A U.S. theatrical release of a film from the Soviet Union was a revolutionary moment in the history of the Cold War due to the geopolitical tension between the countries. At this time, the United States was committed to sustaining the Cold War. Under president Eisenhower, the New Look policy advised by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called for resistance to cultural influences from Russia. The visit by Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to the American National Exhibition on 24 July 1959 was supposed to lower Cold War tensions by opening cultural exchanges across the two nations, though their discussion at the exhibition became known as the Kitchen Debate. During this cultural rapprochement, leaders were aware of secret U-2 incursions into USSR airspace. Despite the Domino Theory The Snow Queen raised the iron curtain, by becoming the first purchase of a Soviet film by any major American company. M.J.P. Enterprises sold the rights of the movie to Universal for a reported fee of $30,000. It became Universal Pictures' first theatrical animated feature film. On 7 June 1959, The New York Times reported Universal's plan for a major release across Canada and the U.S. for an English dub of the film with an added prologue. In June 1959, The Hollywood Reporter noted that, in order to allow Universal to release the picture in America, Walt Disney and Samuel Goldwyn both waived the rights they held with the MPAA to the title "The Snow Queen." The film entered the Vancouver International Film Festival on 3 August 1959 and Universal ran the picture at the San Francisco International Film Festival in November 1959.
