But on March 5, 1953, Josef Stalin died, and the landscape of the cold war briefly shone in a new light. Eisenhower, sensing an opportunity, asked his advisers: Did Stalin’s death open up the chance for a thaw in the U.S.-Soviet conflict? Secretary Dulles and the CIA answered no: the Soviets, they argued, would remain just as hostile and aggressive under Stalin’s successors as they had been since the birth of the Soviet Union more than three decades earlier. If anything, Moscow might be even more inclined to take risks now, as a show of strength during the transition to new leadership in the
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