Jiri Valenta was educated at the Prague School of Economics and Johns Hopkins University. Former coordinator of Soviet and East European studies at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, Professor Valenta was also a fellow at the Brookings Institution, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars among other appointments. He is the author of Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia, 1968: Anatomy of a Decision; coauthor of The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Three Perspectives; co-editor and contributor to Eurocommunism between East and West; Soviet Decisionmaking for National Security; Grenada and Soviet/Cuban Policy: Internal Crisis and U.S.! OECS Intervention and Conflict in Nicaragua. Dr. Valenta testified before the Kissinger Bipartisan Commission on Central America and at hearings of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. Esperanza Durán, a Mexican national, is a Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), where she has directed the Latin American program since 1983. Formerly she was Professor of International Studies at El Colegio de Mexico and the editor of Foro Internacional. Dr. Durán has also taught at the University of Warwick, the London School of Economics and the University of Southern California's School of International Relations in London. Her publications include Latin America and the World Recession (editor and contributor, 1985), Guerra y revolucion. Las grandes potencias y Mexico 1914-1918 (1985), and European Interests in Latin America (1985) as well as numerous articles published on both sides of the Atlantic.
