Digital Exhibits

Journal describing 1990 trip to Poland, Ireland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia

The journal of US Congressman Les AuCoin detailing his trip to Warsaw and Krakow, Poland; Dublin, Belfast, and Shannon, Ireland; Berlin, Germany; and Prague, Czechoslovakia roughly a year before the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in August 1990. In his journal, Congressman AuCoin details the devastation of Prague, meeting foreign leaders (including Polish President Lech Walesa, East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere, and Czech Preisdent Vaclav Havel), the landscape of each country, and visiting the Reistag to find no Checkpoint Charlie or Berlin Wall. When describing the situation of Ireland admist the Northern Ireland Conflict (A.K.A. The Troubles), AuCoin stated "I never wanted to get out of a place so fast in my life -- as bad, really, as the Soviet Union. Taunting hatred, underlying evil everywhere; people/automotons walking in a daze." Reflecting on his trip overall, AuCoin stated "I leave with the feeling that 'minimalist' America is missing a bet here. Americans are idealized, not the Germans, not the Japanese, not even the Italiians, [sic] who are swarming through the place and trying to put together an economic block that would include Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, as a counter-weight to an united Germany and to leverage its on poistion. But with our popularity, a 'Marshall Plan' would give us a dominate position in a post-Cold War era that we've spent trillions of dollars of bombs and missiles one [sic]. Yet Geroge Bush talks of volunteers. They need infrastructure, they need massive chemical and toxic waste cleanup, they need coal scrubbing technoloogy, [sic] they need telecommunications, they need hotels, roads, hospitals, financial services -- and a plan to produce products."

This is one of a collection of digitized objects from the Les AuCoin Papers (MS.147) at the Pacific University Archives. AuCoin served in the Oregon House of Representatives (1971-1975) and in the United States House of Representatives from Oregon's 1st District (1975-1993).

AuCoin, Les

August 1990

United States. Congress. House.

Legislators--United States

Speeches, addresses, etc.

Cold War.

Soviet Union.

International economic relations.

Warsaw, Poland

Krakow, Poland

Dublin, Ireland

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Shannon, Ireland

Berlin, Germany

Prague, Czechoslovakia

Soviet Union

PUA_MS147_542

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

Les AuCoin Papers, Pacific University Archives

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