The Library of Congress recently announced the appointment of Melvyn Leffler, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at the University of Virginia, as the next Henry Alfred Kissinger Scholar in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the LOC’s Kluge Center.

During his appointment, Leffler intends to write a book on the Cold War, answering such questions as “why it started,” “why it lasted as long as it did,” and “why it ended when it did.”

Leffler, an expert in contemporary U.S. foreign relations, holds a doctorate from Ohio State University and has been a member of the faculty of UVA’s history department for nearly 20 years. The author of several books, Leffler is the recipient of the 1993 Bancroft Prize for his work, “A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War.” He also served as a Council on Foreign Relations fellow in the Carter administration, as a Nobel Peace Institute senior fellow in Oslo, and as president of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Leffler, only the fourth scholar to hold the chair since its creation four years ago by friends of the former national security adviser and secretary of State, will begin his residency in January 2005.

— Bree Hocking