* Talbott's new position is especially noteworthy because he had been for many years a staunch Russophile, especially when Russia was Communist. His shift to anti-Russianism is typical of the many former left-liberals who took a soft line on the Soviet Union and claimed that the Soviets deserved a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. When I was a graduate student in history in the 1970s, the left-liberal academic establishment railed against "American imperialism" and the "military-industrial complex," but rarely criticized Soviet militancy. Those views, echoed in a softer form, abounded in the major media of that time. Now with the downfall of Soviet Communism, those concerns, which would seem to be more justified than ever, are virtually nonexistent in establishment sources.