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50 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN

ATOMIC ESPIONAGE AND ITS SOVIET “WITNESSES”

by Vladislav Zubok

No trial jury should render a guilty verdict without solid evidence, and neither shouldscholars. Therefore historians and scientists reacted with deep skepticism when in hisrecently-published memoir, Special Tasks, Pavel Sudoplatov, a notorious operative ofStalin’s secret service, asserted that the KGB received secret atomic information fromseveral eminent scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, including J. RobertOppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, and Niels Bohr.1 Sudoplatov’s claim that Bohrhad knowingly given sensitive atomic data to a Soviet intelligence operative in November1945, thereby helping the USSR to start its first controlled nuclear chain reaction for theproduction of weapons-grade plutonium,2 generated particular surprise and disbelief giventhe renowned Danish physicist’s towering reputation for integrity and loyalty in thescientific world.

Only two months after Sudoplatov’s “revelations,” however, an important piece ofcontemporary evidence surfaced. Sudoplatov’s original 1945 memorandum to Stalin viaLavrenty Beria, retrieved from “Stalin’s File” (papka Stalina) in the State Archive of theRussian Federation (GARF)3, refutes the allegation that Bohr improperly helped the Sovietatomic program and clandestinely passed secret Manhattan Project data to Beria’s messen-gers. Notwithstanding journalistic claims to the contrary,4 Sudoplatov’s contention that theapproach to Bohr was “essential to starting the Soviet reactor” has proved to be a merefantasy.

The cloud over Bohr should have been dispelled, but a larger question remainsunanswered: how should one judge the claims of a group of “witnesses” from the Sovietsecret police, intelligence, and elsewhere who have recently commented on Soviet espio-nage activities in 1941-1949 and their significance for Moscow’s atomic program? Thesituation evokes an old Russian proverb: “Lying like an eyewitness.” Indeed, the claims ofthese “witnesses” are suspect for a number of reasons, including the possibility of hiddenagendas, personal biases, and the corrosive effect of time on human memories even whenthere is no deliberate intention to distort them, a danger that is particularly acute when peopleattempt to recall events concerning a subject beyond their expertise and comprehension.

That seems to be the major problem of most KGB commentators on atomic espionage,especially since only a tiny group of intelligence officers at various stages controlled theKremlin’s atomic “networks” in the United States (Gaik Ovakimian, Leonid Kvasnikov,Anatoli Yatskov, Semen Semyonov) and in Great Britain (Vladimir Barkovsky, AlexanderFeklisov). And even they, at the time of their operational work, were nothing more thanconveyor belts of technical data between foreign sources and Soviet scientists.

The scientific head of the Soviet atomic program, Igor Kurchatov, sometimes with thehelp of his closest colleagues, formulated requests for technical information. Only he, andafter August 1945 other members of the Scientific-Technical Council of the Soviet atomicproject, could competently evaluate the materials provided by Klaus Fuchs and other spies.Kurchatov and other consumers of intelligence knew little or nothing of sources andmethods, while Kvasnikov, Yatskov, Feklisov, and others knew very little of the progressof atomic research and development back home. Bohr’s interrogator, the scientist Y.Terletsky, according to a later interviewer, “had no real knowledge of what was going onin the Soviet project, thus Beria was not afraid of sending him abroad.”5 Kurchatov and hispeople compiled a questionnaire for Bohr and trained Terletsky to use it before his mission.Feklisov received a similar briefing from an unnamed “atomic scientist” before going toLondon to serve as control officer for Fuchs. “I had regrettably a weak knowledge of atomicmatters,” admitted Feklisov in a considerable understatement.6

Stalin and Beria, the powerful secret police chief who after Hiroshima was given chargeof the Soviet atomic project, effectively used this compartmentalization of information toprevent any leaks abroad. This system succeeded brilliantly when Western intelligencefailed to penetrate the Soviet atomic project or predict the date of the USSR’s first atomictest in August 1949.7 Yet, a half century later, this very success produces misunderstandings

continued on page 52

DOCUMBeria’s Cover M

[Handwritten across top of page: “Make known to ComCommissariat of State Security (NKGB) and Beria’s lon

[28] November [1945]To Comrade S

The famous physicist Professor Niels BOHR, whoreturned to Denmark from the USA and started working

Niels BOHR is famous as a progressive-minded scexchange of scientific achievements. This gave us grounpretense of searching for equipment which the Germans hato establish contact with Niels BOHR and obtain from h

The comrades who were sent: Colonel VASILEVS[Yakov] TERLETSKY, and interpreter-engineer ARUTUBOHR and organized two meetings with him.

The meetings took place on 14 and 16 November, undto the Institute of Theoretical Physics.

Com[rade]. TERLETSKY told BOHR that while pato visit the famous scientist and that BOHR’s lectures at

In the course of the conversations BOHR was askeMoscow by Academician KURCHATOV and other scie

Attached are the questions, BOHR’s answers to Academician KURCHATOV.

/L. B E continued o

SOVIET ESPIONAGE

The publication this past spring of the memoirs of forMemoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet SpymasteLeona P. Schecter (Little, Brown, and Co., 1994)—sparkprominent scientists who participated in the Manhattan including J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Leo nuclear information to Soviet intelligence. In newspaper programs, as well as at a forum CWIHP-sponsored forumprominent historians of nuclear issues and of the KGBdenounced the charges of atomic spying as at worst scurSpecial Tasks, and some supporters, stuck to their accouwould eventually be released to buttress their account. about the controversy.) The allegations raised serious qabout how to evaluate the memoirs and oral histories of Cthe shadowy world of the intelligence agencies, where d

In the hope of helping readers evaluate at least onKGB secret atomic information in late 1945 which helpfirst nuclear reactor—the Cold War International Historyoriginal KGB report, drafted by Sudoplatov himself, to Jotop-secret documents—a cover memorandum to Beria fBeria; the attached record of the interrogation of Bohscientific director of the Soviet nuclear project—becamerupted. They were located in Beria’s files in the State Aacronym, GARF), and provided to CWIHP by Russian hRussian physicist and historian Yuri Smirnov. Both Zubtaries, and the document is also commented upon by Davthe Bomb. Aware that all three take a critical view of thwelcomes responses to the articles here from Sudoplatoarchival evidence) to contribute.

COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN 51

THE KGB MISSION TO NIELS BOHR: ITS REAL “SUCCESS”

by Yuri N. Smirnov

The reminiscences of Pavel Sudoplatov, a former Lieutenant General of the USSRNKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, later the Ministry of Internal Affairs),recently published in the West, attracted widespread attention.1 And though his bookSpecial Tasks, written with the participation of three co-authors, is not yet known to Russianreaders, responses to it have appeared in our country as well. And the chapter whichSudoplatov devoted entirely to Soviet atomic espionage elicited the most interest.

The explanation is simple: it’s the first time one of the “main chiefs” in this area (duringthe 1945-46 period) started to speak, particularly one who enjoyed Beria’s special sympa-thy. Moreover, Sudoplatov suddenly “revealed” a piquant “detail”: that the elite of theAmerican atomic project, including world-famous physicists Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi,Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and others, allegedly cooperated with Soviet intelligenceto pass atomic secrets to the USSR.

Naturally, this last claim provoked a storm of indignation from veterans of theManhattan Project, most prominently from Edward Teller, Hans Bethe, and Victor Weisskopf.Teller stressed that the sensational chapter of Sudoplatov’s book, in his opinion, “is certainlywrong in many essential parts and quite possibly wrong in every respect.”2 Some readerseven concluded that the chapter was meant as a provocation.

But the emotional response to Sudoplatov’s book obscured one very significant detailwhich explains a great deal. Sudoplatov is already 87 years old. And being of such avenerable age, he decided, without going near any documents, to describe from memory themost important events, which demand particular precision, and with which he dealt literallyhalf a century ago. Naturally, his co-authors had to assume even more responsibility.Unfortunately, preference was not given to real, confirmed facts, but to cheap, inflatedsensation. Where all this led—we will see in a very telling example.

For illustration I will use the most portentous episode described in Sudoplatov’s“Atomic Spies” chapter—the Russian physicist Yakov Terletsky’s special trip to see Bohrin Copenhagen in November 1945. Paradoxical as it may be, this episode illustrates Beria’sinsidious calculations and Bohr’s noble, selfless humanism, as well as political leaders’cynical desire to subordinate epochal scientific achievements to the goals of “big” policy.For Beria and Sudoplatov were not the only actors in this episode—the shadows ofRoosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin are visible as well.

Let’s turn to the facts.At the end of October 1945, at Beria’s order, two employees of the “S” Department for

atomic intelligence activities under Sudoplatov—his deputy head, Colonel Vasilevsky, andthe physicist Terletsky, as well as the interpreter Arutyunov—were sent to Denmark toestablish contact and speak with Bohr. They managed to meet Bohr at his institute twice,on 14 and 16 November 1945. As the result of this operation, Bohr’s answers to 22 questionswhich his visitors had asked of him were brought to Moscow and put at the disposal ofphysicist Igor V. Kurchatov, the scientific director of the Soviet nuclear weapons effort.

If we evaluate these plain facts as did the head of the “S” Department, Sudoplatov, atthe time, or as did Beria, who headed the institution which carried out this operation, thenthe espionage approach was undoubtedly a great success. But let us not hurry to finalconclusions; let us first see how Sudoplatov himself described Terletsky’s mission, goals,and results in his recent book:

A pivotal moment in the Soviet nuclear program occurred in November 1945. Thefirst Soviet reactor had been built, but all attempts to put it into operation ended infailure, and there had been an accident with plutonium. How to solve the problem? Oneidea, which proved unrealistic, was to send a scientific delegation to the United Statesto meet secretly with Oppenheimer, Fermi, and Szilard. Another suggestion to solvethe problem of the balky reactor was to send [the renowned Soviet physicist Peter]Kapitsa to see Bohr in Denmark. Kapitsa by that time was no longer a member of the


MENT I:Memo to Stalin

SPECIAL FOLDERNo. 1-1 Copy no.____

Top secret

om[rade]. [V.N.] Merkulov [Chairman of the People’sng-time deputy]. L. Beria 8/XII” (8 December)]

STALIN I.V.

o participated in efforts to create the atomic bomb, hasg at his Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen.scientist and as a staunch supporter of the internationalnds to send to Denmark a group of employees, under the

had taken from Soviet scientific establishments, who werehim information about the problem of the atomic bomb.

VSKY, the Candidate of physico-mathematical sciencesUNOV, having identified appropriate pretexts, contacted

nder the pretense of Soviet scientist TERLETSKY’S visit

assing through Copenhagen, he considered it obligatoryt Moscow University are still warmly recollected there.ed several questions which were prepared in advance inentists who deal with the atomic problem.

o them, and also an evaluation of these answers by

E R I A /on page 57

E AND THE BOMB

rmer KGB officer Pavel Sudoplatov—Special Tasks: Theer, by Pavel and Anatolii Sudoplatov with Jerrold L. andrked an angry controversy with its assertion that severaln Project to build the atomic bomb during World War II,Szilard, and Niels Bohr, had knowingly passed secret

r and magazine articles, press conferences, and televisionm at the Woodrow Wilson Center on 2 May 1994, severalB as well as representatives of scientific organizations,urrilous, at best unfounded and unproven; the authors ofount and maintained that documents in Russian archives (See the Update section for a partial listing of articlesquestions, not only about the accused physicists, but alsoCold War participants, particularly those emerging fromdisinformation was an accepted modus operandi.ne of Sudoplatov’s assertions—that Niels Bohr gave theped the Soviet Union overcome difficulties in starting itsry Project Bulletin below reprints what purports to be theoseph Stalin of the espionage approach to Bohr. The once from secret police chief and atomic overseer Lavrentihr; and an evaluation by physicist Igor V. Kurchatov,me available in Moscow in June after the controversyArchive of the Russian Federation (known by its Russianhistorian Vladislav M. Zubok, who received it from the

bok and Smirnov also provided accompanying commen-avid Holloway in his article on sources for his Stalin andhe account of this episode in Special Tasks, the Bulletintov or his authors, or others with evidence (particularly

52 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN SOVIET ESPIONAGEZUBOK

continued from page 50

and even tensions between the intelligencecommunity and the community of atomicscientists in the former Soviet Union.

For much of the Cold War, the Sovietintelligence elite believed firmly that itsactivities contributed to the prevention ofwar and to a stable peace in the dangerousnuclear era. The “old-boys club” of theKGB’s First Directorate viewed its role inthe breaking of the U.S. atomic monopolywith increasing pride, and the appearance of(mostly Western) books on the Cold Warwhich described Western plans for “atomicwarfare” against the USSR augmented thisfeeling and deepened the desire for furthersuccesses.8

In time, those perceptions and dim-ming recollections blurred together into“memories.” Feklisov’s book, for instance,is the first in a series of publications, linkedwith the Association of Russian IntelligenceVeterans, ostensibly intended to promote aserious, unsensational view of the history ofSoviet intelligence. The book takes intoaccount some published documents as wellas the criticism of the earlier journalisticpublications on this subject by Yuli Kharitonand other nuclear veterans. Nevertheless, itadds to the list of errors and oddities. Feklisovasserts that the Smyth Report (August 1945)contained “disinformation, in order to leadastray scientists from other countries and,first and foremost, the USSR” in their atomicresearch.9 He also alleges that RobertOppenheimer, director of the secret war-time weapons lab at Los Alamos, “asked toinclude” Fuchs in the British scientific mis-sion that came to the United States to par-ticipate in the Manhattan Project.Oppenheimer, according to Feklisov, also“refused to sign” the Smyth Report becauseit was “one-sided and deluding.”10 None ofthese “facts” survive serious scrutiny, butthey provide telling indicators of the Sovietintelligence community’s perceptions of themotivation of the U.S. government and for-eign atomic scientists.

In another episode described in the book,Fuchs allegedly told Feklisov during theirsecret meeting in February 1949: “The teamof Kurchatov is advancing full speed to thegoal. . . . From your questions it is absolutelyclear that soon the whole world will hear avoice of the Soviet ‘baby.’” It is indeedpossible that Feklisov learned about the

impending Soviet test from his “source.”But it is highly improbable that Feklisovwould reveal to Fuchs the name of the headof the Soviet “team.”

On the same page Fuchs “tells” Feklisov:“I am sure that the Soviet comrades, of course,will be able to build an atomic bomb withoutforeign assistance. But...I want the Sovietgovernment to save material resources andreduce the time of construction of nuclearweapons.”11

The thesis that intelligence gave theSoviet project a “short cut” on its road to thebomb is the strongest argument of “atomic”intelligence veterans. Yet, even this asser-tion is questioned by the scientific director ofArzamas-16 (the long-secret Soviet nuclearweapons design laboratory), Yuli Khariton,who points out that in spite of a good haul ofatomic secrets in 1945, the obtained materi-als “still required an enormous amount ofwork on a great scale by our physicists beforethey could be ‘put to use.’”12 And Stalinhimself, when he met Kurchatov on 25 Janu-ary 1946, told the physicist not to spareresources, but to conduct “works broadly, onthe Russian scale.”13

At least one of Feklisov’s “memories”(that Oppenheimer was instrumental in bring-ing Fuchs to Los Alamos) was “shared” byPavel Sudoplatov.14 Yet, it is important todistinguish between Special Tasks and thememoirs of “atomic” intelligence officerslike Feklisov. Sudoplatov’s “oral history,”when it strays beyond the limits of his exper-tise or immediate experience, hangs on thethread of half-forgotten, half-distorted hear-say. Time pressure on the authors (whosqueezed out the book between August 1992and late 1993),15 plus their extraordinarysecretiveness, evidently precluded seriousfact-checking. And Sudoplatov’s experi-ence with the atomic intelligence was farmore shallow than the publicity surroundingthe book implied. He headed Department“S,” an intelligence arm of the Special Com-mittee, the board in charge of the atomicproject, for only a year, from September1945 to October 1946, and it is even ques-tionable whether he had access to opera-tional files.16

Sudoplatov implies that he had devel-oped good relations with atomic scientists(among them Kurchatov, Kikoin, andAlikhanov) by treating them to “lunches andcocktail parties in a Western style.”17 In-deed, he may have been trying to dispel fear

that the scientists, justifiably, felt towardsthe henchmen under the Stalin-Beria-Merkulov command, who suddenly becametheir collaborators and supervisors.

After a brief stint in Department “S,”Sudoplatov plunged back into a familiarworld of sabotage, disinformation games,and assassinations-on-request. In a word, hecontinued to link his career to a repressive,murderous arm of the NKVD-KGB.18 Thearrogance, cynicism, and mistrust of intel-lectuals of many people from this branchcontrasted with the cultural sophisticationfound among most officers from the techni-cal-scientific intelligence service. The emi-nent Soviet physicist Pyotr Kapitsa com-plained in his letter of 25 November 1945 toStalin, for example, that Beria “in particu-lar” conducted himself on the Special Com-mittee like a superman. “Comrade Beria’sbasic weakness is that the conductor oughtnot only to wave the baton, but also tounderstand the score. In this respect Beria isweak.”19

In time even Beria learned to treat sci-entists with respect, and some of the NKVD-GULAG’s most capable administrators(Makhnev, Zaveniagin, Zernov, and others)excelled in managing the atomic project.The project’s unique quality and scale, in theeyes of all its principal collaborators, over-shadowed the early contributions of “atomicspies.” Sudoplatov, however, did not sharethis experience.20 With a different personalagenda (after all, he wanted to rehabilitatehimself, not to defend the honor of the KGB),Sudoplatov appears to have quickly re-sponded to the blandishments of his Ameri-can co-authors and/or publisher to producean “atomic chapter” with little substance athand.

Even less reliable than Sudoplatov’s“atomic spies” chapter are the writings ofSergo Beria,21 the only son of Lavrenty Beriaand Nina Gegechkori, who in 1950 wascatapulted from the student desk of a mili-tary academy to the position of chief engi-neer of the Special Bureau (SB-1) of theThird Main Directorate of the USSR Coun-cil of Ministers, assigned with the task ofbuilding a defense system against a fearedatomic aerial attack on Moscow. Along withhis father and mother, he was arrested in1953 and only after a long period of isolationcould resume his work inside the missileindustry in Ukraine. Despite the fact that henever had any part in the atomic project or


espionage, Sergo Beria stepped into thismine-field in an ill-conceived attempt torehabilitate his father, with the confidenceof a desperado who has nothing to lose.

Hence his laughable allegation thatRobert Oppenheimer lived “at the end of1939” at Beria’s dacha near Moscow.22 Witha reference to Gen.-Col. Ivan Serov, he writesthat Stalin at Potsdam was “very upset”when he learned about the successful Trinitytest. In response to Stalin’s questioning,Beria allegedly said that “plutonium hasbeen already obtained, and the constructionof the bomb’s design is underway.”23 Foranyone familiar with the stages of the Sovietatomic project, even in sketchy form, there isnot enough room for sufficient insertions of“sic” and “?” in this quotation. Also: assess-ing the first Soviet nuclear test in Semi-palatinsk in August 1949 (which he claimsto have observed through “a telescope” froma bunker), Sergo Beria stated that Kurchatovand the rest of the State Commission “didnot interfere in the course of the tests” andthat “nothing depended on Kurchatov” sincethe “device” was already transferred to themilitary.24 In fact, the military controlledonly the testing-site, not the bomb,25 and theState Commission (Beria, Kurchatov,Zaveniagin, Khariton, and Zernov) gave theorder for the detonation.

It is astounding that Beria-junior andthe persons who interviewed him dared topublish this mishmash of absurdities. But,as another Russian proverb goes, “paper canbear anything.”

Beria’s book lies beyond the pale, asdoes much of the “Atomic Spies” chapter inSpecial Tasks. The responsible officials andveterans of Soviet/Russian intelligence re-jected Sudoplatov’s allegations with regardto atomic intelligence. On 4 May 1994, theForeign Intelligence Service of Russia (FIS)admitted that Soviet espionage, though itrendered “an important and qualified ser-vice. . . in the interests of the state,” had“played only a subsidiary role” in the devel-opment of the Soviet atomic bomb.26

But even after this announcement, somepresent-day FIS colleagues of Sudoplatov,after checking their files, confirmed to aMoscow journalist that “the advice given bythe Nobel Laureate [Bohr] played a role inhelping to get the first Soviet reactor go-ing.”27 That claim sharply contrasts withKurchatov’s expert conclusion on the re-sults of Terletsky’s mission in November

1945, and that of leading Russian physicistYuri Smirnov (Kurchatov Institute) in 1994.And it betrays a woeful lack of expertise.

What lessons can be drawn from thecase of “eye-witnesses” of Soviet “atomic”intelligence? One conclusion is clear. Onlythe knowledge of the veterans of Sovietatomic project and Western nuclear physi-cists, combined with balanced and painstak-ing research by Cold War historians,28 canintegrate the revelations about “atomic es-pionage” into usable and trustworthy his-tory. The distance between the two is as bigas that between raw uranium ores and weap-ons-grade plutonium.

1. Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatolii Sudoplatov withJerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter, Special Tasks: TheMemoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster(Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1994), chap. 7 (pp. 172-220).2. Ibid., esp. 181, 196, 205-207, 211-12.3. The document’s archival location can be found in arecently-published catalogue jointly produced by theState Archive of the Russian Federation and the Rus-sian Publications Project of the Center for the Study ofRussia and the Soviet Union at the University of Pitts-burgh. See V.A. Kozlov and S.V. Mironenko, eds.,Archive of Contemporary Russian History, Volume 1,The “Special” Files for I.V. Stalin: From Materials ofthe Secretariat of the NKVD-MVD of the USSR, 1944-1953: A Catalogue of Documents (Moscow: Blagovest,Ltd., 1994), 150. The archival specifications of thedocument in the catalogue are: delo (file) 102, listy(pages) 78-93.4. See, e.g., Matthew Campbell, “KGB files show topscientist gave Stalin nuclear secrets,” The Sunday Times(London), 26 June 1994, 17 and Eric Breindel, “A Caseof Book Burning,” National Review, 29 August 1994,36-38, both of which assert that the memorandumsupports Sudaplatov’s claim in Special Tasks that Bohrimproperly provided useful atomic information.5. Alexei Kozhevnikov, Institute for History of Sci-ence, Moscow, in interview for the F.A.S. Public Inter-est Report: Journal of the Federation of Atomic Scien-tists (FAS), May/June 1994, p. 8.6. Alexander Feklisov, Za okeanom i na ostrove.Zapiski razvedchika [Overseas and on the island: Notesof an intelligence officer] (Moscow: DEM, 1994), 115,154.7. A memorandum of the CIA’s Office of Reports andEstimates on 20 September 1949 cited the opinion ofthe Joint Nuclear Energy Intelligence Committee that aSoviet bomb “might be expected” only in mid-1950 as“the earliest possible date.” That was three weeks afterthe test of Soviet bomb! See Michael Warner, ed., TheCIA under Harry Truman (Washington, DC: CentralIntelligence Agency, History Staff, Center for the Studyof Intelligence, 1994), 319.8. There is a similarity between many Soviet atomicscientists and intelligence officers: they saw the ColdWar as a sequel to the Great Patriotic War, and regardedthe U.S. atomic monopoly with the same concern asthey regarded the rise of Nazi Germany.9. Feklisov, Za okeanom, 150.10. Ibid., 145-46, 150.11. Ibid., 159.

