All of a sudden, I felt back in Central Europe during the Cold War. But this was Washington, D.C., on October 30, 2010. At the Rally to Restore Sanity in the imperial capital yesterday, the mood reminded me of my postings as a U.S. Foreign Service public diplomacy officer in Prague (1983-1985) and Krakow (1986-1990).

MOSCOW---To commemorate the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, Russia staged an impressive Victory Day celebration on May 9, with plenty of troops and military hardware rolling through Red Square and a display of air power in the sky above Moscow. On first glance, it was just like the good old (or bad old) days.

But among those troops on parade were U.S. and British soldiers. Joseph Stalin’s picture was banned from the many posters in the center of the city, and Lenin’s Tomb – the reviewing stand for so many Cold War ceremonies – was covered by a billboard.

"[T]hrough the press section of USIS that the Communist parties themselves represented at the Moscow Congress have come to know one of the most serious and dramatic documents in the Communist literature of the world."

--Pietro Nenni, Secretary General, Italian Socialist Party, 1957