A Cold War institution that's lost its bearings - International Herald Tribune

A Cold War institution that's lost its bearings - International Herald Tribune: "VIENNA: In the imperial Hofburg palace, a wing has long been occupied by a forum that was established during the Cold War. The Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as it was then called, was an extraordinary inspiration for dissident movements throughout Eastern Europe. By singling out human rights in the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, it gave these movements substantial backing when they challenged the ruling Communists. Some experts say it was the Helsinki Final Act that precipitated the collapse of these regimes in 1989."