12. Yuli Khariton and Yuri Smirnov, “Otkuda vzialosi bilo li nam neobkhodimo iadernoie oruzhiie” [“Wherethey came from and whether they were necessary—nuclear weapons”], Izvestia, 21 July 1994.13. Notes of the meeting by Kurchatov, quoted in YuliKhariton and Yuri Smirnov, “The Khariton version,”The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 49:4 (May 1993),27-28. The full text and a facsimile of the document ispublished by N.D. Bondareva, A.A. Keda, and N.V.Selexneva in Voprosi istorii estestvoznania i tekhniki 2(1994), 123-24; also Yuri Smirnov, “Stalin i atomnaiabomba” [“Stalin and the atomic bomb”], ibid., 125-30.I thank Smirnov for bringing these materials to myattention.14. Sudoplatov et al., Special Tasks, 193 n. 18.15. On 25 July 1992, the Moscow newspaper Trudpublished an article, “Kremlevskie palachi i ninie sredinas,” which brought Sudoplatov to public notice for thefirst time and may have stimulated the interest offoreign authors and publishers in his story.16. Sergei Leskov, “An Unreliable Witness,” Bulletinof the Atomic Scientists 50:4 (July/August 1994), 34.17. Sudoplatov et al., Special Tasks, 207.18. See, e.g., Yevgenia Albats, The State within a State:The KGB and Its Hold on Russia—Past, Present, andFuture (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994), 33-34.19. Piotr Kapitsa, Pisma o Nauke [Letters on Science](Moscow: Moskovski Rabochii, 1989), 243.20. The same point is made in Valeri Soifer, “Mifio‘krazhe veka’” [“A Myth about ‘The Theft of theCentury’”], Izvestia, 7 October 1994, p. 5.21. Sergo Beria, Moi otets - Lavrentii Beriia [My father- Lavrenty Beria] (Moscow: Sovremennik, 1994).22. Ibid., 288-89.23. Ibid., 260-61.24. Ibid., 264-65.25. On the State Commission that supervised the firstSoviet atomic test in August 1949, see David Holloway,Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and AtomicEnergy, 1939-1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityPress, 1994), 214-16. Holloway relies on accounts byI.N. Golovin, Kurchatov’s secretary, and other scien-tists who participated in the test. He writes: “Kurchatov...was to take charge of the test... Everyone was subor-dinate to him, including the army units....” (Ibid., 214).26. Izvestia, 4 May 1994.27. Sergei Leskov, “An Unreliable Witness,” Bulletinof the Atomic Scientists 50:4 (July /August 1994), 36.28. The research sponsored by the Cold War Interna-tional History Project, and especially the new milestonebook of David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, aresignificant steps in this direction.

Vladislav M. Zubok is a Senior Scholar at the NationalSecurity Archive in Washington, D.C. His study ofStalin, Khrushchev, and the Cold War, co-authoredwith Constantine Pleshakov, will be published nextyear by Harvard University Press.

Kornienko Memoirs

Former USSR Deputy Foreign MinisterGeorgi Korniyenko has published his mem-oirs, Kholodnaya voina: svidetel’stvo eeuchastnika [The Cold War: Evidence of aParticipant] (Moscow: “International Rela-tions,” 1994). Orders may be placed directlywith the publishing house through Boris P.Likhachev, Director of “International Rela-tions,” fax: 7-095-200-2204.

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Committee on Problem Number Onebecause of his conflict with Beria,Voznesensky, and Kurchatov. SinceBohr had turned down Kapitsa’s invi-tation to the Soviet Union in 1943,3 andbecause of the internal conflicts in thescientific community, we decided torely on scientists already in the projectwho were also intelligence officers...We decided that Terletsky should besent to see Bohr in the guise of a youngSoviet scientist working on a projectsupervised by Academicians Ioffe andKapitsa. . . .

Bohr readily explained to Terletskythe problems Fermi had at the Univer-sity of Chicago putting the first nuclearreactor into operation, and he madevaluable suggestions that enabled us toovercome our failures. Bohr pointed toa place on a drawing Terletsky showedhim and said, “That’s the trouble spot.”This meeting was essential to startingthe Soviet reactor. . . .4

When Niels Bohr visited MoscowUniversity in 1957 or 1958 to take partin student celebrations of PhysicistsDay, the KGB suggested that Terletsky,then a full professor at the universityand a corresponding member of theAcademy of Sciences, should not meetwith Bohr. Terletsky saw Bohr, whoseemed not to recognize him.5

It is possible to reproach Sudoplatov’sco-authors at once for shoddy research:Terletsky was never a corresponding mem-ber of the USSR Academy of Sciences, andBohr participated in the students’ festival atMoscow University on 7 May 1961.6 More-over, in fact Kapitsa, precisely as a memberof the Special Committee headed by Beria,was even involved in preparations forTerletsky’s mission (Kapitsa was relievedfrom his activity on the atomic bomb, andhence from participation on the Special Com-mittee, only on 21 December 1945).7

But the most serious error inSudoplatov’s account of this episode in Spe-cial Tasks concerns his description of thereason for the approach to Bohr—allegedlydifficulties in starting the first Soviet nuclearreactor. His version is consistent with hisprivate 1982 petition to the CPSU CC forrehabilitation, in which he noted: “When an

accident happened at one of the Soviet nuclearprojects, into which hundreds of millions ofrubles had been invested, and our scientistsfound it difficult to repair the situation, De-partment S assigned one of its staff, a youngphysicist, to go to Denmark and meet withthe world-known physicist Niels Bohr; theinformation he brought back enabled us toeliminate the damage, bring the facility backto normal, and thus speed up the building ofthe nuclear bomb.”8 Though the reactor isnot explicitly mentioned, the word “acci-dent” remains prominent.

But on this very important pointSudoplatov—not only in 1994, but alreadyin 1982—had become confused or forgetful.In fact, at the time of Terletsky’s November1945 mission, Kurchatov’s collective wasstill the only Soviet atomic project in Mos-cow. And the surviving veterans, who hadworked with Kurchatov, unanimously dis-miss Sudoplatov’s “legend” as false and evennonsensical. For, they point out, they startedpreparation of the chamber for the first So-viet atomic reactor and the construction ofthe building for it only at the beginning of1946! And the reactor itself was startedwithout any complications on 25 December1946.9

Besides, if Sudoplatov was to inform theleadership in writing about the results of themeeting with Bohr promptly after Terletsky’sreturn from Copenhagen, would he reallyhave kept silent about having obtained infor-mation which “enabled us to eliminate thedamage, bring the facility back to normal,and thus to speed up the building of thenuclear bomb”? Of course not! The funnypart is that a super-secret report on the resultsof the meeting with Bohr, as an indication ofthe Cheka’s success, would have been sent atonce to nobody but Stalin personally. Yet, inspite of the fact that Lieutenant GeneralSudoplatov was marked as the executor ofthis unique document, 16 pages long andsigned by Beria, there is not even a hint in itof any accident which our physicists had hador of any difficulties with the start-up of an(actually as yet non-existent!) Soviet atomicreactor.

Beria informed Stalin:

Niels BOHR is famous as a progres-sive-minded scientist and as a staunchsupporter of the international exchangeof scientific achievements. This gave usgrounds to send to Denmark a group of

employees, under the pretense of search-ing for equipment which the Germanshad taken from Soviet scientific estab-lishments, who were to establish con-tact with Niels BOHR and obtain fromhim information about the problem ofthe atomic bomb. . . .

The comrades who were sent: Colo-nel VASILEVSKY, the Candidate ofphysio-mathematical sciences TER-LETSKY, and interpreter-engineerARUTUNOV, having identified appro-priate pretexts, contacted BOHR andorganized two meetings with him. . . .

In the course of the conversationsBOHR was asked several questionswhich were prepared in advance inMoscow by Academician KURCH-ATOV and other scientists who dealwith the atomic problem.

Now we have reached the most interest-ing part: what is the meaning of “appropriatepretexts”; what was the nature of the ques-tions prepared in Moscow; and what was sosecret in the information Bohr “betrayed” tohis Soviet interlocutors, if his answers wereas they appeared in the secret document sentto Stalin? After we have dealt with thesequestions, we will have no trouble in evalu-ating the true “outcome” of the approach toBohr. But first let us recall one circum-stance, which is extremely vital for an un-derstanding of the whole situation.

That is that on 12 August 1945, the U.S.government published the so-called “SmythReport” as a book in the United States, thebasis of which was specially declassifieddata on the creation of the atomic bomb.10

General Leslie R. Groves, the leader of theManhattan Project, noted in the foreword tothe publication that it contained “All perti-nent scientific information which can bereleased to the public at this time withoutviolating the needs of national security,” butsternly admonished that “Persons disclosingor securing additional information by anymeans whatsoever without authorization aresubject to severe penalties under the Espio-nage Act.”11 In other words, in the Westlimits were set, within which it was possibleto discuss freely technical questions relatedto the atomic bomb. Naturally, the SmythReport was immediately put at the disposalof Kurchatov and his workers. Here in theUSSR the book was quickly translated intoRussian and by 10 November 1945, when


Terletsky was still waiting for his meetingwith Bohr, it had already been prepared forpublication. Therefore, Terletsky’s asser-tion, having on November 16 received fromBohr a copy of the “Smyth Report,” that “wewere, excuse me, the first Soviet people whohad seen it,”12 turns out to be untrue. AsBohr’s biographers have pointed out, whenhe returned to Denmark from the USA in lateAugust 1945, he brought a copy of the SmythReport with him.13 Moreover, Bohr ac-quainted colleagues at his institute with it,and the Association of Engineers of Den-mark even persuaded him to give a lectureon the topic. And though he asked journal-ists to refrain from exaggerations, the ex-traordinary information which had becomegenerally available produced such a strongimpression that one Copenhagen newspaperreported the lecture under the headline: “Pro-fessor Bohr reveals the secret of the atomicbomb.”14 The lecture which provoked somuch fuss took place on 3 October 1945,over a month before Bohr’s meetings withTerletsky.15

Now Beria’s report to Stalin about themeeting with Bohr has been declassified,and anyone can see, by comparing it with theSmyth Report, that Bohr’s answers, as wellas the questions put to him (which is espe-cially noteworthy and surprising!), practi-cally do not exceed the parameters of gener-ally accessible information. I used the word“practically” because, being a theoreticalphysicist, Bohr in two or three cases permit-ted himself some short general theoreticalremarks, which even so did not convey anysecret technical information. At the sametime, answering his visitors’ very first ques-tion, Bohr declared firmly: “I must warn youthat while in the USA I did not take part inthe engineering development of the problemand that is why I am aware neither of thedesign features nor the size of these appara-tuses, nor even of the measurements of anypart of them. I did not take part in theconstruction of these apparatuses and, more-over, I have never seen a single installation.During my stay in the USA I did not visit asingle plant.” (How can we not but recallhere again Sudoplatov’s absurd tale aboutthe technical recommendation which hadsupposedly been obtained from Bohr onstarting the first Soviet reactor!)

True, merely as a curiosity, I can saythat Bohr once crossed the bounds “permit-ted” by the Smyth Report. Specifically, he

said that every split uranium atom emitsmore than two neutrons, while in Smyth’sbook a less definite formula is used—“some-where between one and three neutrons” wereemitted, on average16 —and the precise num-ber (2.5) was considered secret in the USAuntil 1950. Nevertheless, by saying thisBohr did not reveal any secret, because evenbefore the war physicists had published that2.3 neutrons are emitted in the course of thedisintegration of a uranium atom.17

Finally, Bohr was quoted as making ashort remark, consisting of just a few words,of a theoretical nature, starting from a mostquestionable hypothesis that, as he is sup-posed to have put it, “during the explosionuranium particles move at a speed equal tothe speed of the neutrons’ movement.”Kurchatov, naturally, noted this, and in hiscomments pointed out that Bohr’s remark“must undergo theoretical analysis, whichshould be the task of Professors LANDAU,MIGDAL and POMERANCHUNK.” Infact, the thematic “gain” of Terletsky’s visitto Bohr was limited to this abstract, theoreti-cal remark, which was of only hypotheticalcharacter, and which did not contain anysecret technical information. It is no coinci-dence that Kurchatov, in his laconic (onlyhalf a page!) commentary on Bohr’s an-swers, which was among the documents sentby Beria to Stalin, noted only this remark ofthe Danish physicist along with the observa-tion that “Bohr gave a categorical answer tothe question about the methods which areused in the USA to obtain uranium 235”—information which, with many more details,could easily be gleaned from the SmythReport, already long publicly available.18

Thus Bohr did not communicate anysecrets to Terletsky, but he did not miss anopportunity to tell him:

We need to consider the establishmentof international control over all coun-tries as the only means of defense againstthe atomic bomb. All mankind mustunderstand that with the discovery ofatomic energy the fates of all nationswill be very closely intertwined. Onlyinternational cooperation, the exchangeof scientific discoveries, and the inter-nationalization of scientific achieve-ments, can lead to the elimination ofwars, which means the elimination ofthe very necessity to use the atomicbomb. This is the only correct method

of defense. I have to point out that allscientists without exception, whoworked at the atomic problem, includ-ing the Americans and the English, areindignant at the fact that great discover-ies become the property of a group ofpoliticians. All scientists believe thatthis greatest discovery must becomethe property of all nations and serve forthe unprecedented progress ofhumankind...atomic energy, havingbeen discovered, cannot remain theproperty of one nation, because anycountry which does not possess thissecret can very quickly independentlydiscover it. And what is next? Eitherreason will win, or a devastating war,resembling the end of mankind.

Now we know that these words andBohr’s position were immediately broughtto Stalin’s personal attention. And, it seemsto me, in this fact we find the only genuinesuccess of Terletsky’s trip to Bohr, ratherthan the mythical “secrets” which the greatscientist supposedly divulged. Previously,Bohr had expressed his view on the atomicbomb—that it was impossible for a nation toretain an atomic monopoly indefinitely on abasis of secrecy, and that consequently in-ternational control was the only hope ofpreventing a secret nuclear arms race lead-ing to catastrophe—in a meeting with Presi-dent Roosevelt in August 1944, and he heardfrom the American president words of sup-port.19 (In a confidential memorandum, Bohrhad already warned Roosevelt that “on thebasis of the prewar work of Russian physi-cists it is natural to assume that nuclearproblems will be in the center of their inter-est.”20) Yet Churchill, with whom Bohr hadalso discussed the issue (in May 1944), re-jected the scientist’s arguments out of hand,and, having persuaded Roosevelt to shunBohr’s plea to notify Stalin of the existenceof the wartime Anglo-American atomicproject (during their summit at Hyde Park,New York, on 18-19 September 1944), ex-claimed to an aide: “The President and I areseriously concerned about Professor Bohr.How did he come into this business? He isa great advocate of publicity...He says he isin close correspondence with a Russian pro-fessor [Kapitsa]...It seems to me Bohr oughtto be confined, or at any rate made to see thathe is very near the edge of mortal crimes.”21

That is why it would be very naive to

E AND THE BOMB

56 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN SOVIET ESPIONAGEthink that Bohr, knowing about the concernover his activities in powerful quarters, couldallow himself even the tiniest carelessnesswhen he met Terletsky and his companions.Now the following information emerges,according to recent reports in Danish news-papers.22 The middle man in the organiza-tion of Bohr’s meeting with the Soviet agentswho were visiting Copenhagen was not, asis asserted in the Sudoplatov book,23 theDanish writer Martin Andersen Nekse; ratherit was a professor at Copenhagen Univer-sity, Mogens Fog, a former minister of thegovernment and reportedly a secret memberof the Danish Communist Party, who viewedthe Soviet Union sympathetically. In earlyNovember 1945, Fog asked Bohr whetherhe could meet confidentially with a Sovietphysicist who had come to Copenhagenwith a letter from Kapitsa. Bohr replied thatany sort of secret meeting was out of thequestion, and agreed only to a completelyopen conversation. Niels Bohr’s son, AageBohr, writing in the Danish press, relatedother details, noting that Bohr had immedi-ately alerted not only the Danish intelli-gence service to the approaching meeting,but also British and even U.S. intelligence.According to Aage Bohr, he had partici-pated in all of his father’s meetings withTerletsky and, though neither of them tookany notes in either meeting, “father ascribedgreat significance to the fact that anotherperson was present and later could explainwhat had actually happened. Moreover, inJanuary 1946 the leader of the Americanatomic project, General L. R. Groves, hadsent a special agent to Denmark in order toclarify the details, and Niels Bohr had saidthat Terletsky had requested informationabout nuclear weapons.”24

But there was one more reason for Bohrto understand the situation. He could hardlyhave refused to meet any of the Sovietphysicists if they happened to be inCopenhagen, especially as Terletsky had aletter of recommendation to Bohr from hisold friend Academician Pyotr LeonidovichKapitsa. One must assume that this prob-ably was the principal “appropriate pretext”about which Beria reported to Stalin. At theinsistence of Beria, with whom Kapitsa’srelations had already been ruined, Kapitsahad written a letter to Bohr dated 22 October1945 which introduced “the young Russianphysicist Terletsky” as a “capable professorof Moscow University.” Kapitsa stressed

that Terletsky “will explain to you the goalsof his foreign tour.”25 Yet in his letter Kapitsadid not call Terletsky his friend, as would becustomary in other circumstances. Thus animportant element, a kind of password in thedeveloped style of friendly scientific corre-spondence, was missing, and this may wellhave alarmed Bohr (it immediately attractedthe notice of Kapitsa’s widow, AnnaAlekseevna, when she saw the letter).26

As Kapitsa’s former associate, P.Rubinin, later noted, this letter cost PyotrLeonidovich a lot: he could not but suffer,understanding that he had been exploited(and probably not for the last time) by Beria.27

The cup turned out to be overfilled and theletter to Bohr became the last drop. A monthlater, Kapitsa sent his famous letter to Stalinin which he gave a sharply negative evalua-tion of Beria and declared further coopera-tion with him impossible. And a month afterthat, Kapitsa was discharged from work onthe atomic bomb and fell into long disfavor.

Now the reader can judge what is left ofSudoplatov’s fantasies about the meetingwith Bohr and how they relate to real facts.Veterans of “atomic” espionage should un-derstand a simple thing: nobody is denyingor diminishing the role played by the intelli-gence services in the furthering of the Sovietatomic program. But so this role does notturn into a caricature, the “atomic” spiesthemselves more than anyone must play theirpart. They need to accept that only compe-tent specialists, particularly physicists famil-iar with the nuclear weapons field, togetherwith veterans of the atomic project, can accu-rately say which espionage materials playeda positive role and contributed concretely,and which proved useless or even counter-productive (there were such too!).

Terletsky, recalling his meeting withBohr nearly 30 years later, noted: “Bohr saidthat in his opinion, all countries should havethe atomic bomb, particularly Russia. Onlythe spread of this powerful weapon to vari-ous countries could guarantee that it wouldn’tbe used in the future.”28 It is not surprisingthat this distorted thesis was appropriated bycertain Russian journalists and that NielsBohr was rapidly transformed into a sup-porter and propagandizer of the idea of glo-bal nuclear proliferation. (I am not speakinghere about the entirely curious article “TheBomb,” published in Moskovskii kom-somolets,30 the author of which, having be-come a victim of his own technical incompe-

tence, got it into his head to demonstrate thatwhile Bohr was “not a spy, not a KGBagent,” he had evidently been moved by hisidealistic conceptions to relate to Terletsky“priceless and top secret information.”29)

At the same time, in the document sentby Beria to Stalin about Terletsky’s conver-sation with Bohr and which, naturally, wasnot put together without Terletsky’s partici-pation, there is no evidence that Bohr madeany such comments. On the contrary, whilehe spoke about the necessity of the “ex-change of scientific discoveries and the in-ternationalization of scientific achieve-ments,” Bohr, at the same time, referring tothe atomic bomb, supported the “establish-ment of international control over all coun-tries” as the only method of defense againstit. Of course, over the course of three dec-ades Terletsky could forget the essence ofBohr’s remarks and distort them, and forhim it was just a hop and a skip to a top secretdocument. More important, the formulationof the answers ascribed to Bohr in the docu-ment which lay on Stalin’s desk, cannot beaccepted as irreproachable and precise, giventhe way Terletsky himself described theirpreparation: “All day Arutunov and I tried toreconstruct Bohr’s answers from memory.This turned out not to be such a simple task,since Arutunov, despite his phenomenallytrained memory, while not understandingthe subject had been in no position to re-member everything verbatim, while I didn’tunderstand everything from Arutunov’stranslation and had to recall how Bohr’sanswers had sounded in English; after all,passively I knew some English, like every-one who had finished the Physics Faculty[FizFak] at MGU.”31

From all this it is clear that in order toevaluate Bohr’s position on the atomic bombwe had best base ourselves on his own pub-lications. In his June 1950 “Open Letter tothe United Nations,” which most fully andclearly articulated his views on the issueunder discussion, Bohr stressed that “anygreat technical undertaking, whether indus-trial or military, should have become openfor international control.” In the same letterhe stands up for the necessity of “universalaccess to full information about scientificdiscoveries,” including “the industrial ex-ploitation of the sources of atomic energy.”32

In other words, atomic weapons under inter-national control, and the scientific achieve-ments for the benefit of all mankind.


