THE words "cold war" entered the American language -- and the language of TIME -- in 1947. Well before then the fact, if not the expression, was familiar. While the hot war was still in progress, a TIME cover story on Joseph Stalin in February 1945 noted: "The line of Russia's 800-mile military front practically bisected Europe. How much farther west was it going to move? And what went on behind that line?" Ever since, reporting the cold war waged between the Iron Curtain countries and the free world has been a major preoccupation of U.S. journalism. But the nature of the cold war has drastically changed, as we show this week in both THE NATION and THE WORLD.

While never as clear-cut as it may appear in memory, the cold war in its early years -- the years of Communist near-victories in Western Europe, of the Berlin airlift -- was a worldwide drama in which there was little confusion about the identity of the heroes and villains. Most of the time, the Western Allies stood solidly together before the Communist menace.

Even after the Russians began talking about "peaceful coexistence," they were still ready to seize every opportunity, as, for instance, in 1961, when they tried to spread the cold war to Africa during the Congo crisis. TIME doubted then that Khrushchev was prepared for "really serious intervention" and, as this week's cover story makes clear, the continent's major problems still do not stem from Communism. And of course, the Russians tried again in Cuba. After they were decisively repulsed, an event described by Britain's Harold Macmillan as one of the great turning points of history, we noted: "The cold war will never be the same again." The change was formalized in the nuclear test ban, and in a cover story on Negotiator Averell Harriman, we pointed out that "Western Europe's postwar order" had been based on "antiCommunism as an article of faith"; given a softer image of Communism and diminished fear of nuclear war, the Western alliance was bound to grow less firm.

And yet it may be useful to recall that this alliance has had its troubles before. When John Foster Dulles was TIME'S Man of the Year (Jan. 3, 1955), he had threatened his famous "agonizing reappraisal" of U.S. relations with France -- which, as always, was being difficult about its role in European defense. There will be many more reappraisals in the alliance without destroying it; and perhaps more of the agonizing will be on the other side.

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