to destabilize the West?
VIDEO: From the Archive: Russian Odysseys with Alexander Rabinowitch and Stephen F. Cohen
Stephen F. Cohen and Alexander Rabinowitch Reflect on Six Decades of Scholarly and Personal Engagement with Russia at at a panel discussion at University of Indiana where they both studied. Cohen and Rabinowitch were interviewed by their wives: Katrina vanden Heuvel and Janet Rabinowitch.
VIDEO: Conversations with Gorbachev: Stephen F. Cohen and Mikhail Gorbachev
To close out the year, I thought it appropriate to pay tribute to the Committee’s late and much missed founder, Professor Stephen F. Cohen, by posting this documentary film from 1994 by Rosemarie Reed featuring conversations between Professor Cohen and Mikhail Gorbachev. [Read more…] about VIDEO: Conversations with Gorbachev: Stephen F. Cohen and Mikhail Gorbachev
Bill Bradley: The Man Who Knew Russia: A Tribute to Stephen F. Cohen
As we disregarded Russian fears and ignored the chance for a true partnership, Steve worried about the resumption of hostile relations between our two countries and possibly a new Cold War.
Lev Golinkin: Stephen F. Cohen Kept the Faith
The DC apparatchiks couldn’t discredit Steve’s credentials or track record – he’d predicted events in Ukraine and elsewhere years before they occurred. They couldn’t intimidate him – he’d faced far worse threats, like the KGB. Instead, they set out to turn him into an America-hating, Putin-loving pariah.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: A personal recollection of Stephen F. Cohen
He was courageous and fearless in continuing to question the increasingly rigid orthodoxies about the Soviet Union and Russia. But in the last months, such criticism did take its toll on him. Along with others who sought to avert a new and more dangerous Cold War, Steve despaired that the public debate so desperately needed had become increasingly impossible in mainstream politics or media.
VIDEO: Stephen F. Cohen at the AJC 2017 Forum about Russia and Terrorism
In 2017 the AJC Global Forum featured Stephen F. Cohen; journalist Julia Ioffe; and Andrew Weiss, Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.