[Voprosi istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki, hereafterVIET] (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences“Nauki”) 2 (1994), 38-39.13. Moore, Niels Bohr, 416.14. Moore, Niels Bohr, 417.15. Terletsky, “Operation ‘Interrogation of Niels Bohr,’”VIET 2 (1994), 44.16. Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes, 28.17. Ralph Lapp, New Power (Moscow: IL, 1954), 42.18. Presenting such a conclusion as a document ofrequired evaluation of the results of Terletsky’s mis-sion, Kurchatov evidently limited himself to a compli-ment suitable to the occasion. He could not do other-wise, recognizing that Beria, the main organizer of theentire operation, was not only the chief of the country’sintelligence and punitive organs, but also was at thesame time the main administrator of the Soviet atomicproject, i.e., his immediate superior.19. Moore, Niels Bohr, 386-88. [Ed. note: The fullestaccount and analysis of Bohr’s efforts to convince U.S.and British leaders prior to Hiroshima of the need toinform Stalin about the Manhattan Project officially inthe hope of heading off a postwar nuclear arms race maybe found in Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: TheAtomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance (New York:Knopf, 1975); citations from 1987 Vintage edition, AWorld Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Original of theArms Race.]20. A.I. Ioirysh, For What Does the Bell Toll [O chemzvonit kolokol] (Moscow: Political Literature Publish-ing House, 1991), 94. [Ed. note: For the original source,see Bohr to Roosevelt, 3 July 1994, Frankfurter-Bohrfolder, J. Robert Oppenheimer papers, Library of Con-gress, Washington, D.C., quoted in Sherwin, A WorldDestroyed, 106-107.]21. Moore, Niels Bohr, 389. [Ed. note: For the originalsource, see Churchill to Lord Cherwell, 20 September1944, Premier 3 files of Winston Churchill, PublicRecord Office, London, quoted in Sherwin, A WorldDestroyed, 110.]22. Jutlandposten (Denmark), 26 June 1994.23. Sudoplatov et al., Special Tasks, 206.24. Politiken (Denmark), 19 June 1994.25. Collection of P.E. Rubinin, Rubinin, private com-munication to author.26. P.E. Rubinin, private communication.27. Ibid.28. Terletsky, “Operation ‘Interrogation of Niels Bohr,’”37.29. V. Pokrovskii, “The ‘Atomic Project’ As AlwaysWorries the Dowagers of Science” [“‘Atomnyi proekt’po-prezhnemy volnyet duaienov nauki”], Segodnia(Moscow), 14 July 1994; V. Chernobrov, “AmericanPhysicists Saved the World With Beria’s Help,”Rossiiskie vesti (Moscow), 26 July 1994.30. A. Minkin, “The Bomb,” Moskovskii komsomolets,29 June 1994.31. Terletsky, “Operation ‘Interrogation of Niels Bohr,’”38.32. N. Bohr, “An Open Letter to the United Nations,”June 1950, Successes of the Physical Sciences [Uspekhifizicheskikh nauk] 147:2 (October 1985), 361.

Physicist Yuri N. Smirnov is a Leading Researcher ofthe Russian Research Center Kurchatov Institute anda veteran of the Soviet nuclear weapons program. Thisarticle is a revised version of one which appeared in thenewspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 22 June 1994.Translation for the CWIHP Bulletin by Mark H.Doctoroff, Harriman Institute, Columbia University.

And now we know that, thanks to theKGB, Bohr was able to send that messagestraight to Stalin himself in 1945.

1. Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatolii Sudoplatov withJerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter, Special Tasks: TheMemoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster(Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1994).2. Edward Teller, fax of 5 May 1994. Private commu-nication to the author. [Ed. note: See also Teller’scomment in the Wall Street Journal of 11 May 1994.]3. Actually, having learned that Bohr had fallen into adangerous situation and had escaped from occupiedDenmark to Sweden, P.L. Kapitsa on 28 October 1943sent Bohr a letter with an invitation to move with hisfamily to the Soviet Union. This was a purely humani-tarian gesture from Kapitsa, who was worried by thefate of his colleague and friend and wished to help himin a dangerous situation.

Conjecture to the effect that Kapitsa invited Bohrto the USSR primarily so that the great physicist wouldparticipate in the Soviet atomic project does not haveeven the slightest foundation. In a letter to V.M.Molotov on 14 October 1943, Kapitsa, having notedthat he had found out by chance about Bohr’s escape,wrote, “I think that it would be very good and appropri-ate if we proposed our hospitality here in the Union tohim and his family during the war. Even if he is unableto accept our proposal, it makes sense to do this. If youconsider all this correct, then either the Academy ofSciences [can invite him]...or simply less officially, Ican write the invitation.” [P.L. Kapitsa, Letters AboutScience [Pis’ma o nauke] (Moscow: Moscow Worker,1989), 207.]

Bohr replied to Kapitsa from London on 29 April1944: “Dear Kapitsa, I don’t know how to thank you foryour letter of October 28, which I received via theCounselor at the Soviet Embassy, Mr. Zinchenko, a fewdays ago after my return from America. I am deeplytouched by your faithful friendship and full of thanksfor your magnanimous invitation....” [Kapitsa, LettersAbout Science, 209.]

The exchange of letters between Kapitsa andBohr attracted the attention of Western intelligenceservices, and it evidently fanned Churchill’s suspicionstoward Bohr. [Ruth Moore, Niels Bohr: Man andScholar [Niels Bohr—Chelovek i uchenyi] (Moscow:Mir), 389.]4. Sudoplatov, et al., Special Tasks, 205-207.5. Ibid., 211-212.6. M. Bessarab, Landau: Pages from Life [Landau:Stranitsy zhizni] (Moscow: Moscow Worker, 1978),175.7. Kapitsa, Letters About Science, 312.8. The document is reprinted in Sudoplatov et al,Special Tasks, 479-81.9. I.F. Zhezherun, Construction and Setting in Motionof the First Atomic Reactor in the Soviet Union[Stroitelstvo i pusk pervogo v Sovetskom Soiuzeatomnogo reaktora] (Moscow, 1978), 98-106.10. Henry DeWolf Smyth, Atomic Energy for MilitaryPurposes: The Official Report on the Development ofthe Atomic Bomb Under the Auspices of the UnitedStates Government 1940-1945 (Washington, D.C.:United States Government, 1945; citations from 1989reprint ed., Stanford University Press).11. Ibid., p. xiii.12. Ia.P. Terletsky, “Operation ‘Interrogation of NielsBohr’” [“Operatsiia ‘Dopros Nil’sa Bora”], Issues inthe History of Scientific Knowledge and Technology

BERIA TO STALINcontinued from page 51

[handwritten: “Correct: Chernikov”]

3 copies typed.

Copy #1 — to the addressee “ #2 — to the Secretary of USSR NKVD “ #3 — Department “6”

Executor SudoplatovTypist Krylova.

* * * * * *

DOCUMENT II:The Interrogation of Niels Bohr

1. Question: By what practical method wasuranium 235 obtained in large quantities, andwhich method now is considered to be the mostpromising (diffusion, magnetic, or some other)?

Answer: The theoretical foundations forobtaining uranium 235 are well known to scien-tists of all countries; they were developed evenbefore the war and present no secret. The war didnot introduce anything basically new into thetheory of this problem. Yet, I have to point outthat the issue of the uranium pile [kotiol; reac-tor—ed.] and the problem of plutonium resultingfrom this — are issues which were solved duringthe war, but these issues are not new in principleeither. Their solution was found as the result ofpractical implementation. The main thing isseparation of the uranium 235 isotope from thenatural mixture of isotopes. If there is a sufficientamount of uranium 235, realizing an atomic bombdoes not present any theoretical difficulty. Forseparation of uranium 235, the well-known diffu-sion method is used, and also the mass-spectographic method. No new method is ap-plied. The Americans succeeded by realizing inpractice installations, basically well-known tophysicists, in unimaginably big proportions. Imust warn you that while in the USA I did not takepart in the engineering development of the prob-lem and that is why I am aware neither of thedesign features nor the size of these apparatuses,nor even of the measurements of any part of them.I did not take part in the construction of theseapparatuses and, moreover, I have never seen asingle installation. During my stay in the USA Idid not visit a single plant. While I was there Itook part in all the theoretical meetings and dis-cussions on this problem which took place. I canassure you that the Americans use both diffusionand mass-spectrographic installations.

2. Question: How can the space charge ofthe ionic beam in a mass-spectrograph be com-pensated for?

Answer: If the gas from the vacuum cham-ber is pumped out completely, we will have tothink about a way to compensate for the volume

E AND THE BOMB

58 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN SOVIET ESPIONAGEwith [Princeton University physicist John A.]WHEELER, explained this thesis to Prof.TERLETSKY in detail./

6. Question: Are there other supplementarymethods for regulating the uranium pile?

Answer: For this purpose, regulating sub-stances which absorb neutrons are loaded into thepile.

7. Question: Which substance is used as theabsorber?

Answer: It seems that the absorbent rods aremade of cadmium.

8. Question: How many neutrons are emit-ted from every split atom of uranium 235, ura-nium 238, plutonium 239 and plutonium 240?

Answer: More than 2 neutrons.9. Question: Can you not provide exact

numbers?Answer: No, I can’t, but it is very important

that more than two neutrons are emitted. That isa reliable basis to believe that a chain reaction willmost undoubtedly occur. The precise value ofthese numbers does not matter. It is important thatthere are more than two.

10. Question: What is the number of sponta-neous disintegrations [i.e., fissions—ed.] within asegment of time for all the mentioned substances/uranium 235, uranium 238, plutonium 239, plu-tonium 240/?

Answer: Few spontaneous disintegrationstake place, and in calculations it is not necessaryto take them into consideration. The period ofspontaneous fission is approximately 7,000 years.I can’t cite the precise numbers, but you yourselfunderstand that with such a period of spontaneousdisintegration, there is no reason to expect it toinfluence the process significantly.

11. Question: In order to obtain a largequantity of uranium 235, is either the diffusionmethod or mass-spectographic method used alone,or are these two methods also used in combina-tion?

Answer: The Americans use both methodsand, besides, they use the combination of thesetwo methods. I think that the combination of thesetwo methods is most effective, because if wepresume that we have 0.5% of uranium 235 and if,as a result of applying the diffusion method bypassing it through a cascade, we increase theuranium content by 5 times, then by putting theuranium after that into the chamber of aspectograph, we can accelerate the process by 5times. I do not know for certain, but I think that theAmericans use the combination of these two meth-ods very widely.

12. Question: How stable is the multi-stagemachine?

Answer: The fact that diffusion cascades ofvery many stages already work in the USA showsthat the process can and does take place. And it isnot new. As you know, the German scientist[Gustav] HERTZ long before the war provedalready that this process was possible, when he

split helium, neon.13. Question. How is high productivity

achieved using the mass-spectrographic method;is it by constructing a large number of ordinaryspectrographs, or by constructing a few powerfulspectrographs?

Answer: Both. You cannot imagine what anenormous number of huge spectrographs theAmericans built. I do not know their size andnumber, but I know that it is something incred-ible. From the photographs which I saw it ispossible to conclude that these are gigantic build-ings with thousands of apparatuses installed inthem, and that many plants like this were built. Insuch a way the Americans built a large number ofbig spectographs.

14. Question: By what method is it possibleto obtain high ion charges of uranium or itscompounds?

Answer: By constructing a large and pow-erful mass-spectograph.

15. Question: Does the pile begin to slow asthe result of slag formation in the course of thefission of the light isotope of uranium?

Answer: Pollution of the pile with slag asthe result of the fission of a light isotope ofuranium does occur. But as far as I know,Americans do not stop the process specially forpurification of the pile. Cleansing of the pilestakes place at the moment of exchange of the rodsfor removal of the obtained plutonium.

16. Question: How often is plutoniumremoved from the machine and how are the termsfor the removal determined?

Answer: I do not know for sure. By uncon-firmed hearsay, the removal of the rods takesplace once a week.

17. Question: Does plutonium 240 splitunder the influence of slow neutrons? Has thepossibility of plutonium 240 fission been provedexperimentally?

Answer: It is known that the fission of alleven isotopes, uranium 234, uranium 238 andplutonium 240, requires significantly more en-ergy than uneven isotopes /let’s recollect [Aus-trian physicist Wolfgang] Pauli’s principle/, andthat the energy released by plutonium 240 mustbe equal to the energy released by the fission ofuranium 239. /At this point BOHR, illustratinghis speech with graphs from his works, gave adetailed foundation for the fact that the questionof using plutonium 240 is not very sensible./ Sofar nobody has proved by experiment that it ispossible to split plutonium 240.

18. Question: Does a uranium pile usingheavy water as a moderator exist, or are allworking piles uranium-graphite?

Answer: All piles working in the USA havegraphite moderators. You evidently know thatproduction of heavy water demands an enormousamount of electric power. Before the war theproduction of heavy water was organized only inNorway. And we all bought heavy water there.

charge of the ionic beam. But if the gas from thechamber is not pumped out completely, it is notnecessary to worry about compensating for thevolume charge. Or, in fact, compensation for thevolume charge of the ionic beam is accom-plished by means of the incomplete pumping ofgas from the vacuum chamber.

3. Question: Is it feasible to execute auranium pile using a natural mixture of isotopesand ordinary [“light”—ed.] water as a modera-tor?

Answer: The question of using ordinarywater as a moderator was raised, yet the idea wasnot realized in practice. The uranium pile withordinary water is not used. I think that the use ofordinary water as a moderator is not expedient,because light hydrogen absorbs neutrons well,thus turning into heavy hydrogen. This idea isnot popular in America. Originally the Ameri-cans intended to build piles with heavy water asa moderator, but production of heavy water re-quires huge expense. During the war the Ameri-cans discovered that graphite can serve as a goodmoderator. They developed this idea in practiceand implemented it on a gigantic scale. Theconstruction side, the arrangement and the mea-surements of this pile, is not known to me.

4. Question: What substance is used forcooling the uranium blocks themselves?

Answer: Normal water is used for coolingthe uranium blocks. The problem of cooling theuranium piles is extremely complicated, sincecooling the piles literally requires whole rivers.We note that the water used for cooling is broughtalmost to boiling.

5. Question: What is the temperaturechange of the multiplication factor, what is thenumerical equivalent of the temperature coeffi-cient of the multiplication factor? Or what doesthe curve representing the relationship betweenthe multiplication factor and temperature looklike?

Answer: The mere fact that the uraniumpile is working means that the dependence of themultiplication factor on temperature is not sig-nificant. Otherwise, as the result of the violentreaction, the pile would explode. I cannot pro-vide the numerical significance of this depen-dence, but evidently it is of an insignificant size.However, this factor must not be ignored. It isnecessary to maintain the pile in a certain state byregulating the amount of water coming into it.Normally uranium cores are kept in cold condi-tion. It is necessary to keep in mind that if thepile’s working regime is disrupted, the pile canbe easily spoiled. We also note that the possibil-ity of regulating the uranium pile is provided bythe existence of a long period of time /about asecond and more/ between the fission of thenucleus and the emission of slowed neutrons,which comprise 1% of the total number of emit-ted neutrons.

/Then BOHR on the basis of his work, done


We note that during the war the Germans appliedmuch effort in order to carry out processes withheavy water, but they did not manage to collectthe amount of heavy water sufficient to start apile. The Americans found it possible to usegraphite as a moderator and accomplished thisidea with considerable success. Therefore, as faras I know, they gave up using piles with heavywater for industrial production. The Canadianschose another way, deciding to construct pileswith heavy water, but these piles have not beenactivated for the same reason: they cannot accu-mulate for this purpose the necessary amount ofheavy water. I consider it necessary to stress thatI received this information during informal con-versations with my colleagues.

19. Question: Of which substance wereatomic bombs made?

Answer: I do not know of which substancethe bombs dropped on Japan were made. I thinkno theoretician will answer this question to you.Only the military can give you an answer to thisquestion. Personally I, as a scientist, can say thatthese bombs were evidently made of plutoniumor uranium 235.

20. Question: Do you know any methods ofprotection from atomic bombs? Does a realpossibility of defense from atomic bombs exist?

Answer: I am sure that there is no realmethod of protection from atomic bomb. Tellme, how you can stop the fission process whichhas already begun in the bomb which has beendropped from a plane? It is possible, of course, tointercept the plane, thus not allowing it to ap-proach its destination—but this is a task of adoubtful character, because planes fly very highfor this purpose and besides, with the creation ofjet planes, you understand yourself, the combina-tion of these two discoveries makes the task offighting the atomic bomb insoluble. We need toconsider the establishment of international con-trol over all countries as the only means of de-fense against the atomic bomb. All mankindmust understand that with the discovery of atomicenergy the fates of all nations have become veryclosely intertwined. Only international coopera-tion, the exchange of scientific discoveries, andthe internationalization of scientific achievements,can lead to the elimination of wars, which meansthe elimination of the very necessity to use theatomic bomb. This is the only correct method ofdefense. I have to point out that all scientistswithout exception, who worked on the atomicproblem, including the Americans and the En-glish, are indignant at the fact that great discover-ies become the property of a group of politicians.All scientists believe that this greatest discoverymust become the property of all nations and servefor the unprecedented progress of humankind.You obviously know that as a sign of protest thefamous OPPENHEIMER retired and stopped hiswork on this problem. And PAULI in a conver-sation with journalists demonstratively declared

that he is a nuclear physicist, but he does not haveand does not want to have anything to do with theatomic bomb.

I am glad to note that today in the localnewspaper there appeared a report that [BritishPrime Minister Clement] ATTLEE and [U.S.President Harry] TRUMAN began a consultationwith the USSR on the establishment of interna-tional control over the use and production ofatomic bombs. Yet, I have to point out I viewsuch reports in local newspapers very skeptically.But the mere fact that ATTLEE, TRUMAN, and[Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie] KING con-duct these negotiations is very notable. Let us seewhere they will lead.1 We have to keep in mindthat atomic energy, having been discovered, can-not remain the property of one nation, becauseany country which does not possess this secretcan very quickly independently discover it. Andwhat is next? Either reason will win, or a devas-tating war, resembling the end of mankind.

21. Question: Is the report which hasappeared about the development of a super-bombjustified?

Answer: I believe that the destructive powerof the already invented bomb is already greatenough to wipe whole nations from the face of theearth. But I would welcome the discovery of asuper-bomb, because then mankind would prob-ably sooner understand the need to cooperate. Infact, I believe that there is insufficient basis forthese reports. What does it mean, a super-bomb?This is either a bomb of a bigger weight then theone that has already been invented, or a bombwhich is made of some new substance. Well, thefirst is possible, but unreasonable, because, Irepeat, the destructive power of the bomb isalready very great, and the second—I believe—is unreal.

22. Question: Is the phenomenon ofovercompression of the compound under the in-fluence of the explosion used in the course of thebomb explosion?

Answer: There is no need for this. The pointis that during the explosion uranium particlesmove at a speed equal to the speed of the neu-trons’ movement. If this were not so the bombwould have given a clap and disintegrated as thebody broke apart. Now precisely due to this equalspeed the fissile process of the uranium continueseven after the explosion.

—oo0oo—

* * * * * *

DOCUMENT III:Kurchatov’s Evaluation

Top secret

EVALUATION

of the answers given by Professor Niels BOHR tothe questions on the atomic problem.

Niels BOHR was asked two groups of ques-tions:

1. Concerning the main directions of thework.2. Those containing concrete physical dataand constants.

Definite answers were given by BOHR tothe first group of questions.

BOHR gave a categorical answer to thequestion about the use of methods for obtaininguranium 235 in the USA, which completely sat-isfied the correspondent member of the Academyof Science Prof. [Isaak Konstantinovich]KIKOIN, who put this question.

Niels BOHR made an important remarkdealing with the effectiveness of using uraniumin the atomic bomb. This remark must undergo atheoretical analysis, which should be the task ofProfessors [Lev Davidovich] LANDAU, [A.B.]MIGDAL, and [Isaak I.] POMERANCHUK.

Academician /KURCHATOV/

“ “ of December 1945

1. [On 15 November 1945, at a summit in Washington,Truman, Attlee, and King issued a tripartite declarationrecognizing the impossibility of defense against theatomic bomb or keeping a national monopoly overatomic weapons or science, and calling for the UnitedNations to create a commission to establish interna-tional exchange of scientific information. This policyled to the unsuccessful UN talks over the Baruch andGromyko plans for international control.—ed.]

CWIHP Working Papers

1. Chen Jian, “The Sino-Soviet Alliance and China’sEntry into the Korean War”2. P.J. Simmons, “Archival Research on the Cold WarEra: A Report from Budapest, Prague and Warsaw”3. James Richter, “Reexamining Soviet Policy To-wards Germany during the Beria Interregnum”4. Vladislav M. Zubok, “Soviet Intelligence and theCold War: The ‘Small’ Committee of Information,1952-53”5. Hope M. Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete‘Rose’: New Archival Evidence on the Dynamics ofSoviet-East German Relations and the Berlin Crisis,1958-1961”6. Vladislav M. Zubok, “Khrushchev and the BerlinCrisis (1958-1962)”7. Mark Bradley and Robert K. Brigham, “VietnameseArchives and Scholarship on the Cold War Period: TwoReports”8. Kathryn Weathersby, “Soviet Aims in Korea and theOrigins of the Korean War, 1945-1950: New EvidenceFrom Russian Archives”9. Scott D. Parrish and Mikhail M. Narinsky, “NewEvidence on the Soviet Rejection of the Marshall Plan,1947: Two Reports”10. Norman M. Naimark, “‘To Know Everything andTo Report Everything Worth Knowing’: Building theEast German Police State, 1945-1949”11. Christian F. Ostermann, “’A Continuation of June17 by Other Means’? United States Policy, the June1953 Uprising in the GDR, and the ‘Eisenhower Pack-ages’ Program”

E AND THE BOMB


MORE DOCUMENTS FROMTHE RUSSIAN ARCHIVES

The previous issue of the Cold WarInternational History Project Bulletin (Is-sue 3, Fall 1993, pp. 1, 55-69) contained aselection of translated documents from theRussian archives on Soviet foreign policyduring the Cold War, and here the seriescontinues. Several documents were pro-vided by the Storage Center for Contempo-rary Documentation (SCCD, or TsKhSD,its Russian acronym), the archive contain-ing the post-1952 records of the CPSUCentral Committee, in connection with theJanuary 1993 conference in Moscow orga-nized by CWIHP in cooperation withTsKhSD and the Institute of Universal His-tory of the Russian Academy of Sciences.Scholars working with CWIHP providedothers, including several from a specialTsKhSD collection known as Fond 89, whichcontains Soviet documents declassified forthe 1992 Constitutional Court trial of theCPSU and other special occasions. TheCWIHP Bulletin hopes to publish moretranslated documents from the archives ofthe USSR/CPSU and other former commu-nist states in forthcoming issues, and wel-comes submissions of documents (and shortintroductions) from scholars conductingresearch in East-bloc archives.

I. Stalin, Mao, and the KoreanWar, 1950—“Clarifications”

In the spring of 1950, the most tightlyheld secret in the world was that prepara-tions were going forward for North Koreato launch a massive military assault onSouth Korea in a concerted drive to unifythe peninsula, divided since the end of WorldWar II, under communist rule. For decades,scholars could only guess at the dynamics ofthe mystery-shrouded exchanges among theleaders of North Korea, the USSR, and thenewly-established People’s Republic ofChina. However, the previous issue of theCWIHP Bulletin included a declassifieddocument from the Russian archives clearlyindicating that North Korean leader Kim IlSung had repeatedly petitioned Soviet lead-ership for its blessing to launch the attack,and that he finally received a green lightfrom Stalin during his visit to Moscow inApril 1950. In that document, a 1966 inter-nal Soviet Foreign Ministry report, it was

also stated that following this meeting inMoscow, in May 1950, “Kim Il Sung visitedBeijing and secured the support of Mao.”(See “New Findings on the Korean War,”translation and commentary by KathrynWeathersby, CWIHP Bulletin 3 (Fall 1993),1, 14-18, quotation on p. 16.)

