Peter Osnos on Would You Believe

When the Helsinki Accords were signed on August 1, 1975, the likelihood they would have a profound and lasting impact on the world were very small. The thirty-five signatories were the nations of Europe, the United States and Canada were formally known as the Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Final Act of CSCE contained detailed provisions on respect for human rights and set country borders that essentially held until Russia invaded Ukraine in February,2022. Only 15 years after the summit signing, the Soviet Union imploded and its Eastern European satellites broke with Communism and the broad range of human rights issues –civil, social, economic, and political – were a major factor in this historic turning point. Peter Osnos was a reporter and foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and served as the newspaper’s foreign and national editor. From 1984-1996 he was Vice President, Associate Publisher, and Senior Editor at Random House and Publisher of Random House’s Times Books division. He later founded PublicAffairs where he served as Publisher and CEO until 2005, and was a consulting editor until 2020 when he and his wife, Susan Sherer Osnos, launched Platform Books LLC. Join us when Peter Osnos shares his vast expertise as a journalist and publisher in Would You Believe on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.