In recent years, scholars have begun to reassess our understanding of the intersection of science with American foreign policy following World War II. Were state attitudes towards scientific internationalism, collaboration, and exchange primarily shaped by physicists, or by members of other scientific fields? To what extent did U.S. scientists feel compromised by state actions involving international scientific activities in the 1950s and 1960s, and what responses did they take? Was the prestige of science a more important contribution to the start of the Cold War than previously recognized, and are historians only beginning to glimpse significant shifts in international scientific practices that emerged in this period? This talk assesses current ideas and still-unresolved questions.

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