The following two documents shed fur-ther light on the interplay between Stalin andMao as Kim sought Beijing’s approval. Theywere among more than 200 documents total-ling over 600 pages from the Russian Presi-dential Archives concerning the Korean Warthat were given by Russian President BorisYeltsin to South Korean President KimYoung-Sam during the latter’s visit to Mos-cow in June 1994, and were made availableto the CWIHP Bulletin by the South KoreanEmbassy in Washington. The first documentis a coded telegram sent to Moscow on thenight of 13 May 1950 from the Soviet Em-bassy in Beijing. It relayed a request fromMao, conveyed via Chinese Foreign Minis-ter Chou En-lai, seeking Stalin’s “personalclarifications” of his stand on a potentialNorth Korean action to reunify the country.Mao sought the information after hearing areport from Kim, who had arrived that day inthe Chinese capital for a secret two-day visitand clearly claimed that he had receivedStalin’s blessing. The second document, acoded telegram from Moscow to Beijing,contained Stalin’s personal response. Usingthe code-name “Filippov,” Stalin confirmedhis agreement with the North Korean pro-posal to “move toward reunficiation,” con-tingent on Beijing’s assent.

Particularly noteworthy is Stalin’s sug-gestive yet cryptic statement that the Sovietleaders (i.e., Stalin himself) had altered theirstance, after long resisting Kim’s appeals,due to the “changed international situa-tion.” Exactly what had changed?“Filippov” doesn’t say, but the apparenttiming of his conversion certainly engendersspeculation. According to previously dis-closed Soviet documents, Stalin had indi-cated as early as 30 January 1950 that hewas “ready to approve” Kim’s request forpermission to attack the South, and to rendermaterial assistance to assure its success,although he noted, “Such a large matterneeds preparation.” (See documents quotedin Dmitrii Volkogonov, “Sleduyet li etogoboyat’sia?” [“Should we fear this?”],Ogonyok 26 (June 1993), 28-29, cited inKathryn Weathersby, “The Soviet Role in the

Early Phase of the Korean War: New Docu-mentary Evidence,” The Journal of Ameri-can-East Asian Relations 2:4 (Winter 1993),425-58.) Stalin’s statement in a coded tele-gram to the Soviet ambassador in Pyongyangcame less than three weeks after U.S. Secre-tary of State Dean G. Acheson’s famousNational Press Club speech in which heexcluded Korea, and other mainland loca-tions, from the American “defensive perim-eter” in Asia. Though Acheson’s speechwas primarily devoted to the subject of China,and though he was merely echoing state-ments by U.S. military leaders in his defini-tion of American military strategy in thePacific, his statement may have been seen inMoscow as lending credence to the argu-ment that Washington would not intervenemilitarily to rescue South Korea from beingoverrun. But of course, Stalin may also havebeen alluding to other, far more momentousdevelopments on the international scene,especially the Chinese Communists’ con-solidation of power after militarily routingtheir Guomindang opponents, and the Sovi-ets’ own success the previous autumn inending the four-year U.S. nuclear monopoly.

As for Mao, the sequence of events(perhaps by Stalin’s design) clearly put himon the spot. Though exhausted by the dec-ades-long civil war, and still gearing up foran assault on the Nationalist redoubt onTaiwan, Mao and his comrades in Beijingmay well have felt compelled to endorsePyongyang’s action in order to demonstrateto Stalin their revolutionary mettle, zeal,and worthiness to spearhead the communistmovement in Asia—especially given therather cool and skeptical welcome Mao hadreceived when he had visited Moscow theprevious December. Perhaps, as some schol-ars contend (most prominently BruceCummings in his two-volume study), fullscalewar between North and South Korea wasbound to erupt at some point in any case,since both sides’ leaders were eager toachieve reunification. Yet it appears thatKim was able to strike first on his ownschedule by exploiting the mutual suspicionand competition between the two communistgiants. The Bulletin plans to publish furtherreports bearing on the Korean War in futureissues. Commentary by Jim Hershberg,CWIHP Director; translations by VladislavM. Zubok, National Security Archive, Wash-ington, D.C., and Kathryn Weathersby,Florida State University, Tallahassee.

DOCUMENTATION


Ciphered Telegram Strictly SecretMaking copies is forbidden

[Stamp: “Declassified 14 December 1993”]

From PEKING

For immediate report to comrade Filippov.x/

Today on May 13, at 23 hours 30 minutesChou En-lai paid a visit to me and, following theinstructions of Mao Tse-tung, let me know thefollowing:

1. Kim Il Sung and minister of foreignaffairs of the Korean People’s-Democratic Re-public Po Siang-Yung* arrived in Peking on May13 this year.

2. In the evening comrade Mao Tse-tung hashad a meeting with them. In the conversation withcomrade Mao Tse-tung the Korean comradesinformed about the directives of comrade Filippovthat the present situation has changed from thesituation in the past and, that North Korea canmove toward actions; however, this questionshould be discussed with China and personallywith comrade Mao Tse-tung.

3. The Korean comrades will stay in Pekingfor 2 days.

In connection with the abovementioned com-rade Mao Tse-tung would like to have personalclarifications of comrade Filippov on this ques-tion, which, according to the previous telegramfrom comrade Filippov transferred by the [So-viet] Ambassador [to China] comrade [N.V.]Roshchin, were to follow in the coming days.

The Chinese comrades are requesting anurgent answer.

13/5-50. Roshchin

——————x/ Pseudonym I.V. Stalin. [Ed. note: In the pho-tocopy provided by the Russian Government toSouth Korea.][*Ed. note: This is a transliteration of the Russian,itself a transliteration of the Chinese translitera-tion of the Korean; the conventional Englishspelling is Pak Hon-yong.]

(Source: Archive of the President of the RussianFederation (APRF).)

*************

MFA USSR Tenth Department Top Secret

Making copies is prohibitedSpecial no. 550

113Issuing No. 8600

Received on 4:10 am, 14 May 1950Sent on 5:30 am, 14 May 1950

CIPHERED TELEGRAM_______________________________________________________Destination: PEKING To whom: SovAmbassador———————————————————

SPECIAL

For Mao-Tse-Tung.“Comr. Mao-Tse-Tung!In a conversation with the Korean comrades

Filippov [Stalin] and his friends expressed theopinion, that, in light of the changed internationalsituation, they agree with the proposal of theKoreans to move toward reunification [pristupitk obiednineniiu]. In this regard a qualificationwas made [pri etom bilo ogovoreno], that thequestion should be decided finally by the Chineseand Korean comrades together, and in case ofdisagreement by the Chinese comrades the deci-sion on the question should be postponed until anew discussion. The Korean comrades can tellyou the details of the conversation.

Filippov”.Telegraph the fulfillment [ispolneniie

telegraf’te].

VYSHINSKY

5 copies14 May 1950

Copies:

1. Comr. Stalin2. Comr. Molotov3. Comr. Vyshinsky4. Comr. 10th department5. Comr. Copy

(Source: APRF.)

II. Third World Reaction to Hungaryand Suez, 1956:

A Soviet Foreign Ministry Analysis

In this strikingly frank assessment, for-warded to the CPSU Central Committee, theUSSR Foreign Ministry informs the Kremlinthat in the wake of the Hungarian and Suezcrises in the fall of 1956, admiration for theUnited States has risen and Soviet stock hasplummeted in the newly-independent Asiancountries that had formerly belonged to theEuropean colonial empires. The December1956 report on the crises’ impact in the“Colombo Countries”—referring to Burma,Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India, Indonesia,and Pakistan, all former colonies which hadgained independence since World War II,and signatories of an agreement on eco-

nomic cooperation in the Ceylonese capitalof Colombo—must have been particularlygalling to the Soviet leadership since thecountries it covered, especially India, weretargets of Moscow’s ardent post-Stalin dip-lomatic offensive to woo members of theemerging bloc of “non-aligned” nations toits side in the Cold War. In 1955, Khrushchevhad hosted Indian Prime Minister JawaharlalNehru in Moscow and then paid his own visitto India and Burma, and had also called onTito in Belgrade in an effort to patch upSoviet-Yugoslav relations, which had grownbitterly hostile under Stalin.

The Foreign Ministry analysis, how-ever, suggested strongly that recent eventshad dealt this strategy a serious blow. In allthe “Colombo countries,” it reported, therehad been a “significant increase” in anti-Soviet views, in public, official, and diplo-matic arenas, even among leftists; a disillu-sioned New Delhi, in particular, had offi-cially told Moscow that the invasion of Hun-gary “shatter[ed] the belief of millions ofpeople who had begun to view the USSR asthe defender of peace and rights of the weak-est people,” and Nehru was reported to becoordinating with Tito in condemningMoscow’s actions, and also tightening tieswith China and the United States.

Even worse, the report noted a sharpincrease in the prestige of the United Statesand Eisenhower personally, who had wel-comed Nehru to Washington in late Decem-ber 1956. By opposing (at least diplomati-cally) both the Soviet invasion of Hungaryand the Anglo-French-Israeli coordinatedmilitary assault to capture the Suez Canalfrom Egypt and its nationalist leader, GamalAbdel Nasser, Eisenhower had enhancedhis credibility as a defender of the rights ofsmall nations against interference by largerpowers. This assessment accorded with thatof U.S. diplomatic observers, who sensed anhistoric opportunity to draw India closer tothe United States. (See, e.g., the cable fromthe U.S. ambassador in India, 7 December1956, in Foreign Relations of the UnitedStates, 1955-1957, VIII, 319-25.) But it con-trasts with subsequent analysis of HenryKissinger that “the Soviet Union’s acts inHungary cost it no influence among theNonaligned, while the United States gar-nered no additional influence among thatgroup as a result of its stand over Suez.”(Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon &Schuster, 1994), 563-64.) In at least some

DOCUMENTATION


forces of these countries, along with many offic-ers, are trained in England.

A significant part of the bureaucratic appa-ratus of India, Pakistan, and Ceylon is preservedfrom the time of English colonial rule, and sup-ports continued ties with England. The main rolein the matter of the continued membership ofIndia, Pakistan, and Ceylon in the British Empireis played by the fact that the great bourgeois andland-owning circles of these countries are notinterested in breaking economic and politicalrelations with England.

Currently, as England has begun to with-draw its troops from Egypt, expressions of criti-cism toward the actions of England in Egypt havealmost completely ceased in the “Colombo Coun-tries.”

And so, the English aggression towardsEgypt has not led to any sort of noticeable wors-ening of relations of these countries with En-gland, although, it is without doubt that in con-nection with her aggressive actions in the NearEast, England’s prestige in Asian countries hasbeen damaged severely.

II.Recently, in reaction to the events in Hun-

gary, there has been a significant increase inspeeches hostile to the Soviet Union in the “Co-lombo Countries.” These speeches are found intheir most extreme form in Pakistan and Burma.

In the ruling circles of the “Colombo Coun-tries” an analogy was made between the English-French-Israeli aggression in Egypt and the par-ticipation of Soviet forces in the suppression ofthe counter-revolutionary revolt in Hungary. Inparticular, a November 14 declaration of thePrime Ministers of India, Burma, Indonesia, andCeylon reads, “each of them has independentlyalready expressed their uneasiness about theseevents (in Egypt and Hungary—Committee onInformation) and their strong disapproval andtheir chagrin in connection with the aggressionand the intervention of great powers against weakcountries. This is a violation of a condition of theUN Charter, and also a direct violation of thespirit and letter of the Bandung Conference dec-laration and the principles expressed in it.”

In the above-mentioned declaration, ThePrime Ministers of India, Burma, Indonesia, andCeylon demanded that Soviet forces be quicklywithdrawn from Hungary, and that the Hungarianpeople be granted the right “to decide for them-selves the question of their future and to create thegovernment that it wishes to have, without anysort of outside meddling.”

The “Colombo countries” adhered to thisposition—which is basically unfriendly towardthe USSR—during the U.N.’s consideration ofthe so-called Hungarian question. The Pakistanidelegation, occupying a position on the Hungar-ian question which is openly hostile to the SovietUnion, even was one of the co-authors of a five-

nonaligned countries, and at least for theshort term, the Soviet analysis shows, theconduct of the superpowers in Hungary andSuez had indeed reduced the USSR’s influ-ence and raised that of the United States.Introduction by Jim Hershberg, CWIHPdirector; translation by Mark H. Doctoroff,Harriman Institute, Columbia University;document provided by Storage Center forContemporary Documentation, Moscow.

* * * * * * * *

Top SecretCopy No. 1

To Comrade ORLOV, A.L.

I forward a copy of a note prepared by theCommittee of Information, USSR MFA, “TheInfluence of Events in the Near East and InHungary on relations of the “Colombo coun-tries” toward England, the USA, and the SovietUnion.”

The note has been sent to the leadership ofthe MFA USSR.

Attachment: On 8 pages.

(Signed) I. Tugarinov

“28” December 1956No. 1869/2

* * * * * *

nm. 32 CopyTop Secret

Copy No. 30

The Influence of Events in the Near East andin Hungary on the Attitudes of the “Colombo

Countries” Toward England, the USA, and theSoviet Union

I.The latest events in the Near East and in

Hungary led to the appearance of certain newelements in the attitudes of the “Colombo Coun-tries” toward England, the USA, and the SovietUnion.

During the Anglo-French aggression againstEgypt, an anti-English mood was sharplystrengthened in the “Colombo Countries.”

In these countries, demands were put forthfor the breaking of relations with England and forthe withdrawal of India, Pakistan, and Ceylonfrom the British Commonwealth. Also, on No-vember 3, the Parliament of Indonesia unani-mously took the decision to recommend to thegovernment that it review the question of thebreaking of relations with England, should the

English forces not be withdrawn from Egyptianterritory.

One of the most prominent personalities ofthe Indian National Congress Party [Chakravarti]RAJAGOPALACHARI, suggested that Indiawithdraw from the British Commonwealth in theevent that England rejected the decision of the UNregarding the question of aggression against Egypt.Many Indian newspapers and political partiessupported RAJAGOPALACHARI’s demand.Analogous demands were put forth in Pakistanand in Ceylon.

The governments of the “Colombo Coun-tries” also officially considered the Anglo-Frenchaggression in Egypt. However, they restrainedthemselves from taking any actions which mightbe evidence of a retreat by these countries fromthe policy which they followed earlier in relationto England. At a press conference on November2, in response to a question as to whether Indiamight apply these or other sanctions against En-gland, NEHRU answered, “We are not thinkingabout sanctions.” On November 9, NEHRU di-rectly said that India would act incorrectly, if itwere to withdraw from membership in the BritishCommonwealth because of the actions of En-gland in Egypt. The Prime Minister of Ceylon,[S.W.R.D.] BANDARANIKE on November 12spoke in a similar vein against a suggestion thatIndia and Ceylon withdraw from the British Com-monwealth.

The President of Pakistan, Iskander MIRZA,who recently visited Iran, in a conversation withdiplomatic representatives from Arab countriesaccredited to Teheran, announced that “such agreat colonialistic power, such as England, has atits disposal huge military powers, and it is capableof any actions.” Therefore, in questions involvingEngland, it is necessary to follow “a more moder-ate course,” and not to take headstrong“adventuristic steps.”

Such a position on the part of the rulingcircles of the “Colombo Countries” is explainedfirst of all by the sufficiently significant degree towhich these countries are economically and po-litically dependent on England. English capitalcontinues to hold a dominant position in theleading branches of the economies of India, Paki-stan, Burma, and Ceylon, particularly in the plan-tation economy, manufacturing industry, and alsoin internal and foreign trade. In India, for ex-ample, according to information in our posses-sion, more than 72% of long-term foreign invest-ment is English, and this accounts for more than30% of all the money invested in the Indianeconomy.

In India and Pakistan there remain a signifi-cant number of English “advisors” and varioustypes of “consultants,” and several Englishmeneven occupy official government positions.

A decent number of Englishmen remained inthe armed forces of India, Pakistan, and Ceylon.As in the past, the general staffs of the armed

DOCUMENTATION

COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN 63DOCUMENTATIONcountry resolution which called for interventionin the Hungarian matter. According to informa-tion received from our Chinese friends, the gov-ernment of Burma considers the application ofsanctions against the Soviet Union in relation toits actions in Hungary a possible step.

In the memorandum of the Indian Govern-ment handed to Com[rade]. GROMYKO on 17December 1956, the current position of the So-viet Union is judged in its essentials, and it isasserted that

“the events in Hungary shatter the belief ofmillions of people, who had begun to viewthe USSR as the defender of peace andrights of the weakest people.”

It should be noted that the evaluation of theHungarian situation by the “Colombo Countries”corresponds to a significant degree with the Yu-goslavian point of view on this question. Accord-ing to information in our possession, NEHRUand [Burmese Prime Minister] U BA SWE sup-port close contact with Yugoslavia on the Hun-garian question.

In this connection it is necessary to point outthat NEHRU, in his speech to the Indian Parlia-ment on 20 November 1956, underlined thatTITO is in a position to give a correct evaluationof events in Europe and that India, in working outits foreign policy program, to a certain degree isled by his evaluation. Besides this, NEHRU,speaking about Tito’s speech in Pula [Yugosla-via—ed.], noted that to him many points in thisspeech seem correct.

The Government of India is in full accordwith the position of Yugoslavia regarding [over-thrown Hungarian leader] Imre NAGY. And so,NEHRU, in his conversation with CHOU EN-LAI which took place on 3 December 1956,expressed India’s disagreement with the actionsof the Soviet government on this question. Ac-cording to NEHRU, “facts of this type are ex-tremely unfavorable for the USSR.”

Recently, many political parties, organs ofthe press, and a range of leading political figuresof the “Colombo countries” have begun to speakvery critically of the foreign policy of the SovietUnion, pointing out in this regard that the eventsin Eastern Europe bear witness “to the insincerityof the Soviet Union” and about its unwillingnessto consistently adhere to the five principles ofpeaceful coexistence.

The following comments from the Indianpress are representative of these opinions. Ac-cording to the newspaper “Indian Express,” So-viet policy, which preached its devotion to theprinciples of “panch shil” [Ed. note: This refers tothe “five principles”—of mutual respect,nonagression, noninterference, equality and mu-tual benefit, and peaceful coexistence—espousedby Nehru to apply to Indian-Chinese relations,and to international relations generally.] is nowunmasked. The influential newspaper “Hindustan

Standard” wrote in November 1956 that the So-viet government

“by its actions in Hungary has made themost vulgar mistake in the post-Stalin ep-och. The trust and good wishes which itreceived in recent months have quicklydisappeared, and now, after this there mayfollow even more serious events.”

The Prime Minister of Burma U BA SWEsaid directly that the policy of the Soviet govern-ment is directed toward undermining the founda-tions of the United Nations.

NEHRU, touching on the situation in Hun-gary, announced at the opening of a UNESCOconference on November 5:

“Now we see that the five principles arejust words which have no meaning forcertain countries that assert the right toresolve problems by means of overwhelm-ing force.”

In his 20 December 1956 speech at theAmerican United Nations Association, NEHRUasserted that Hungary “had been forced to func-tion in a way which contradicts the will of theresidents of the country.”

Judging by facts in our possession, one ofthe reasons for the cooling off in attitudes towardthe Soviet Union in the “Colombo countries” isfound in the not entirely exact fulfillment of ourtrade obligations by Soviet enterprises, whichcauses dissatisfaction in a range of countries. So,for example, Burmese business circles expressserious complaints relating to delays in the deliv-ery of most Soviet goods and violations of termsin the fulfillment of contracts.

Recently, representatives of certain politi-cal circles and organs of the press in the “Co-lombo countries” have spoken in favor of a re-view of the policy of these countries toward theSoviet Union. And so, the newspaper “HindustanTimes,” which is close to the Indian government,wrote that events in Eastern Europe and the Nearand Middle East “oblige India to review its for-eign policy.”

At the same time, it must be noted that therelationships of the “Colombo countries” withother countries of the Socialist camp—and par-ticularly with the PRC—have recently under-gone further development. Bearing withness tothis, for example, are such facts as the extremelyfriendly reception which CHOU EN-LAI wasgiven in India, and the journey of U NU to thePRC, which took place during the sharpening ofthe situation in Hungary.

III.Recent events in Hungary and in the Near

East and the position of the USA during theseevents have made possible an increase in the

prestige of the USA in Asian countries.The general tone of the coverage of the

events in Egypt and in Hungary in the press of the“Colombo countries” was extremely favorabletoward the USA. The statements of a number ofpress organs included positive evaluations of therole and actions of the USA in settling the conflictin the Near and Middle East, and also in regard tothe question of the situation in Hungary. In thisway, the USA was assigned the role as the mostactive supporter of a peaceful settlement of thesituation in Egypt.

The fact that the reelection of PresidentEisenhower received a favorable reaction in the“Colombo countries” is also noteworthy. Manynewspapers in those countries, including those ofleftist orientation, expressed satisfaction over there-election of EISENHOWER as President, view-ing it as a “firm guarantee of the maintenance ofpeace.”

Recently, in the press of the “Colombo coun-tries” there have appeared reports of a possiblechange in the positions of these countries towardthe USA. In particular, in certain reports ofIndian newspapers it has been mentioned that itmakes sense for India to revise its foreign policyso as to move closer to the USA.

Regarding this, the fact that the USA over ashort period of time has taken real steps toward arapprochement with India has special meaning.In January 1956, the government of the USAannounced that it had rescinded a previously-taken decision to reduce economic aid to India by10 million dollars, and, besides this, had decidedto provide India, free of charge, 100 thousandtons of steel products required for restoration andreconstruction of the Indian railroad network. InMarch 1956, the government of the USA gaveIndia 26 million dollars for the purchase of vari-ous types of machinery, and in August 1956concluded with NEHRU’s government an agree-ment to provide India agricultural products worth360.1 million dollars, of which 65% would begiven in the form of a loan and 15% in the formof a grants.

The government of the USA is also trying tobroaden its political contacts with India and todraw India closer to the USA on a range ofinternational questions. With this goal, the gov-ernment of the USA, according to information forthe Soviet Embassy in Delhi, made it clear to theIndians that the USA wished to renew negotia-tions towards conclusion of an Indo-Americantreaty on friendship, trade, and navigation.

The above American measures are receivedfavorably by the Indian government, which isinterested in receiving necessary economic aidfrom the USA. NEHRU himself manifests acertain inclination towards rapprochement withthe USA. It is deserving of attention that pre-cisely after the events in Hungary and in the NearEast, NEHRU agreed to accept EISENHOWER’sinvitation, and visited the USA in December

64 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETINDOCUMENTATIONDemocratic challenger in 1952 and 1956, tobe “the most acceptable” candidate to suc-ceed Eisenhower, and the most likely toimprove U.S.-Soviet relations. (KhrushchevRemembers (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970),507; Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Tes-tament (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), 488.)

