Current and former agency officials who knew Mr. Ames said something went wrong in the early 1980's, when he was stationed in Mexico City, one of the great cold war battlegrounds.

Since El Salvador is no longer a cold war battleground, the United States has devoted little attention to cleaning up the mess that war left behind.

Yesterday's cold war battleground is today's backwater.

Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States viewed Africa mainly as a cold war battleground.

In the back of his mind at all times is the biggest cold war battleground, Berlin, and the fear that the Soviets might retaliate there and put the whole world at war.

But now that the Olympics are no longer a symbolic cold war battleground, America's leading medal count was almost beside the point.

He said his affinity for the left grew as Greece turned into a cold war battleground, for which he largely blames not Stalin but the Central Intelligence Agency.

The African republic quickly became a cold war battleground.

"The I.O.C. had little financing, unity was shaky at best and the Games were becoming a cold war battleground."

Yet even now it is unclear whether peace is at hand in this country, which has been savaged by more than two decades of civil war, including years as a cold war battleground.