Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. [Vol. 5.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 25)

Studies - Tamás Magyarics: From the Rollback of Communism to Building Bridges: The U.S. and the Soviet Block Countries from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to the Prague Spring in 1968

Economic relations were established between the two countries in 1957, negotiations started concerning cultural exchange programs, and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon visited Poland on August 2-5, 1959. However, the reaction of the Polish people to the visit startled Gomulka and the Communist leadership in Poland, who had pursued a conciliatory policy toward the U.S. in 1957 and 1958 mainly as an attempt to establish some counterbalance to the heavy Soviet presence in the region. The Soviets were also more restricted in these years than before because they did not want, and could not afford, to have "another Hungary"; however, from 1959 on thez were able to put more pressure on the Polish leaders and Gomulka was a "good Communist" in the first place and a "good patriot" only in the second, after all. The positions became more rigid and confrontational on the other side too: the U.S. Congress passed the Captive Nations Resolution in July 1959, and the July 27, 1960 report of the NSC stated that the establishment of the economic, cultural, technical, etc. fields could not effected without the cooperation of the other side; in short: the Eisenhower Administration accepted the then dead J.F. Dulles's proposal that the socialist countries were only "inching their way" toward independence and it was in the interest of the Atlantic Community not to interfere with the pace of it in any way.

4 US-East-European Economic relations in the 1950s The economic relations between 1948 and 1956—if we can speak of any at all—were defined by the various commercial restrictions and embargoes: the political concept of a "monolith Communist bloc" resulted in a "monolithic" economic policy. First of all, the AntiDumping Act of 1921 was still in force and as the economic relations of the socialist countries were distorted by the political considerations, "dumping" could also be evoked against the export of goods of these countries. Another pre-World War II act, the Johnson Act of 1934 was also still in existence, which provided that the American business enterprises could extend loans and credits to the so-called non-friendly countries only for a period of six months; the East-European countries were always short of foreign exchange and therefore they were interested in medium- and long-term loans in the first place. Congress " Quoted in McKitterick, Nathaniel M. East-West Trade. The 20th Century Fund. 1966.18. 70