But the twice-defeated Stevenson hadrejected a third bid, and at the July 1960Democratic Convention in Los Angeles,Kennedy had emerged as his party’s stan-dard-bearer to take on Republican candi-date Richard Nixon. Nevertheless, for theSoviet leader, choosing a favorite in the U.S.presidential campaign was easy. Khrushchevsaw Nixon, his antagonist in the “KitchenDebate” at a 1959 Moscow trade fair, as an“aggressive” anti-communist who “owedhis career to that devil of darknessMcCarthy”—and Khrushchev’s post-CampDavid fondness for the Eisenhower Admin-istration had dissipated after the U-2 affairin May, which aborted a planned East-Westsummit in Paris as well as Ike’s anticipatedvisit to the USSR. Kennedy probably didn’thurt his stock in Moscow by saying that he,unlike Eisenhower, would have apologizedfor the spy flight, and Khrushchev later toldJFK (at their June 1961 Vienna summit) thathe had “voted” for him by delaying therelease of the captured U.S. pilot FrancisGary Powers until after the election.(Khrushchev Remembers, 508; KhrushchevRemembers: The Last Testament, 490-91.)Still, as Khrushchev later conceded, despitehaving a clear preference, “We had littleknowledge of John Kennedy,” other thanthat he was “a young man, very promisingand very rich—a millionaire ... distinguishedby his intelligence, his education, and hispolitical skill.” ( Khrushchev Remembers:The Last Testament, 488-89.)

Khrushchev’s initial assessment wasprobably informed, at least in part, by theprofile reproduced below, prepared bycharge d’affaires Mikhail Smirnovsky.Though it inevitably mentions JFK’s wealthybackground, the profile does not dwell onhis “class consciousness” and presents astraightforward, no-nonsense analysis of hispolitical background, development, andviews; his personality; and, of greatest in-terest to the Kremlin, his likely impact, ifelected, on U.S.-Soviet relations. Despiteminor slips (Kennedy only narrowly de-feated Henry Cabot Lodge in the 1952 Sen-ate race, not by “a wide margin”), what

1956, even though he earlier, as is well known,had avoided a trip to the USA for a long time.

As is well-known, the joint communiqueabout NEHRU’s negotiations withEISENHOWER, published 20 December 1956,does not contain any concrete agreements. At thesame time, it mentions that both sides affirm theexistence of a broad area of agreement betweenIndia and the USA, who are linked by tight bondsof friendship, based on the compatibility of theirgoals and adherence to the highest principles offree democracy.”

During his visit to the USA, in one of hisspeeches (20 December) NEHRU strongly laudedAmerica’s “morally leading” role in the MiddleEast crisis and the events in Hungary.

It is entirely possible that, as a result ofNEHRU’s negotiations with EISENHOWER, areal improvement in Indo-American relationswill take place, and that could negatively impactthe relations of India with the USSR.

Judging by reports in the press, in the nearfuture an increase in American aid to Pakistan,Burma and other “Colombo countries” will beproposed. The Burmese government, with haspreviously refused aid from the USA, has al-ready at the present time entered into negotia-tions about receiving American loans. There isreason to suggest that in the near future therecould take place a certain strengthening in therelations of the USA with the other “Colombocountries.”

Genuineness affirmed:Deputy Chairman, Committee of Information,USSR Foreign Ministry.

Correct: [signed] I. TUGARINOV

“28” December 1956Attachment to No. 1869/2

(Source: TsKhSD.)

III. “A Typical Pragmatist”:The Soviet Embassy Profiles

John F. Kennedy, 1960

In August 1960, Soviet Foreign Minis-ter Andrei Gromyko forwarded to PremierKhrushchev a political profile, prepared bythe USSR Embassy in Washington, of therecently-nominated Democratic presiden-tial candidate, Senator John F. Kennedy.Khrushchev had met JFK once before—briefly, during a visit to the United States theprevious fall, when he was introduced to themembers of the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee. Though “impressed” by theyoung congressman, Khrushchev consid-ered Adlai Stevenson, the unsuccessful

emerges is a surprisingly plausible, bal-anced, and even nuanced appraisal not sodifferent from those advanced by many sub-sequent historians, although not so glowingas to satisfy Kennedy’s most ardent admir-ers or hagiographers. ForeshadowingKhrushchev’s later description of his coun-terpart as “flexible,” the embassy finds JFKa “typical pragmatist,” ready to changepositions according to shifting calculationsof situations and his own interests (as evi-denced by his fence-sitting on McCarthy,and his alliance with conservative Demo-crat Lyndon Johnson despite embracing thetitle “liberal”). It describes a cautious,dispassionate, energetic yet deliberativepolitician who can also be sociable and“‘charming’” when required, a man with“anacute, penetrating mind” able to quicklygrasp the essence of a situation, and tounderstand people well. Yet it judges thatKennedy, “while not a mediocrity,” lacksthe necessary attributes of originality, philo-sophical depth and “breadth of perception”to be considered “an outstanding person.”

As to JFK’s views on international af-fairs, the profile presciently senses the “quitecontradictory” strains that would charac-terize U.S.-Soviet ties during his brief presi-dency. On the positive side, from theembassy’s view, there is Kennedy’s criti-cism of Eisenhower policies he sees as dog-matic and worse, failures, e.g., “liberating”Eastern Europe and shunning communistChina; his support for a nuclear test ban andother arms control measures; and his belief,in contrast to some hardliners, that high-level U.S.-Soviet talks were, in general, worthpursuing. At the same time, though, it cor-rectly notes that Kennedy’s envisioned pathto a superpower “modus vivendi” was con-ditioned upon a significant U.S. militarybuild-up that would allow Washington todeal with Moscow from a “position ofstrength”—and such a course, the embassystates ominously, would “in practice signifya speeding-up of the arms race and, there-fore, a further straining of the internationalsituation” with all its attendant conse-quences. Worse, on Berlin, Khrushchev’stop priority, JFK was “outright bellicose”—ready to risk nuclear war rather than aban-don West Berlin.

Thus, one finds the essential ingredi-ents that would characterize Kennedy’s re-lations with Khrushchev once JFK enteredthe White House—a tough stance on inter-


national questions, especially Berlin, thatwould lead to some of the sharpest crises ofthe Cold War, yet also the desire to reducethe danger of nuclear war and the flexibilityto seek a dramatic improvement in relationsonce circumstances changed, these latterqualities would animate the relaxation insuperpower ties in 1963, epitomized by JFK’sAmerican University speech and the signingof a limited test-ban treaty, that was cutshort by Kennedy’s assassination. Introduc-tion by Jim Hershberg, CWIHP director;document provided by Vladislav M. Zubok,National Security Archive, Washington, DC;translation by Benjamin Aldrich-Moody.

* * * * * * * *

To Comrade N.S. Khrushchev

I send an analysis on Kennedy which isof interest, sent by the USSR Embassyin the USA (by charge d’affairesComrade Smirnovsky)

A. Gromyko

3 August 1960

* * * * * *

JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY

(John Fitzgerald Kennedy) [English inoriginal—ed.]

/Political character sketch/

John F. Kennedy was born on 29 May 1917in Brookline, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts,in a rich family of Irish extraction.

Kennedy received his secondary educationin private schools. After finishing high school in1935 he spent a semester studying in England inthe London School of Economics, then studiedfor some time at Princeton University /USA/,from which he transferred to Harvard University/USA/, which he completed with honors in 1940with a degree in political science. In 1940 Kennedyattended a course of lectures in the trade-and-commerce department of Stanford University.

Not long before the Second World WarKennedy visited a series of countries in LatinAmerica, the Near East, and Europe, includingthe Soviet Union.

In 1941, Kennedy voluntarily entered theNavy, where he served until 1945, commandinga motor torpedo-boat in the Pacific military the-ater. In 1943 he was injured. [He was] Awardeda medal for displaying heroism in saving the livesof the members of his crew.

After demobilization Kennedy got involved

in journalism; he was present in 1945 at the firstconference of the UN in San Francisco and at thePotsdam conference in the capacity of a specialcorrespondent of the agency “International NewsService.”

In November of 1946, Kennedy was electedUnited States Congressman from the Democraticparty in one of the districts of the state of Massa-chusetts; in 1948 and in 1950 he was re-elected toCongress from this same district.

In 1952, Kennedy was elected to the USASenate from Massachusetts, having beaten hisRepublican opponent, Senator Henry Lodge, bya wide margin. In 1958 Kennedy is electedSenator for another term. He is a member of twoimportant committees in the Senate — the Com-mittee on Foreign Affairs, where he chairs theSubcommittee on International Organizations,and the Committee on Labor Affairs and SocialWelfare, in which he chairs the Subcommittee onLabor Affairs, as well as being a member of theJoint Economic Committee in Congress.

At the convention of the Democratic Partyin 1956, Kennedy was a candidate amongst thecontenders for the post of USA vice-president,although he was defeated.

Immediately after this, that is in 1956,Kennedy began actively preparing to declare hiscandidacy for the Presidency of the US in the1960 elections, having composed in past years abranching and well-organized personal politicalmachine. (According to the press, Kennedy atthis time had already expended more than twomillion dollars on his election campaign.)

In the end, despite initial serious doubts inDemocratic Party circles about his candidacy,doubts which stemmed from Kennedy’s belong-ing to the Catholic Church and his relative youth,at the Democratic Party convention which tookplace in Los Angeles from 11 - 15 July, Kennedyprevailed, having amassed on the first ballot 806votes with a minimum of 761 votes, after whichhis candidacy was confirmed unanimously.

Kennedy’s position regarding domesticpolicy in the USA

In his general philosophical views Kennedyis a typical pragmatist. Accordingly, in his politi-cal activity he is not governed by any firm convic-tions, but by purely pragmatic considerations,defining his positions on any given concretecircumstances and, most importantly, on his owninterests.

During the years that he was in Congress,Kennedy’s positions on a given matter, or onanalogical matters was not seldom inconsistentand contradictory, and in especially controversialpolitical situations Kennedy generally preferredto avoid revealing his position; an example is hisbehavior concerning the McCarthyist-profascisttendency in USA political life in the beginning ofthe 1950s. While not attaching himself person-

ally to this tendency, Kennedy simultaneouslyavoided condemning the movement, even whenthe majority of his colleagues in the Senate ex-pressed opposition to McCarthy’s actions in 1954.

All this deprives Kennedy of a clearly ex-pressed political persona, and although in the pastfew years he has acquired the label of a “liberal,”in fact his “liberalism” is rather relative, as isevidenced in particular by his present politicalalliance with the representative of the reactionarysouthern wing of the Democratic party, LyndonJohnson.

In general and in view of the aforemen-tioned facts, Kennedy’s position regarding themost important aspects of domestic life in theUSA can be characterized in the following way.

Like the majority of other Democrats,Kennedy advocates greater governmental inter-vention in the economic life of the country withthe goal of artificially stimulating it by largegovernmental expenditures on both military needsand on all sorts of programs in the social sphere.

He advocates abolishing the present Repub-lican policy of “hard money” with its high interestrates, which, he believes, is leading to a worsen-ing of the economic situation.

Another method of economic stimulation,believes Kennedy, is the expansion of consumerdemand with the aid of a certain income tax cutfor definite categories of people: in particular,persons with low incomes. But at the same timehe openly announced that he will not hesitate toraise taxes if he considers it economically justi-fied and indispensable for attaining serious po-litical goals.

In the area of agriculture, Kennedy before1956 spoke out in support of the current Repub-lican policy of variable process for agriculturalproduce. However, over the past few years,clearly considering the upcoming elections, heswitched to the position of advocates of pricessupports for agricultural produce at a high leveland the reduction of percentage rates on farmcredit. On the whole, Kennedy advocates strictcontrol of agricultural production through thelimits on the size of the harvest and cultivatedland. Kennedy stands for a program of widerdistribution of agricultural surplus within thecountry and abroad.

In the area of work legislation Kennedycame out against the adoption of the famous Taft-Hartley law, not, however, because of its anti-labor character, but because he considered it tooinflexible. Along these lines he now advocatesrevoking this law, proposing to offer the Presi-dent “maximum freedom to choose the means” inthe struggle with strikes instead of the harshsystem of measures established by the Taft-Hartley law.

Kennedy himself is the author of a series ofbills impinging on workers’ rights, in particular,their right to picket, and leading to the establish-ment of governmental control over trade union

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activity.At the same time, Kennedy advocates an

increase of unemployment benefits and federalgovernment aid to regions especially burdenedwith unemployment, as well as a hike in the legalminimum wage and a widening of the groupfalling under the minimum wage law.

In the issue of civil rights Kennedy quitelogically advocates granting Negroes rights equalwith Whites’ in all areas of life, observing, how-ever, “proper procedure,” i.e. to be implementedby administrative power in compliance with therelevant laws.

In keeping with the general Democraticemphasis on implementing different social pro-grams, Kennedy supports federal allocations forthe construction of homes with low rents andslum liquidation; he stands for federal aid toconstruct school buildings and increase salariesfor school teachers and instructors in highereducation; for increasing pension sizes; for medi-cal aid to the elderly along the lines of a socialservice.

Kennedy’s position on USAforeign policy issues

On issues of USA foreign policy and, aboveall, on the aspect of chief importance in foreignpolicy—relations between the USA and theUSSR, Kennedy’s position, like his position ondomestic policy in the USA is quite contradic-tory.

Kennedy views relations between the USAand USSR as relations of constant struggle andrivalry, which, on different levels can, however,in his opinion, take on different concrete forms.

Considering that in the world there is aconflict of “basic national interests” of the USAand USSR and that because of this one cannotexpect fundamental change in their relations,Kennedy nevertheless grants the possibility of amutually acceptable settlement of these relationson the basis of a mutual effort to avoid nuclearwar. For this reason Kennedy, in principle,advocates talks with the Soviet Union, rejectingas “too fatalistic” the opinion that “you can’ttrust” the Soviet Union, that it “doesn’t observetreaties,” etc.

In connection with this Kennedy openlycriticizes the position of the USA governmentand the West as a whole on the question ofdisarmament, pointing out the West’s lack of aconcrete plan in this area. For his part, heproposed to create in the USA a single govern-ment organ which would develop a “viable pro-gram of disarmament” as well as plans for thetransition of the American economy from a mili-tary to a peaceful orientation and different pro-grams of international cooperation in the socio-economic sphere. However, in speaking aboutthe need for the United States to develop arealistic plan for disarmament, Kennedy has in

mind not some far-reaching program of full liqui-dation of armaments and military forces of thetwo states, but instead, again some plan to controlexisting armaments and military forces with justsome reductions.

Kennedy quite logically argues for attainingan agreement on halting nuclear weapons testing,believing that the renewal of these tests couldcompromise the military position of the USA inview of the threat of widening the circle of coun-tries possessing nuclear weapons. In his letter of30 April 1960 Kennedy informed Eisenhowerthat if he, Kennedy, were elected president hewould renew the moratorium on all undergroundnuclear tests, if an agreement about such a mora-torium were to be attained between interestedcountries during Eisenhower’s administration.

During the course of events connected withthe provocative flights of American U-2 airplanesand the ensuing disruption of the summit confer-ence, from Kennedy came the announcement thatin the President’s place he would not have al-lowed such flights on the eve of the summit, andin the situation developing in Paris would haveconsidered it possible to apologize to the USSRfor the flights /but not to punish the guilty parties,since in this situation he himself was guilty/.

While placing blame for the fact of the dis-ruption of the summit with the Soviet Union,nevertheless Kennedy sees the fundamental rea-son for what happened in the fact that the SovietUnion, in his opinion, actually found it moreadvantageous to use the incident with the U-2plane for the maximum political effect, ratherthan going to a summit under conditions when theUSA, as Kennedy admits, came to the summitcompletely unprepared for serious and wide-rang-ing bilateral talks.

However, Kennedy sees the main reason forthe USA’s inability, given present conditions, toconduct such talks with the USSR in the USA’sloss of a “position of strength” over the past 7-8years. Kennedy considers the restoration of this“position of strength” the main task facing theUSA and a necessary precondition for renewinghigh-level talks with the USSR. “Until this task iscompleted,” states Kennedy, “there is no sense inreturning to a summit meeting.” And further:“Above all we must make sure that henceforwardwe conduct talks from a position of strength—ofmilitary strength, economic strength, strength ofideas, and strength of purpose.”

In keeping with this conception, Kennedy,having earlier been a supporter of big defensespending “until the attainment of an agreement ondisarmament,” now in all his public statementsemphasizes the absolute necessity of strengthen-ing the USA military capability, not shying awayfrom a significant increase on defense spending.With the goal of liquidating the present gap inUSA-USSR “nuclear strike capability,” Kennedyproposes implementing a program of “constantvigilance” for USA strategic aircraft, reorganiz-

ing the system of USA bases, inside the countryand abroad, and simultaneously accelerating thedevelopment and expanding production of dif-ferent missiles. At the same time, Kennedyproposes modernizing conventional forces oncehaving made them maximally mobile and able tofight “lesser wars” at any point on the globe.

In this way, while in principle advocating asearch for a modus vivendi in USA-USSR rela-tions in order to avoid worldwide military con-flict, Kennedy at the same time stands for suchpaths to a modus vivendi which in practice sig-nify a speeding-up of the arms race and, there-fore, a further straining of the international situ-ation with all the consequences that result fromthis.

On such issues as the Berlin question,Kennedy’s position is outright bellicose: he openlyannounces that the USA should sooner start anuclear war than leave Berlin, since “beingsqueezed out of Germany, and being squeezedout of Europe, which means being squeezed outof Asia and Africa, and then we’re /the USA/next.” He sees the possibility of involving the UNin some capacity in the Berlin question only as ameans of strengthening the position of the West-ern powers in West Berlin, not as a way ofreplacing them there.

Kennedy considers the policy of the formerRepublican administration of “liberating” thecountries of people’s democracy [i.e. East Euro-pean Soviet Satellites—ed.] as unrealistic andhaving suffered complete failure. However, he isnot inclined to admit on this basis the irreversibil-ity of the changes in those countries. He proposessimply to conduct a more flexible policy in rela-tion to countries of people’s democracy, tryinggradually to weaken their economic and ideo-logical ties with the Soviet Union by grantingthem America “aid,” widened trade, tourism,student and professorial exchanges, by creatingAmerican information centers in those countries,and so on. Kennedy was, in particular, the initia-tor of a Senate amendment to the famous “Battlebill” in order to grant the President wide discre-tion in granting economic “aid” to Europeancountries of people’s democracy. Kennedy re-serves a special place for Poland in the plan todetach countries from the socialist camp, consid-ering it the weakest link in the group.

Kennedy also considers the USA policytoward the People’s Republic of China to be afailure, insofar as it was unable to achieve itsbasic goal—the subversion of the country’s neworder. While admitting the necessity of “re-evaluating” USA policy toward the PRC, Kennedydoesn’t propose, however, that the USA quicklyrecognize the PRC de jure and lift its oppositionto the PRC’s admission to the UN, raising in thisconnection the usual provisos about the PRC’s“aggression” and so on. At this point he onlyadvocates drawing in the PRC to talks about thecessation of nuclear weapons tests, insofar as this

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is dictated by practical necessity, and, followingthis, also about the establishment of cultural andeconomic contracts between the USA and PRC.In regards to this Kennedy does not conceal thefact that he sees such contacts above all as ameans of penetrating the PRC and collectinginformation about its internal condition. Whileadvocating a “reduction in tensions in the regionof Taiwan” and a refusal to “defend” the Chinesecoastal islands of Matsu and Quemoy, Kennedysupports continued USA occupation of Taiwanitself and readiness to “defend” the island.

In keeping with his general stand on strength-ening the position of the USA in the world,Kennedy lends great importance to strengtheningNATO and in general to the issue of USA allies.In connection with this Kennedy holds to theopinion that NATO should be, on one hand, “avital, united, military force,” and on the other, anorgan for overcoming political and economicdifferences between participating nations and forcoordinating their policy towards weakly devel-oped countries.

Kennedy considers the issue of policy to-ward weakly developed countries, along withthat of the renewal of US military strength, to beof the utmost importance in terms of the outcomeof the struggle between the socialist and capitalistworlds. In order to prevent a further increase inthe influence of the USSR and other socialistcountries in the weakly developed countries ofAsia, Africa, and Latin America, Kennedy pro-poses that the USA, in conjunction with its West-ern European allies and Japan, work out broadlong-term programmes of economic aid to thesecountries along the lines of the “Marshall plan.”Kennedy gives India especial attention in plansfor aid to weakly developed countries, consider-ing the economic competition between India andthe PRC to be of decisive importance in thestruggle for Asia. At the same time Kennedy isquite critical of the practice of bringing weaklydeveloped countries into military blocks such asSEATO and CENTO, which, in his opinion,unlike NATO, are “paper alliances,” concludedmoreover “with reactionary governments that donot have the support of their peoples,” and whichfor this reason do not strengthen, but, on thecontrary, weaken the position of the USA in thesecountries and regions.

Kennedy as a person

Kennedy himself and his supporters now aretrying however possible to create the impressionthat he is a strong personality of the caliber ofFranklin D. Roosevelt, a leader of the new gen-eration able to lead the country to “new heights.”

Judging, however, on the strength of theavailable evidence about him, Kennedy, whilenot a mediocrity, is unlikely to possess the quali-ties of an outstanding person.

He has, by all accounts, an acute, penetrat-

ing mind capable of quickly assimilating andanalyzing the essence of a given phenomenon,but at the same time he lacks a certain breadth ofperception, the ability to think over a matterphilosophically and make appropriate generali-zations. By the make-up of his mind he is moreof a good catalyst and consumer of others’ ideasand thoughts, not a creator of independent andoriginal ideas.

In keeping with this Kennedy is very at-tached to the institution of advisors called upon tosuggest interesting ideas and to work up detailedreports on various problems, but makes the finaldecision on serious problems himself, not en-trusting this function to his underlings.

Kennedy understands people well and ingeneral is a good organizer, as is evidenced, inparticular, by the harmonious and efficiently-running apparatus he has put together for hiselection campaign.

Temperamentally, Kennedy is a rather re-strained, dispassionate, and reserved person, al-though he knows how to be sociable and even“charming”—it is this latter quality in particularwhich explains the popularity Kennedy gained inthe primary elections in a series of states through-out the nation.

Kennedy is very cautious and avoids takinghasty, precipitous decisions, but does not displayexcessive indecision. Kennedy is the author ofthree books: Why England Slept /1940/, Profilesin Courage /1956/ and Strategy of Peace - acollection of his speeches /1960/, as well as asignificant number of magazine articles.

During the post-war years Kennedy has re-ceived honorary doctorates from many Americanuniversities and colleges.

He is a member of the organizations: “Ameri-can Legion,” “Veterans of Foreign Wars,” and“Knights of Columbus.”

x x x

Kennedy’s family is among the 75 richest inthe USA. It is worth, by different accounts,between 200 and 400 million dollars. John F.Kennedy’s personal income at present is about100,000 dollars a year. However, in his electoralcampaign he has the broad financial support ofhis father and other members of the family; manyof whom—his brother and sister—are taking partpersonally in the campaign.

Kennedy’s father - Joseph P. Kennedy, now71 years old, first acquired the family fortune byvarious forms of speculation on the stock marketand by commerce in alcoholic beverages. Atpresent he is one of the leading figures in theBoston financial group. In the first years ofFranklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, Joseph P.Kennedy supported his political program; he wasthe first head of a committee on securities and ofthe marine committee. From 1937 to 1940 he wasthe US ambassador to England; however he was

forced to resign because of differences withRoosevelt’s foreign policy: he spoke out againstUSA military aid to England, was a supporter ofChamberlain’s Munich policy and in generalsympathized with Hitler. (This fact is now beingused by John F. Kennedy’s opponents in order tocompromise him in the eyes of the voters.)

John F. Kennedy was married in 1953 toJacqueline Bouvier, the daughter of a rich NewYork banker. He has one daughter, Caroline,born in 1957.

(Source: TsKhSD, F. 5, Op. 30, D. 335, Ll. 92-108.)

* * * * * *

IV. “Spill-Over” from the PragueSpring—A KGB Report

In early November 1968, KGB Chair-man Yuri Andropov presented a secret, 33-page report to the CPSU Central Committeeabout the mood of Soviet college students.The report was transmitted after the Sovietinvasion of Czechoslovakia, but it had beencompleted sometime before then, and hadbeen circulating within the KGB. It is notclear precisely who drafted the report, butAndropov’s cover memorandum and the re-port itself indicate that the author was acollege student in Odessa who had recentlyfinished his degree. Presumably, the authorwas a KGB informant during his studentdays, but that is not entirely clear from thedocument. What is clear is that the authorwas capable of offering trenchant, first-handobservations about the younger generationin the USSR. He frequently expressed disap-proval of the behavior and “worldview” ofSoviet youth, but was remarkably candid inhis analysis and did not hesitate to bring up“negative phenomena” such as students’profound cynicism toward the official ideol-ogy and propaganda, their receptivity toWestern culture and ideas, the resentmentthat most students felt toward the SovietUnion’s “fraternal” allies, the high inci-dence of excessive alcohol consumption andsexual promiscuity, and the entrenched anti-Semitism of Russian and Ukrainian students.

Of particular interest is a section of thereport dealing specifically with the impactof the Prague Spring, the reform movementthat swept the Czechoslovakian communistparty, and society, in early 1968. That sec-tion, as well as Andropov’s cover memoran-dum, is translated here. The full text of thereport is available in Moscow at TsKhSD,

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the repository for the post-1952 archives ofthe former CPSU Central Committee.

The report’s conclusions about the“spill-over” from Czechoslovakia are ex-tremely important because they go againstconventional wisdom. Western observershave generally assumed that Soviet studentswere indifferent to hostile toward the PragueSpring. Although ferment and rebellious-ness were rife in 1968—in France, in theUnited States, and even Poland—the pre-vailing view has been that Soviet studentswere notable mainly for their political apa-thy. But if the author of this report and theKGB’s “other sources” are correct, themood among Soviet students in 1968 wasfar more restive than previously believed.The Czechoslovakian reforms, according tothe report, were of great interest to Sovietstudents in Odessa. The author noted thatonly a small number of the students he hadencountered were opposed to the reforms,whereas a large majority favored the PragueSpring and hoped that similar changes mightcome to the USSR. Whether this was true ofstudents all over the Soviet Union is un-clear, but the author implied that his find-ings did indeed apply to the country as awhole. (It is worth remembering, however,that the report was compiled before theinvasion. If appropriate data were avail-able, it would be interesting to comparestudents’ pre- and post-invasion views.)

Andropov himself clearly attached highcredibility to the author’s findings. He em-phasized that the report “coincides with theviews of our other sources” and “deservesclose attention,” and affirmed that the KGBwould “take account of this information” inits efforts to “prevent politically harmfuldevelopments among our youth.” Thus, theexcerpts from the report presented here canbe safely construed as a reflection of theKGB’s own concerns about the domestic“spill-over” from the Prague Spring. Evenif those concerns were at times overstated—either deliberately or inadvertently—themere fact that they existed helps account forthe KGB’s antipathy toward the PragueSpring. Combined with other trends in theSoviet Union at the time, most notably theincreased activity and visibility of the dissi-dent movement, the prospect of encounter-ing widespread unrest among Soviet col-lege students was enough to convince KGBofficials that the sooner the Czechoslovakreforms ended, the better. Document intro-

duced, translated, and provided by MarkKramer, Center for Foreign Policy Develop-ment, Brown University, and Russian Re-search Center, Harvard University.

* * * * * * * *

THE COMMITTEE FOR STATESECURITY OF THE COUNCILOF MINISTERS OF THE USSR

5 November 1968

SECRET

A document has been received at the Com-mittee for State Security in which a number ofjudgments are set forth about contemporary stu-dents and youth.

The author of the document is a collegestudent who has been in the company of manyyoung poets, artists, and performers, and who hastaken part in the competitions of the “Club for theHappy and Quick-Witted” (GHQ). [The GHQwas a popular television program—M.K.]

Despite the immaturity of the author and hisobvious subjectivism when analyzing certainmatters, the document, in our view, merits closeattention, since many of the propositions in itcoincide with the views of our other sources.

Taking account of this information, the KGBis adopting measures to study negative processesand to prevent politically harmful developmentsamong our youth that might arise from theseprocesses.

Attachment: Document numbering 33 pages.

CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE FORSTATE SECURITY

[signed] Andropov

* * * * * * * *

ATTACHMENT

The concept of a “student” in our countryencompasses an extraordinarily large number ofpeople. However, the present essay is intended todescribe and analyze the behavior of full-timeundergraduate students, who are potentially, byvirtue of a number of factors, the most sociallyunstable and most easily swayed group in thepopulation. These factors include the group’srelative youthfulness, the daily contacts the mem-bers have with others like themselves, the mem-bers’ lack of material obligations (for the mostpart) before their families, and so forth.

STUDENTS AND THE EVENTS INCZECHOSLOVAKIA

Students’ attitudes toward the ongoing situ-ation in Czechoslovakia are of two main types.On the one hand, indignation is expressed towardthe “brothers,” whom we “have been subsidizingfor so many years” and who are now respondingwith vile ingratitude. This group of students,among whom are participants in the Hungarianevents, demand decisive measures and the use ofmilitary force. However, this group is small innumber.

The rest of the students, who generally takepleasure in anything that causes problems for orconflicts with the official line, are watching theongoing situation in Czechoslovakia with be-nevolent curiosity. They have no real sense ofwhat all this can lead to. They are impressed bythe Czech students, who have become a majorsocial force. Some even contemplate (albeit hy-pothetically) the possibility of repeating the Czechexperience in our own country. In a discussionwith the author of this review, a third-year studentsaid: “It’s interesting to think whether such eventscould take place here. I personally would takepart if they did.”

What has attracted especially great interestis the creation of opposition parties. The veryword “opposition” is something students findappealing, and even the most thoughtful of themregard the creation of an opposition party as asolution to the paradox they have encountered:“The struggle for the Soviet regime is against theSoviet regime.” Hence, they are following eventsin Czechoslovakia with great interest. The ex-cesses cited in the Soviet press seem largelyharmless to them, and the official commentariesseem too pointed.

The place where students are afraid of thesituation that has unfolded is China....

The events in Poland, given their brief dura-tion, did not attact special attention. From time totime, rumors circulate about anti-Semitic purgesin Poland. The Russian segment of the studentsand the Ukrainians would welcome such devel-opments.


V. Andropov Analyzes the ABMNegotiations, 1971

The document below provides a fasci-nating glimpse into Soviet intelligence col-lection, analysis, and support of diplomaticnegotiation. It is generally well informed onAmerican negotiating positions and the pref-erences of various agencies in Washingtonwith respect to the issues in the SALT nego-tiations in mid-April 1971. Although sourcesare not directly indicated (with such vaguereferences as “according to information we

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have received”), there are indirect refer-ences including references to “experts closeto U.S. government circles,” and one refer-ence to a conversation of U.S. SALT delega-tion chief Gerard Smith with “a diplomatfrom one of the U.S. allies.” The KGB wasalso privy to the fact that Kissinger wasnegotiating with a Soviet representative (Am-bassador to the United States AnatolyDobrynin) through a “private channel,” andto at least the main lines of the negotiation—about which neither the CIA, nor the U.S.SALT delegation, were informed at that time.

At one point, while noting that unoffi-cial U.S. sources had been used to inform theSoviet side that the administration wantedan agreement in 1971, presumably to pres-sure the Soviet Union to achieve progress,the KGB report notes that “in a private talk”Kissinger had commented that it might bepreferable for Nixon to attain a pact closerto the next election—which, of course, iswhat occurred (the SALT I and ABM treatieswere signed during Nixon’s summit in Mos-cow in May 1972).

In one instance, the KGB analysis madethe same error as some American scholarsin attributing views presented in the U.S.president’s annual foreign policy report toNixon personally, contrasting one such pointto a view expressed by Kissinger in his talkswith Dobrynin—unaware that Kissinger wasthe chief author of the president’s foreignpolicy report.

The KGB analysis is straightforward,without evident commitment or bias withrespect to pending Soviet policy decisions.All in all, it is an impressive document—unlike some other KGB analyses that havebecome available. Commentary by RaymondL. Garthoff, Brookings Institution, Wash-ington, D.C.; translation by Mark H.Doctoroff, Harriman Institute, ColumbiaUniversity; document provided by the Stor-age Center for Contemporary Documenta-tion, Moscow.

* * * * * * * *

USSRTop secret

The Committee for State Security19 April 1971No. 983-A To Comrade USTINOV, D.F.Moscow

The available data bears witness to the factthat the position of the USA on the problem of

limiting the arms race remains the same. Nixon’sgovernment proceeds from the fact that the sug-gestions introduced by the American delegationlast August in Vienna provide the basis for achiev-ing an agreement advantageous to the UnitedStates. It will use all means to strive for theconsolidation of the quantitative balance of stra-tegic weapons between the USA and the USSR atthe present-day level, trying to preserve definiteadvantages in the most important kinds of strate-gic weapons. In the course of the negotiations, atthe end of February 1971, while talking to adiplomat from one of the U.S. allies, the head ofthe American delegation, Smith, announced thatthe USA intended to conduct the negotiationsfirmly, in order to obtain the agreement of theUSSR on limitation of offensive strategic weap-ons. Experts, close to the U.S. government circles,state that the main goal of the USA in the negotia-tions remains the achievement of an agreementon limitation of the number of big Soviet offen-sive inter-continental ballistic missiles.

According to information we have received,as far as the present stage of the negotiations isconcerned, U.S. government bodies devote theirmain attention to studying the possibility of achiev-ing a separate agreement on anti-missile defensesystems. As noted by American experts, theUSSR proposal on limiting the deployment ofABM systems to means necessary for the defenseof Moscow and Washington D.C., introducedduring the previous stage of the negotiations, putNixon in a kind of difficult position. On the onehand, as for its contents, the Soviet proposal isvery similar to the one on ABM introduced by theUS before, together with other questions, andthat’s why it would have been difficult for Nixonto reject it completely. On the other hand, Nixoncouldn’t refuse to deploy the “Safeguard” ABMsystem, since it would have been difficult for himto explain this concession in his country. Sometime ago he managed, with great difficulty, to getagreement on the allocation of the means neededfor its deployment, having persuaded the Con-gress that ABM “Safeguard” could provide ef-fective defense from a possible USSR first strike,and that its creation would save the USA furtherbig new expenditures on a quantatitive increasein offensive strategic weapons.

The harshest objections to the Soviet pro-posal will come from Pentagon officials, whoassert that if it is adopted without the simulta-neous achievement of an agreement on strategicoffensive weapons the Soviet Union will con-tinue its unlimited increase in its fleet of missile-carrying nuclear submarines and big land-basedIBM missiles (“SS-9”) configured with MIRVedwarheads, and as a result it will get an opportunityto make a “preventive strike,” which could elimi-nate the majority of American “Minutemen”ICBMs.

Pentagon representatives also express con-cern that a separate agreement on limiting the

deployment of ABM systems to the defense ofjust the capitals of both states could inspire strongopposition to the MIRV-type warheads deploy-ment program in Congress and U.S. politicalcircles. Air Force representatives insist on con-tinuing the intensive deployment of a broad sys-tem of “Safeguard” ABM.

The ACDA [Arms Control and Disarma-ment Agency] attitude is more flexible. It intro-duced a proposal which provides an opportunityto conclude a separate agreement on ABM sys-tems, under the condition that negotiations on thelimitation of the number of offensive strategicweapons will be carried out at the same time, andthat during the negotiations the USSR and theUSA will undertake the obligation to “freeze” thenumber of their strategic offensive weapons.Kissinger regarded this as the basic variant dur-ing a private channel exchange of opinions onABM with a Soviet representative.

According to information from Americansources, the USA National Security Council(NSC) is studying the proposal of a temporaryagreement on the limitation of ABM systemsdeployment during the period of negotiations onlimiting strategic offensive weapons along with asimultaneous “freeze” of offensive nuclear weap-ons at the present level.

Nixon’s comments about the negotiations inhis message about USA foreign policy indicatethat he, evidently moving away from the moreflexible position which Kissinger expressed tous, is more inclined to accept the Pentagon’spoint of view.

Nevertheless, Nixon is not interested in ag-gravating relations between the USSR and theUSA during the presidential campaign, and thatis why, while holding to a really rigid positionduring the negotiations, including the ABM ques-tion, he at the same time will try to create animpression of constructivism and flexibility inhis approach to Soviet proposals. Tough, uncom-promising declarations in official propaganda, tothe effect that in the negotiations the USA willfirmly insist on its position that a separate agree-ment on ABM without a corresponding agree-ment on limitation of offensive nuclear weaponsis unacceptable, should, in Nixon’s conception,favorably highlight a possible American pro-posal to conclude a separate agreement on ABMlimitation, which would include the preservationand even further development of the “Safeguard”ABM system in the USA, while at the same timelimiting the ABM systems in the USSR to thosenecessary just for the protection of Moscow.

Judging by information in our possession,the NSC, while preparing recommendations forthe American delegation to the negotiations inVienna, again strongly opposed the inclusion ofAmerican means of forward basing on the agenda,motivated in its position by the fact that otherwisethe whole structure of NATO would have to bechanged, and the USA would lose an important

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military advantage, as a result of which thegeneral strategic balance would be changed tothe advantage of the USSR. The NSC pointedout that the means of forward basing could be asubject for discussion during negotiations be-tween NATO and Warsaw Treaty Countries onthe question of balanced limitation of armedforces in Europe.

According to certain information, one ofthe variants studied by the NSC provides for theAmerican side to put forward a proposal tosimultaneously “freeze” the existing number ofSoviet intermediate and medium range missilesand the American means of forward basing if,due to great differences in points of view onmeans of forward basing, the negotiations willcome to a dead end and appear to be under threatof breakdown.

Through unofficial channels the Americansinform us that Nixon’s government, while “sin-cerely wishing” to achieve concrete results dur-ing the negotiations, at the same time “can’t waitendlessly” and is interested in achieving an agree-ment with the USSR by the end of 1971, becausethe beginning of the electoral campaign willmake it difficult for him to bargain with theUSSR. But the intent of these statements, itseems, is to influence the position of the USSRduring the negotiations. According to existinginformation, Kissinger in a private talk said thatfrom a political point of view it may be morebeneficial for Nixon if the agreement with theUSSR were to be achieved closer to the presiden-tial elections. According to a statement by theAmerican representative to the DisarmamentCommittee in Geneva, the USA is ready to con-duct at least three more rounds (the present oneincluded) of negotiations, striving first of all toget the agreement of the USSR on limitation ofstrategic offensive weapons.

At the same time, not being sure that theywill manage to obtain the agreement of the USSRon a complex accord on the limitation of ABMsystems and strategic offensive weapons on termsacceptable to the U.S., the Americans might putforward a proposal for partial agreement. Mostprobably it would be a proposal to limit ABMdeployment to the “Safeguard” system for theUSA and an ABM system around Moscow forthe USSR.

And if American attempts to obtain a sepa-rate, favorable to them, agreement on ABMsystems fail, they would prefer just to concludea treaty on measures for reducing the danger ofan outbreak of nuclear war between the USA andUSSR.

CC CPSU is informed.

Head of the State Security Committee

[signature] ANDROPOV

(Source: TsKhSD, F. 5, Op. 63, D. 193, Ll. 33-

38.)

VI. From Hesitation to Intervention:Soviet Decisions on Afghanistan, 1979

Despite the declassification of numer-ous high-level Soviet documents, the precisereasons behind the USSR’s massive, ill-fatedmilitary intervention in Afghanistan in De-cember 1979 remain murky. If anything, theunveiling over the past few years of recordsof internal Kremlin deliberations and So-viet-Afghan exchanges in the months prior tothe intervention have in some ways intensi-fied the mystery, because they demonstratethat Soviet leaders, including CPSU GeneralSecretary Leonid I. Brezhnev, were keenlyaware that the direct introduction of outsidemilitary forces for use against the Kabulgovernment’s opponents would be a politi-cal catastrophe, incurring bitter resentmentamong the Afghan people and handing apropaganda victory to Soviet opponentsaround the world. Yet, ultimately, the deci-sion to go ahead with the intervention wastaken anyway. (Two English-language ac-counts of the run-up to the invasion thatmake extensive use of the new Soviet docu-mentation are Odd Arne Westad, “Preludeto Invasion: The Soviet Union and the Af-ghan Communists, 1978-1979,” InternationalHistory Review 16 (Feb. 1994), 49-69; andRaymond L. Garthoff, Detente and Confron-tation: American-Soviet Relations fromNixon to Reagan, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.:Brookings Institution, 1994), 977-1075.)

The documents below offer some indica-tion of the apprehension Soviet leaders feltabout sending military forces in the spring of1979, as well as of the secretiveness sur-rounding the actual decision to intervenewhen it was finally made. The first docu-ments concern a visit to Moscow in March1979 by Afghan Prime Minister NurMohammad Taraki, whose communistPeople’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan(PDPA) had come to power in the bloodyApril 1978 coup or revolution (the termdepends on who tells the story) that over-threw the non-aligned Daoud government.Since then, his regime had faced rising inter-nal opposition—from Islamic activists whoresented the imposition of atheistic and mod-ernistic ideas, from fiercely independenttribes who disliked increasing centraliza-tion, and, after the dissolution of a short-lived alliance, from the PDPA’s own

“Parcham” faction, which Taraki’s moremilitant “Khalq” faction had methodicallypurged from the government.

Taraki’s hastily-arranged trip to Mos-cow had been occasioned by the most seri-ous outbreak yet to threaten his rule, aviolent rebellion in the Afghan city of Heratthat broke out in mid-March which saw thedefection of army units and the killing ofSoviet advisers and Khalq officials. CPSUCC Politburo records show that from theoutset of the uprising, Soviet leaders consid-ered, yet rejected, urgent telephone appealsfrom Taraki and his powerful deputy,Hafizullah Amin, to send in Soviet militaryforces to help the evidently shaky Afghanarmy suppress the spreading revolt. Duringa Politburo meeting “About the Exacerba-tion of the Situation in the Democratic Re-public of Afghanistan and Our PossibleMoves” on March 17, when the situation inHerat appeared grave, the discussion seemedto focus on the unacceptability of allowingthe government’s opponents to get the upperhand, as the following comments by ForeignMinister Andrei A. Gromyko and Prime Min-ister Alexei N. Kosygin indicated:

GROMYKO. We have to discuss what wewill do if the situation gets worse. Today, thesituation in Afghanistan for now is unclear tomany of us. Only one thing is clear—we cannotsurrender Afghanistan to the enemy. We have tothink how to achieve this. Maybe we won’t haveto introduce troops.

KOSYGIN. All of us agree—we must notsurrender Afghanistan. From this point, we haveto work out first of all a political document, to useall political means in order to help the Afghanleadership to strengthen itself, to provide thesupport which we’ve already planned, and toleave as a last resort the use of force....

Yet, on March 18, as the Politburo contin-ued to deliberate, a consensus emerged, ledby KGB chairman Andropov, against directSoviet military intervention. Even Gromyko,despite his admonition only a day beforethat Afghanistan must not be surrendered,gave an impassioned, indeed prescient warn-ing against dispatching troops.

ANDROPOV. We know Lenin’s teachingabout a revolutionary situation. Whatever type ofsituation we are talking about in Afghanistan, it isnot that type of situation. Therefore, I believe thatwe can suppress a revolution in Afghanistan onlywith the aid of our bayonets, but that is for usentirely inadmissable. We cannot take such a

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of the CPSU, March 17 [and 18 and 19], 1979],“Ob obostrenii obstanovki v DemokraticheskoiRespublike Afganistan i nashikh vozmozhnykhmerakh” [“On the Aggravation of the Situation inthe Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and OnOur Possible Measures”], translations by MarkH. Doctoroff, CWIHP; see also Garthoff, Detenteand Confrontation, rev. ed., pp. 992-93.)

On March 20, Taraki traveled to Mos-cow to plead in person with Soviet leadersfor renewed economic and military supportto overcome the Afghan government’s do-mestic enemies. The records of the ensuingconversations make clear that the primequestion on the agenda was Kabul’s requestfor external military intervention. Prior toseeing Brezhnev, Taraki met first with PrimeMinister Kosygin, Foreign MinisterGromyko, Defense Minister Dmitri F.Ustinov, and Politburo member Boris N.Ponomarev. Buoyed by reports that troopsloyal to him were regaining control in Herat,Taraki listened as Kosygin explained thePolitburo’s decision—vowing eternal So-viet-Afghan friendship and enhanced Sovietdiplomatic, economic, and military aid, buturging the Afghans to be self-reliant when itcame to actual fighting (using an eerilyironic example). Introductions by JimHershberg, CWIHP director; translationsbelow by Danny Rozas; documents providedby Mark Kramer, Center for Foreign PolicyDevelopment, Brown University, and Rus-sian Research Center, Harvard University.

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Distributed to the membersand candidate members

of the Politburo of CC CPSU

Subject to return(General office, 1st sector)

No. P499

Top SecretSPECIAL FILE

RECORD OF MEETINGx

of A.N.KOSYGIN, A.A.GROMYKO,D.F.USTINOV and B.N.PONOMAREV with

N.M.TARAKI

20 March 1979

A.N. KOSYGIN. The Politburo has entrusted usto discuss with you all questions which youbelieve necessitate an exchange of opinions. As

I have already mentioned to you, your meetingwith L.I.Brezhnev is scheduled for 18-18.30.

At first we proposed that the first wordshould be given to you, but since one importantquestion from your side has already been raised,I would like to first set forth our opinion, and thenwe will attentively hear you out.

First of all, I would like to emphasize that thefriendship between Soviet Union and the Demo-cratic Republic of Afghanistan is not conditional,dictated by some temporary viewpoints, but cal-culated for ages. We have given and will con-tinue to give you assistance in the fight against allenemies which act against you at the present timeand against those enemies with which you mayclash in the future.

We have carefully discussed the situationwhich has developed in your country, we lookedfor ways to assist you which would best serve theinterests of our friendship and your relations withother countries. There may be various ways ofsolving the problems which have developed inyour country, but the best way is that whichwould preserve the authority of your governmentamong the people, not spoil relations betweenAfghanistan and neighboring countries, and notinjure the international prestige of your country.We must not allow the situation to seem as if youwere not able to deal with your own problems andinvited foreign troops to assist you. I would liketo use the example of Vietnam. The Vietnamesepeople withstood a difficult war with the USAand are now fighting against Chinese aggression,but no one can accuse the Vietnamese of usingforeign troops. The Vietnamese are bravelydefending by themselves their homeland againstaggressive encroachments. We believe that thereare enough forces in your country to stand up tocounter-revolutionary raids. They only need tobe genuinely united, and created into new mili-tary formations. During our telephone conversa-tion with you we spoke of the need to beginalready to create new military groups, keeping inmind that a certain amount of time will be neededfor their training and preparation. But even at thegiven time you have at your disposal a sufficientforce in order to deal with the present situation.One only needs to deal with the matter correctly.Let’s take the example of Herat. It seemed that allwould fall apart, that the enemy would quicklyentrench itself there, that the city would becomea center of counter-revolution. But when youreally took charge of the matter, you were able toseize the situation. We have just received wordthat today, at 11 o’clock in the morning, themilitary town in Herat where the mutinous part ofthe 17th infantry division is located, after air-bombardment strikes has been taken by a batallionof [paratroops?] supported by tanks fromKandahar. Troops loyal to the government arestrengthening and evolving success.

Our assignment for the current time periodas we see it is to defend you from various interna-

risk....GROMYKO. I fully support Comrade

Andropov’s proposal to exclude a measure as theintroduction of our troops into Afghanistan. The[Afghan] army there is unreliable. Thus ourarmy if it enters Afghanistan will be an aggres-sor. Against whom will it fight? Against theAfghan people first of all, and it will have toshoot at them. Comrade Andropov correctlynoted that indeed the situation in Afghanistan isnot ripe for a [socialist] revolution. And all thatwe have done in recent years with such effort interms of a détente in international tensions, armsreductions, and much more—all that would bethrown back. Of course, this will be a nice gift forChina. All the nonaligned countries will beagainst us. In a word, serious consequences areto be expected from such an action. There will nolonger be any question of a meeting of LeonidIlych [Brezhnev] with [U.S. President Jimmy]Carter, and the visit of [French President Valery]Giscard d’Estaing at the end of March will beplaced in question. One must ask, and whatwould we gain? Afghanistan with its presentgovernment, with a backward economy, withinconsequential weight in international affairs.On the other side, we must keep in mind that froma legal point of view too we would not be justifiedin sending troops. According to the UN Chartera country can appeal for assistance, and we couldsend troops, in case it is subject to externalaggression. Afghanistan has not been subject toany aggression. This is its internal affair, arevolutionary internal conflict, battle of one groupof the population against another....

KOSYGIN. Maybe we should invite[Taraki] here and tell him, that we will increaseour assistance to you, but we cannot introducetroops, since they would be fighting not againstthe army, which in essence has gone over to theadversary or is just sitting and waiting it out, butagainst the people. There would be huge mi-nuses for us. A whole bouquet of countrieswould quickly come out against us. And thereare no pluses for us at all....

GROMYKO. ...We would be throwingaway everything which we achieved with suchdifficulty, particularly détente, the SALT-II ne-gotiations which would fly by the wayside, therewould be no signing of an agreement (and how-ever you look at it that is for us the greatestpolitical act), there would be no meeting ofLeonid Il’ich with Carter, and it is very doubtfulthat Giscard d’Estang would come to visit us, andour relations with Western countries, particu-larly the FRG, would be spoiled.

And so, despite the difficult situation inAfghanistan, we cannot embark on such an act asthe introduction of troops....

(Source: TsKhSD, F. 89, Per. 25, Dok. 1,“Zasedaniye Politbyuro TsK KPSS 17 marta1979 goda” [“Meeting of the Politburo of the CC

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tional complications. We will give you assis-tance with all available means—ship weapons,ammunition, send people who can be useful toyou in managing military and domestic matters ofthe country, specialists to train your militarypersonnel for use of the most modern types ofweapons and military machinery, which we aresending you. But the deployment of our forces inthe territory of Afghanistan would immediatelyalarm the international community and wouldinvite sharply unfavorable multipronged conse-quences. This, in effect, would be a conflict notonly with the imperialist countries, but also aconflict with one’s own people. Our mutualenemies are just waiting for the moment whensoviet forces appear on Afghan territory. Thiswould give them an excuse to deploy on Afghanterritory military groups hostile to you. I wouldagain like to underline that the question of de-ploying our forces has been examined by us fromevery direction; we carefully studied all aspectsof this action and came to the conclusion that ifour troops were introduced, the situation in yourcountry would not only not improve, but wouldworsen. One cannot deny that our troops wouldhave to fight not only with foreign aggressors, butalso with a certain number of your people. Anda people does not forgive such things. Besides, assoon as our troops cross the border, China and allother aggressors will be vindicated.

With direct Soviet military intervention ruledout, Kosygin and Taraki go on to discussdiplomatic and political steps to bolsterKabul, particularly in regard to neighbor-ing countries. Kosygin notes that Moscowsent notes to Iran and Pakistan to warn them“in all seriousness not to meddle” in Afghanaffairs, and had received a promise to re-spect Afghan sovereignty and only deliverhumanitarian aid to refugees from Pakistanileader Mohammed Zia ul-Haq—a commit-ment Taraki finds hard to credit, since heblames Zia for “creating camps” to armguerrillas against his rule. “We are not sonaive as to believe every word of Zia-ul-Haq,” replies Kosygin, “but whatever thecase may be, the statement has been madeand it is binding.” The implications of arecent Iranian order to expel foreign work-ers are also discussed, with Taraki speculat-ing that exceptions may be made for Ameri-can helicopter specialists and Kosygin not-ing that “it is possible that we may havemore specialists in Iran than do the Ameri-cans.” Taraki expresses concern that amass influx of Afghan workers expelled fromIran might include rebel sympathizers.Though he insists that “the majority of peopleremain on our side” and that “We are doing

everything [possible] to rule the country notby force of arms, but by revolutionary-demo-cratic means,” Taraki then shifts the conver-sation to requests for additional militarysupplies, probing again for the possibility ofSoviet (or other foreign socialist) combat-ants to use them:

N.M. TARAKI. I wanted to touch on thequestion of the needs of the Afghan army. Wewould like to receive armored helicopters, anadditional number of armored transports and mili-tary infantry vehicles, as well as modern means ofcommunication. Also, maintenance personnelwould be of great help to us.

D.F. USTINOV. It seems that we are talkingabout MI-24 helicopters, which have bullet-proofarmor. We will give you 6 such helicopters duringJune-July and 6 more in the fourth quarter of thisyear.

N.M. TARAKI. We have great need forthese helicopters, and it would be good if theyarrived together with pilots.

A.N. KOSYGIN. We can send you mainte-nance specialists, which would take care of thesehelicopters at the airport, but, of course, not battlecrews. We have already spoken about the matter.

D.F. USTINOV. You must prepare yourown pilots. We are training your officers, and wecan expedite their release.

N.M. TARAKI. Perhaps we can get helicop-ter pilots from Hanoi or some other country, forexample, Cuba?

A.N. KOSYGIN. As I have already saidearlier, we have helped and are helping Vietnama great deal, but they never asked us to send themour pilots. They only asked for technical special-ists. We are training 400 Afghan officers. Choosethe people you need, and we will expedite theirtraining.

N.M. TARAKI. We would very much likethe delivery of helicopters to be expedited. Wehave a great need for them.

D.F. USTINOV. But, at the same time, youmust worry about pilots for these helicopters.

N.M. TARAKI. Of course we will do that. Ifwe cannot find them in our country, then we willlook elsewhere. The world is big. If you do notagree with that, then we will search for pilots fromamong the Afghanis studying with you, but weneed trustworthy people, and among the Afghanofficers who we sent to study in the Soviet Unionearlier there are many “Muslim brothers” andChinese sympathizers.

D.F. USTINOV. This year 190 Afghanofficers are finishing their training, among whom16 are airplane pilots and 13 [are] helicopterpilots.

N.M. TARAKI. Good. However, the prob-lem is that we don’t know the people belonging tocounter-revolutionary groups by name. We onlyknow that, during Daoud’s regime, members ofthe “Muslim Brotherhood” and the pro-Chinese

DOCUMENTATION“Shoalee Javid” organizations were sent over tothe Soviet Union. We will try to work this out.Promised an assortment of free militaryassistance—not only helicopters but recon-naissance vehicles, anti-aircraft units, trooptransports, technical advisers, and train-ing—Taraki bargains for increased ship-ments of free wheat, pleading poverty, poorharvests due to land confiscations, and ab-rogations by Turkey and Pakistan of prom-ised deals. Kosygin, bargaining hard, notesthat the Afghans lack the capacity to trans-port deliveries of wheat beyond what theSoviets were offering, and that since Kabulwas “ready to pay for Pakistani wheat, youmust have money.” He suggests giving theavailable funds to Moscow, which couldthen purchase American wheat and transferit to Afghanistan: “Find as much as you can,and with that sum we will buy you wheat.”Taraki then requests that Moscow build forKabul a 1000-kilowatt radio station, “whichwould allow us to broadcast propagandathroughout the world. Our radio station isweak. While any slanderous declaration ofsome religious leader is spread throughoutthe world through foreign organs of masspropaganda, the voice of our radio stationremains almost unheard.” Ponomarevcounters that “We are taking energetic mea-sures to spread propaganda about the suc-cesses of the DRA [Democratic Republic ofAfghanistan],” for instance reprintingTaraki’s speech in Pravda and broadcastingit to Moslem countries, and offers to send a“specialist in propaganda.” Kosygin defersthe radio request for further study. Then thequestion of military advisers crops up again,and Taraki once more seeks an opening tosecure Moscow’s support for using foreignpilots and tank operators, to the obviousirritation of Kosygin, who not only rebuffsthe idea sharply but issues a pointed warn-ing to Taraki to act more judiciously towardhis own advisers:

D.F. USTINOV. Concerning additionalshipments of military machinery, a need willarise for additional military specialists and advis-ers.

N.M. TARAKI. If you believe that such aneed exists, then, of course, we will accept them.But won’t you allow us, after all, to use pilots andtank operators from other socialist countries?

A.N. KOSYGIN. When referring to ourmilitary specialists, we mean mechanics whoservice military machinery. I cannot understandwhy the question of pilots and tank operatorskeeps coming up. This is a completely unex-


A.A.Gromyko, D.F.Ustinov and B.N.Ponomarev.

L.I. BREZHNEV. Over the last few days wehave been watching with alarm the developmentof events in Afghanistan. From what you said inconversation with our comrades, it seems theAfghan friends are gravely alarmed as well.

We must take steps to correct the situationthat has developed and eliminate the threat to thenew order in the DRA. And not only eliminate thethreat, but also work to strengthen the gains of theApril revolution.

As we see it, it is very important to widen thebase which supports the leadership of the partyand the country. First of all, of great importancehere is the unity of your party, mutual trust, andideo[logical]-political solidarity throughout itsranks from top to bottom.

It is worth thinking about creating a singlenational front under the aegis of the People’sdemocratic party of Afghanistan as the recog-nized leader of the people. Such a front couldinclude already existing socio-political organiza-tions and be supported by groups of workers,peasants, petty and middle bourgeoisie, the intel-ligentsia and students, youth, and progressivewomen. Its purpose would be to consolidate anti-imperialist and national patriotic forces againstdomestic and foreign reactionaries. It could alsoserve in the political upbringing of the popula-tion.

In rural areas it would be expedient to orga-nize poverty committees consisting of property-less and petty peasants and metayers [sharecrop-pers] to repel feudalists and capitalist landown-ers.

And, of course, everything must be done sothat the army is staunchly on the side of thepeople’s revolutionary government.

It is important that the commanding ranks inthe army feel assured of the stability of theirpositions. One cannot expect much from an armywhen commanding cadres are frequently replaced.This is even more true if the cadre changes areaccompanied by arrests. Many commanders,seeing their colleagues arrested and disappear-ing, begin to feel unsure of their own future.

All of this does not mean that repressivemeasures should not be taken with regard to thosewho have serious evidence of untrustworthinessto the revolutionary government. But this weaponis very sharp and must be used with the utmostcaution.

As for the events in Herat, the normalizationof the situation in this city would have a positiveinfluence on the situation of the country as awhole and would have a chilling effect on circlesill disposed towards the revolutionary govern-ment.

It seems that the work carried out by thevarious types of enemies of the new order, includ-ing the reactionary clergy, to undermine the neworder is much more active and on a greater scale

pected question for us. And I believe that it isunlikely that socialist countries will agree to this.The question of sending people who would sit inyour tanks and shoot at your people—this is avery pointed political question.

N.M. TARAKI. We will see how we can usethose Afghani soldiers who were sent to studywith you earlier. Perhaps we will ask you toaccept for training those people who we willselect ourselves.

D.F. USTINOV. We will, of course, acceptthem for training.

A.N. KOSYGIN. To sum up this conversa-tion, we can ascertain that there remains thequestion of the construction of a powerful radiostation. There remains also the question of expe-diting the deliveries of military technology. You,as we understand, will select helicopter pilotsfrom the officers training with us. If you have anyother requests or desires, you may inform usthrough the Soviet ambassador and the chiefmilitary adviser. We will carefully review them,and will react accordingly.

We will continue to use political means todefend the DRA from its imperialist aggressors.Our press will also support the DRA.

We think it important that within your coun-try you should work to widen the social support ofyour regime, draw people over to your side,insure that nothing will alienate the people fromthe government. And finally, not as a matter ofdiscussion but as a wish, I would like to expressmy ideas on the importance of a very careful andcautious approach towards your staff. One shouldtake care of one’s staff and have an individualapproach towards it. Have a thorough and goodunderstanding with each person before hangingany labels on them.

The meeting breaks up after Kosygin as-sures an obviously disappointed Taraki thatMoscow would reconsider its stand againstsending troops should Afghanistan be sub-jected to foreign aggression:

A.N. KOSYGIN. If an armed invasion ofyour country takes place, then it will be a com-pletely different situation. But right now we aredoing everything to insure that such an invasiondoes not occur. And I think that we will be ableto achieve this.

N.M. TARAKI. I pose this question be-cause China is persistently pushing the Pakistanisagainst us.

A.N. KOSYGIN. When aggression takesplace, then a completely different situation arises.The Chinese were convinced of this through theexample of Vietnam and are biting their elbowsnow, so to speak. As for Afghanistan, we havealready taken measures to guard it from aggres-sion. I have already said that we have sentcorresponding messages to the president of Paki-stan, [Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah]

Khomeini, and the prime minister of Iran.N.M. TARAKI. Must I tell the members of

our Politburo that the Soviet Union will give theDRA only political support and other aid?

A.N. KOSYGIN. Yes, both political supportand extensive assistance in the line of military andother shipments. This is the decision of ourPolitburo. L.I. Brezhnev will tell you about thisduring the meeting with you, which will start in 10min[utes]. I think that you will return to Afghani-stan confident of our support, confident of yourown actions.

21.III.79.AK-786ss

30 copies21.III.79.___________________x) This record has not been seen by the partici-pants

(Source: TsKhSD, F. 89, Per. 14, Dok. 26.)

Taraki is then ushered into Brezhnev’sKremlin office. The Soviet leader uses theoccasion not only to reaffirm the decisionagainst dispatching troops—a decision, hestresses, that should be kept strictly secret—but to preach to Taraki the importance ofwidening the base of the government’s sup-port among the Afghan people through po-litical and economic means, and of taking amore moderate attitude toward the military,the clergy, and others in order to lessen fearsof persecution. He also expresses mystifica-tion at the “abnormal” situation of openborders between Afghanistan and its neigh-bors given the infiltration of armed rebels.Taraki’s response—essentially defending hispresent approach—could not have satisfiedhis Moscow interlocutors.

Subject to return to CC CPSU(General Office, 1st sector)

No. P486

Distributed to the membersand candidate members

of the Politburo of CC CPSUTop Secret

SPECIAL FILE

RECORD OF CONVERSATIONx

of L.I.Brezhnev with N.M.Taraki

20 March 1979

Also present: comr[ade]s. A.N.Kosygin,

DOCUMENTATION


than the political work of the government repre-sentatives in the area. This point is of exceptionalimportance not only in Herat, but in the rest of thecountry as well.

Appropriate work must be done with theclergy in order to split their ranks; this could wellbe achieved by getting at least apart of the clergy,if not to actually support the government openly,then to at least not speak out against it. This couldbe best of all achieved by showing that the newgovernment is not trying to persecute the leadersand representatives of the clergy, but only thosewho speak out against the revolutionary govern-ment.

And now for the question of the possibilityof deploying soviet military forces in Afghani-stan. We examined this question from everyangle, weighed it carefully, and, I will tell youfrankly: this should not be done. This would onlyplay into the hands of the enemies—yours andours. You already had a more detailed discussionof this question with our comrades.

Obviously, to announce publicly—either forus or for you—that we are not intent on doing thisis, for understandable reasons, not advisable.

We will give you all necessary politicalsupport. Already, we are addressing Pakistan andIran with strong warnings not to interfere in theinternal matters of Afghanistan.

It would be well if soviet economic aid,especially things like the delivery of 100 thou.tons of wheat and the increase in the price ofnatural gas supplied [exported] by Afghanistan,were made known to the Afghan people in thenecessary manner, using the means of mass infor-mation. This is of foremost importance in strength-ening the position of the Afghan government.

The arms and military technology that weare additionally supplying you with will increasethe strength of the Afghan army. However, thiswill only be true if the arms are placed in trust-worthy hands and not in the hands of the enemy.

As you have asked, we have sent you numer-ous advisers and specialists both in military andother matters. You have working for you 500generals and officers. If necessary, we can sendan additional number of party workers, as well as150-200 officers.

One more question: how do you explain thefact that, despite the complications in the situa-tion and the deployment of a thousand armedpeople from Iran and Pakistan, your borders withthese countries were, in effect, open, and it seemseven now are not closed? This is an abnormalsituation, and, in our opinion,it should be fixed.

Finally, I would like to emphasize oncemore that in the current situation the most impor-tant factor will be the ability to draw greatercircles of the population to your side throughpolitical and economic means. It is important toalso re-examine the arsenal of methods utilizedand eliminate those that may cause legitimatealarm in people and give them a desire to protest.

N.M. TARAKI. With regard to creating asingle national front in Afghanistan, I would liketo say that it essentially exists in the shape ofparty, komsomol, trade unions and other masspublic organizations, which function under theleadership of the People’s democratic party ofAfghanistan. However, it cannot yet firmly es-tablish itself in the socio-political life of Afghani-stan because of its economic backwardness andas yet insufficient level of political developmentin a certain part of the population.

However, under the current situation theleadership of the country cannot avoid the use ofextreme measures when dealing with accom-plices of international imperialism andreactionism. The repressive measures takenagainst ranks of representatives of the clergy,Maoists, and other persons partaking in opencombat against the new people’s government arecompletely in accordance with the law and no oneturns to persecution without lawfully establish-ing the guilt of the accused.

The Afghan people do not want war withIran and Pakistan, but if war does break out, thenit will not be to their advantage—the Pashtunsand Baluchis would be on the side of Afghani-stan. I would like to point out that the presentgovernment of Pakistan, and not without the helpof China, is trying to play an important role in theincitement of anti-Afghan elements, includingAfghanis showing up in Pakistan. Our party andgovernment are trying to react calmly to theseaspirations on the part of Pakistan and not worsenthe relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The question of closing our borders withIran and Pakistan is rather difficult. We areunable to do this because of the absence of thenecessary means. Besides, the closing of theAfghan-Pakistan border would create discontentamong Afghani and Pakistani Pashtuns andBaluchis who maintain close family ties, and inthe final result would significantly damage theprestige of the current government in Afghani-stan.

30 copies.21.III.79. [21 March 1979]

x) This record has not been seen by the partici-pants.


Moscow’s dissatisfaction with the Af-ghan leadership and its handling of eventsand concern with its lack of support amongthe Afghan people was evident in a 1 April1979 special report for the Politburo pre-pared after Taraki’s visit by Gromyko,Andropov, Ustinov, and Ponomarev and re-printed in the previous issue of the Cold War

International History Project Bulletin (Issue3, pp. 67-69). That report reaffirmed thecorrectness of the Soviet refusal to sendmilitary forces to repress the “counter-revo-lution.” But despite the repression of theHerat rebellion the anti-government activ-ity persisted and so did Kabul’s desire fordirect Soviet military support. Shortly afterhis return to Kabul, Taraki was replaced asprime minister by his Khalq deputy,Hafizullah Amin. In April, Amin reiteratedthe now familiar appeal to Moscow for So-viet helicopter pilots for use against rebelforces, eliciting the following Politburo re-sponse, together with the instructions sent tothe chief Soviet military adviser in Kabul fortransmission to Amin.

* * * * * *

Proletariat of all countries, unite!

Subject to return in the course of 3 daysto CC CPSU (General office, 1st sector)Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

CENTRAL COMMITTEETOP SECRET

SPECIAL FILE

P150/93

To Comrs. Brezhnev, Kosygin, Andropov,Gromyko, Suslov, Ustinov, Ponomarev,Smirtyukov.

Extract from protocol #150 of the CC CPSUPolitburo sessionfrom 21 April 1979__________________________

On the inexpediency of the participation of sovietmilitary helicopter crews in the suppression ofcounter-revolutionary activities in the DemocraticRepublic of Afghanistan.

1. To agree with the proposal on this questionsubmitted in the memorandum by the Ministry ofDefense on 18 April 1979, #318/3/0430.2. To ratify the draft of instructions to the chiefmilitary adviser in the DRA (attached).

SECRETARY of CC

* * * * * *

[attached] to article 93 protocol # 150

Top SecretSPECIAL FILE

DOCUMENTATION


KABULTO CHIEF MILITARY ADVISERInform the Prime-Minister of the Demo-

cratic Republic of Afghanistan H. Amin that therequest to send 15-20 military helicopters withsoviet crews has been delivered to the Sovietgovernment.

Tell him that the Afghan government hasalready been given explanations on the inexpedi-ency of direct participation of soviet military sub-units in the suppression of counter-revolutionaryactivities in the DRA, as such actions would beused by the enemies of the Afghan revolution andforeign hostile forces in order to falsify sovietinternational aid to Afghanistan and to carry outanti-governmental and anti-soviet propagandaamong the Afghan population.

Emphasize that during March-April of thisyear, the DRA has already been sent 25 militaryhelicopters which are equipped with 5-10 com-plete sets of combat ammunition.

Convince H. Amin that existing combathelicopters with Afghan crews are capable, alongwith subdivisions of land-based forces and com-bat aircraft, of solving the problems of suppress-ing counter-revolutionary actions.

Work out for the Afghan command the nec-essary recommendations pertaining to this ques-tion.


Yet between May and December 1979,the situation continued to deteriorate, andfor reasons that are still not entirely clear,Moscow changed its mind about sendingtroops. Why the turnabout? Several poten-tial explanations exist. One factor was un-doubtedly the grave internal situation inAfghanistan, which Moscow viewed withgrowing concern, receiving reports from aparade of special emissaries sent to urgeKabul to modify and moderate its course.While blaming outside countries (Iran, Pa-kistan, China, the United States) for exacer-bating the situation, Soviet leaders recog-nized deep problems with the Afghan leader-ship itself, and rumors arose that Moscowwas angling to replace the Khalqi Taraki-Amin regime with one headed by BabrakKarmal, head of the Parcham faction. Mu-tinies and rebel attacks continued, and Mos-cow began to increase its security presencein the country, though still short of sendingmilitary forces. In September-October 1979,tensions between Taraki and Amin and theirsupporters exploded into open warfare, end-ing with Amin in control and Taraki dead—a result clearly contrary to the Kremlin’swishes. Surface cooperation between Kabul

and Moscow continued, with Amin even re-questing the disptach of Soviet troops. ButSoviet leaders were privately convinced ofAmin’s “insincerity and duplicity” (the quo-tation is from a report for a Politburo meet-ing of 31 October 1979, cited in Trud (Mos-cow), 23 June 1992, and Garthoff, Detenteand Confrontation, rev. ed., 1011) and hisinability to successfully contain the rebelinsurgency, and may well have begun plot-ting to remove him—although much remainsunclear about this period, as it is for the fewmonths immediately preceding the interven-tion that the fewest internal Soviet docu-ments have so far become available. Still,even the likely defeat of the clearly unpopu-lar government would not alter the reasonswhy Moscow had rejected intervention theprevious spring—so what else had changed?One possibility concerns the continuinggrowth of Islamic fundamentalism in theregion, and most importantly the Iranianrevolution of 1978-79, which had deposedthe Shah after a quarter-century in powerand installed in his place a theocracy domi-nated by the Ayatollah Khomeini. In their 1April 1979 report to the Politburo, Gromyko,Andropov, Ustinov, and Ponomarev hadpointed to the “situation in Iran and thespark of religious fanatacism all around theMuslim East” as the “underlying cause” ofthe anti-Kabul agitation. Moscow may wellhave also feared the spread of religious zealinto the mostly-Moslem Central Asian re-publics of the USSR itself—a latent threatthat would not become evident to the rest ofthe world for another decade to come. Sincethe spring, the fundamentalist tide had onlybecome stronger, with Islamic radicals tak-ing firmer control of the Iranian revolution(and seizing the U.S. Embassy in Tehran inNovember), sparking unrest in Saudi Arabia,and calling for a jihad against other Arabregimes and against both superpowers.These developments related to the largerquestion of the changed international con-text since the spring’s decision against non-intervention. Although Brezhnev and Carterhad met in Vienna in June 1979 to sign aSALT II treaty, US-Soviet ties had beensinking ever since, with acrimony stirred bythe “Cuban brigade” brouhaha later thatsummer—the flap, regarded by Moscow as aprovocation, over the presence of Soviettroops in Cuba that U.S. intelligence hadlost track of—and by the failure of the Senateto ratify, or even vote on the ratification of,

the SALT II treaty. The concerns Gromykohad expressed in March about the negativeinternational repercussions of a Soviet mili-tary intervention in Afghanistan were, infact, no less valid, but he and other Sovietleaders may have come to feel that there wasless to be lost in that sphere anyway—thatdétente was already effectively dead. Fi-nally, still to be resolved is the argumentadvanced by some analysts that U.S. irreso-lution in responding to the Iranian Revolu-tion and the capture of the U.S. Embassy inNovember 1979 emboldened Moscow toadvance toward its purported goal of a warm-water port in the Persian Gulf. If anything,however, the weight of the evidence in thedocuments that have become available sug-gest that Moscow’s considerations were moreinfluenced by fear of losing Afghanistan toIslamic radicalism than by hopes of usingthe country as a military springboard todominate the region.

Still, it must be emphasized that thearchival documents that have become avail-able so far do not permit a clear reconstruc-tion of Soviet decision-making in late 1979.Further evidence, particularly Politburotranscripts, may reside in the Russian Presi-dential Archives. But the closest documentto a “smoking gun” for the intervention thathas emerged is a memorandum dated 12December 1979, apparently in Chernenko’shandwriting. Six days earlier, the Politburohad approved sending a 500-man “Spetznaz”(military intelligence special unit) force toAfghanistan. And now, the Politburo sub-group of Andropov, Ustinov, and Gromyko(Ponomarev was absent), together withChernenko, obtained Brezhnev’s signed con-sent to implement the agreed-upon mea-sures leading to the deployment of 50-75,000Soviet troops in Afghanistan later that month,and (using the “Spetznaz” force mentionedabove) to the killing of Amin and his replace-ment by Babrak Karmal as Afghan leaderand head of the PDPA. That a full CPSU CCPolitburo meeting was not held to approvethe invasion until it had taken place, and thatthe memorandum was hand-written to avoidinforming typists, phrased euphemisticallyto avoid explicit reference to troops, or evento Afghanistan (“A”), reflect the secrecywith which the fateful step ultimately cameabout. More Russian documents on theAfghan events will appear in future issues ofthe CWIHP Bulletin.

DOCUMENTATION


* * * * * *

[Handwritten]

Top Secret[stamp:] SPECIAL FILE

Chaired by comr[ade]. L.I. BrezhnevAlso present: Suslov M.A., Grishin V.V.,Kirilenko A.P., Pel’she A.Ya., Ustinov D.F.,Chernenko K.U., Andropov Yu. V., GromykoA.A., Tikhonov N.A., Ponomarev B.N.

Resolution of the CC CPSU

Concerning the situation in “A”

1. Ratify evaluations and measures set forth byAndropov Yu.V., Ustinov D.F., and GromykoA.A. Authorize them to introduce amendmentsof non-essential character in the course of theexecution of these measures.

Questions requiring the decision of the CC[Central Committee] should be expeditiouslyintroduced to the Politburo.

The execution of all these measures shouldbe entrusted to comr[ade]s. Andropov Yu.V.,Ustinov D.F., and Gromyko A.A.

2. Entrust comrs. Andropov Yu.V., Ustinov D.F.,and Gromyko A.A. to keep the CC Politburoinformed on the status of the execution of theoutlined measures.

Secretary of CC [signature: “L. Brezhnev”]

N[o] 997-[?] (1 c[opy]) P[rotocol]176/126from 12/XII/1979

[signatures running diagonally from left to righton the upper half of the document are as follows:Andropov, Ustinov, Gromyko, Pel’she, Suslov,Grishin, Kirilenko, Chernenko [?], Tikhonov, [il-legible] 12/XII [12 December], [illegible] 26.XII[26 December], and Shcherbitsky 26.XII.79]


* * * * * *

VII. Excerpts from Politburo Minutes,1983-86

The following excerpts from transcriptsof meetings of the CPSU Central CommitteePolitburo between 1983 and 1986 shed lighton perceptions, motives, and decision-mak-ing processes at the highest level of Sovietleadership, and illuminate the crucial transi-tion period from old order to new in theSoviet Union. In the two-and-a-half yearsfollowing Brezhnev’s death in November1982, the energetic but short-lived rule of theformer KGB chairman, Yuri Andropov, gaveway briefly to the feeble apparatchikKonstantin Chernenko, who in turn was suc-ceeded by the man who would turn out to bethe last head of the CPSU and USSR, MikhailGorbachev. This period was also one of thefinal turning points in the Cold War itself, asthe renewed hostility, confrontation, andmilitary build-up that characterized U.S.-Soviet ties in the early 1980s, during the firstterm of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, shiftedto a recharged, albeit at times testy, searchfor negotiated agreements to reverse thenuclear arms race and establish a friendlierbasis for superpower relations.

The first Politburo excerpt below recordsa meeting on 31 May 1983 presided over byAndropov, who had taken over from Brezhnevsix months earlier and was at the height of hisleadership before health problems curtailedhis powers months before his death in Febru-ary 1984. The meeting also came at a time ofheightened acrimony between Moscow andWashington. Reagan, already anathema toSoviet leaders as an inveterate anticommu-nist who had labelled the USSR an “evilempire,” had, just two months earlier, on 23March 1983, laid down a new gauntlet toMoscow by calling for the development of adefensive shield against nuclear attack.

Despite Reagan’s protestations that his Stra-tegic Defense Initiative was only a defensivemeasure, Soviet leaders had instantly de-nounced SDI, known more popularly as “StarWars,” as a diabolical U.S. plot to regainstrategic superiority over the Soviet Union,as the herald of a nuclear arms race inspace, and as an abandonment of the 1972Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This new twistcame against the backdrop of a loomingshowdown between Moscow and the NATOalliance over the impending U.S. deploy-ment in Western Europe, planned for the fallof 1983, of Pershing-2 and ground-launchedcruise medium-range nuclear missiles ca-pable of striking Moscow and the westernSoviet Union. Despte Western argumentsthat the deployment was necessitated bySoviet installation of comparable missiles inthe late 1970s, the NATO plan had arousedprotests in West Germany and other WestEuropean capitals, and Moscow had threat-ened to break off arms negotiations in Genevaover intermediate-range nuclear forces(INF) and strategic nuclear arms (START)in Geneva should the missiles actually besent in (they were, and Moscow did walk out,but only temporarily). Superpower tensionshad also risen in the Middle East over theaftermath of the 1982 war in Lebanon—which had included a brief but violent clashbetween Israel and Syria, backed by op-posed superpower patrons—and over whatWashington saw as the efforts of Syria, aSoviet client, to torpedo the U.S.-brokeredpact between Israel and Lebanon that hadbeen concluded on May 17. Washington andMoscow also clashed via proxies in ThirdWorld conflicts, especially Afghanistan andNicaragua; over human rights issues; con-cerning relations with China, which Mos-cow increasingly saw as a hostile U.S. ally ;and on other issues.

As the Politburo met, the Western allieshad just concluded a summit meeting inWilliamsburg, Virginia, which, despite be-ing ostensibly devoted to economic issues,had also produced a unanimous endorse-ment for the missile deployment (in the ab-sence of a “balanced” INF agreement) fromReagan and the leaders of Britain, France,West Germany, Italy, Canada, and evenJapan, whose leader, Yasahuro Nakasone,had more firmly than ever aligned his coun-try with NATO’s European strategy. TheWilliamsburg declaration came despite anexplicit warning in Pravda on the eve of the

DOCUMENTATION


summit that the deployment would provokethe Soviets to deploy additional missiles oftheir own targeted not only on Europe but onthe United States itself.

The anger of Andropov and his cohortsat this latest development shows clearly inthe transcript, as does their determination toact “very decisively” to develop a politicalcounter-offensive to swing international, andespecially U.S. and West European, publicopinion against Reagan’s “aggressive” and“militaristic” programs. One findsAndropov and the Soviet leaders particu-larly alarmed by Japan’s solidarity withNATO, and searching for ways to weakenthat bond, perhaps through a territorial com-promise. They also show concern about theneed to consolidate the Soviet bloc in East-ern Europe—not only the maverick Roma-nians, but other Warsaw Pact leaders had,in Andropov’s terms, failed to show “strongunity” and were “buried in their nationalproblems,” and should therefore be calledto Moscow for a summit conference to rein-vigorate Socialist bloc unity and strategy.

Despite obvious irritation with Westernactions, the Soviet leaders also display adegree of restraint, or at least caution. Re-garding the situation in the Middle East andCentral America, Andropov remarks thatMoscow should warn the Syrians, as he saidhe had told the Cubans, to avoid instigatinga confrontation, since the USSR would notbe dragged into a war on their behalf. Andthere is discussion of Andropov’s sending apersonal letter to Reagan on nuclear armscontrol issues—presaging the letter he infact sent Reagan on 4 July 1983, initiating ashort-lived yet promising private dialoguethat was aborted less than two months laterfollowing the Soviet downing of a KoreanAir Lines 747 on September 1, triggeringrenewed U.S.-Soviet hostility.

All of the excerpts below were declassi-fied by Russian authorities as possible evi-dence for use in the Constitutional Courttrial of the CPSU in 1992—and perhaps forpotential use in discrediting MikhailGorbachev and other rivals of Boris Yeltsin—and subsequently deposited in Fond 89. Theywere provided to CWIHP by Mark Kramer,Center for Foreign Policy Development,Brown University, and Russian ResearchCenter, Harvard University, and introducedby CWIHP director Jim Hershberg; LenaMilman translated the following transcript:

Absolutely secretthe only copy(rough draft).

SESSION OF POLITBURO OF CC CPSU31 May 1983

Chairman com. ANDROPOV Yu. V.Present com[rade]s. Aliev G. A., Gorbachev M.

S., Grishin V. V., Gromyko A. A., TikhonovN. A., Ustinov D. F., Chernenko K. U.,Demichev P. N., Dolgikh V. I., Kuznetsov V.V., Ponomarev B. N., Solomentsov M. S.,Zimyanin M. V., Kapitonov I. V., Rusakov K.V., Ryzhkov N. I.

In the beginning of the session comradeAndropov expressed words of deep sadness aboutthe death of comrade Arveed Yanovich Pelshe.Comrade Andropov informed that the funeral ofcomrade Pelshe, according to the decision of theCC is going to be held at 11 o’clock on the Redsquare by the Kremlin wall. The members of thefuneral commission will come to the DomSoyuzov at the time of carrying out the body; therest of the members of Politburo, candidates tomembers of Politburo and the secretaries willcome at 11 o’clock straight to the Mausoleum.

[ANDROPOV.] Now I would like to address theissue, which in my opinion deserves the ex-change of opinions and suggestions.

Today I’ve talked with a number of mem-bers of the Politburo about our government’sannouncement of the response connected withthe deployment of American missiles “Pershing-2” and cruise missiles in the countries of WesternEurope; and also concerning the resolutionadopted by the countries of “Big Seven” inWilliamsburg. It’s important that we discuss thismatter, exchange opinions, and express the sug-gestions that should be developed.

If you look at the events that are taking placein the Western countries, you can say that an anti-soviet coalition is being formed out there. Ofcourse, that’s not accidental, and its highly dan-gerous. At the session of the NATO countries,that’s going on in Williamsburg, very aggressivespeeches are given; and the very resolutionadopted by the “Big Seven” is non-constructive,but aggressive.

If you analyze the reaction of the countriesof the West on our declaration, then the reactionhas two sides. From one side, our declaration hadimpressed them very much. There are indica-tions, seen through some of the speeches of someof the western politicians that give hope to normaland productive high level talks about the decreaseof the arms race and disarmament, especially ofthe nuclear weapons. On the other side there areindications of absolute fulfillment of the so-calleddouble decision of NATO, which is the place-ment of nuclear missiles in the countries of West-

ern Europe.Actions of president Reagan, who is a bearer

and creator of all anti-soviet ideas, creator of allthe untrue insinuations regarding our country andthe other countries of the Socialist Community,deserve very critical and harsh reaction from ourside. Meanwhile in the press, Michail Vasilyevich[Zimyanin], those actions don’t find that fullcoverage and deserving answer. This, of course,is not right. Imperialistic countries of the Westwant to put together a bloc against the USSR.They act together and, as you saw, Reagan man-aged, though with some pressure, to convince hispartners in the “Big Seven” to sign the resolutionand express their opinions against the politics ofthe USSR.

Now let’s see what we do. To my disap-pointment we act alone. Some of us speak out,but we all do it separately. We, the countries ofWarsaw Pact and the other socialist countriesthat don’t belong under Warsaw Pact, have todemonstrate strong unity. But the leaders of thesocialist countries are buried in their nationalproblems. These, if you pardon my words, arejust minor unimportant actions.

That’s why I have a suggestion to gatherhere in Moscow first secretaries of socialist par-ties’ CCs and the chairmen of Sovmins for debat-ing the current situation. At that meeting wecould exchange opinions about the talks on thearms race and disarmament, decrease of thenuclear missiles in Europe, about the last deci-sions of the NATO countries, and about the othersubjects, related to our counteraction to thepolicies of the Imperialistic countries, targeted atthe worsening of the global situation.

Of course, there comes up the question ofRomania: what to do with it? It seems to me thatnot to invite Romania is not in our interests,without it we can’t really hold a meeting, though,as it’s known, they voted against the publicationof our declaration.

A question appears: when to hold a meetingand with what to conclude it. It seems to me thatwe can’t put away for a long time this sort ofmeeting, because the Western countries are quiteactive today. For now we aren’t active enough. Ithink that we should assume positions now, be-fore the meeting, to start the counteraction againstthe policies of the imperialist states. It seems tome that on that meeting we should develop,adopt, and then publish a document that wouldexpress our reaction on NATO’s decision. Maybein that document we could once again bring upthe suggestions that were brought up before aboutnon-aggression acts between the countries of theWarsaw Pact and the countries of NATO. It’squite possible that other ideas could be broughtup.

In his recent speech, [Former West GermanChancellor Willy] Brandt, introduced an ideaabout joining the talks on the limitation of nuclearmissiles in Europe and limitation of strategic

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nuclear missiles. Maybe we should all thinkabout that idea and make it an official proposal—join the talks about the nuclear missiles in Eu-rope with the talks about the limitation on all thestrategic nuclear weapons. We also should thinkwhen and where to bring up this proposal. I thinkthat MFA and the Ministry of Defense willdecide on that problem.

We have to open up a wider network to winpublic opinion, to mobilize public opinion of theWestern countries of Europe and America againstthe location of the nuclear weapons in Europeand against a new arms race, that’s being forcedby the American administration. The behaviorof Japan, and especially of the president[Yasuhiro] Nakasone worries me. He com-pletely took the side of the more aggressive partof the Western countries, and he completelysupports Reagan’s actions. Because of that weshould consider some sort of compromise in ourrelations with Japan. For example: we couldthink about joint exploitation of several smallislands, that have no strategic importance. Maybethere will be other suggestions. I, personally,think that Japan could initiate more active coop-eration with the Soviet Union in the economicsphere.

The next point concerns China. I think thatthe Chinese aren’t going to move any further ontheir positions. But all our data shows that theycould increase their trade with USSR. They didoffer us a trade agreement for this year, thatsubstantially increases our goodsexchange[compared to] the previous years oftrading with China. Because of that we mighthave to send comrade [First Deputy Prime Min-ister Ivan V.] Arkhipov to China to conduct aseries of talks and to “feel the ground.” And if wesucceed in improving our economic ties withChina through cultural, sports, and other organi-zations, it could be considered a big step ahead.

Now about the Middle East. To say that theevents in the Middle East don’t bother us wouldbe wrong. The fact is that we have very goodrelations with Syria. But Syria argues against theagreement that was made between Israel andLebanon, Syria has no friendly relations withIraq. Recently Syria has been facing minorproblems with PLO, and in particular with [PLOChairman Yasser] Arafat. In one word—here isa problem we have to think about.

If you look at our propaganda, you cancome to a conclusion that it’s quite calm when itcomes to strategic preparations of NATO. That’strue, we shouldn’t scare people with war. But inour propaganda we should show more brightlyand fully the military actions of the Reaganadministration and the supporting countries ofWestern Europe, which in other words meansdisclosing in full scale the aggressive characterof the enemy. We need that, so we could use factsto mobilize the soviet people for the fulfillmentof social and economic plans for development of

the country. We can’t, comrades, forget in thissituation defense sufficiency of our country. Thesetopics should be constant in our media. Youremember comrade L. Y. Brezhnev at the XXVIsession of CPSU [23 February - 3 March 1981]said, that military threat is coming and because ofthat we should lead a struggle against the influ-ence of military revanchist ideas of the West.That’s what it came to: Reagan calls up the sena-tors if they support the ideas of the Soviet Union,and charges them with treason. Why don’t we usepress to speak against the lazy bums, those whomiss work [progulshikov], bad workers? I ask thecomrades to express their opinions about thequestions brought up and maybe comrades haveother suggestions. Who would like to take thestand?

GROMYKO. I completely approve of thesuggestions that were expressed by Yu. V.Andropov. First of all about the call of themeeting of the leaders of socialist countries, coun-tries of the Warsaw Pact. That kind of meeting, tomy opinion, we should gather. [Romanian leaderNicolae] Ceausescu, I think, we should invite tothe meeting. I would say, it’s beneficial for us.

ANDROPOV. Right now they are askingfor a consultation.

GROMYKO. Particularly they were askingus for that. The meeting of the leaders of thecountries of the Warsaw Pact will show the unityof our Pact and prove our principal positions in thequestions of nuclear weapons and reduction ofarms race. I think that we should adopt at themeeting a document, as rightly mentioned beforeYuri Vladimirovich [Andropov]. This documentshould sound very clearly. Along declarationshouldn’t be made, but it should be sharp andconcrete. This would be our collective action ofthe countries of Warsaw Pact. It is needed.

What to do with the talks? I fully support thesuggestion of Yuri Vladimirovitch about unitingthe talks on nuclear armament in Europe andstrategic armament in whole. As you know,Reagan has got a goal, whatever it takes him, toplace the nuclear missiles “Pershing-2” and thecruise missiles in the European countries. Aquestion comes up, what should we do, whetherwe should continue the talks? As it’s known,Western countries, many of them, are ready fordeployment. That’s why we should bring insomething fresh. And in connection with that thissuggestion about uniting the talks will serve ourinterests.

ANDROPOV. We should invite for thesetalks the English and French, let them participate,they are nuclear countries.

GROMYKO. I think the English and Frenchwill refuse for sure to hold the talks, but we shouldinvite them, that’s right. The main suggestion, Ithink, is the combined talks. That type of asuggestion deals with the restriction of nucleararmament in the whole, which means that in thetalks they will include the tactic missiles, also. In

their time Western countries themselves put aquestion about the talks on all kinds of nuclearweapons.

ANDROPOV. That’s good, let them saythat themselves, how they view that suggestion.

GROMYKO. It will be easier for us to keepin contact with those who speak against all kindsof nuclear weapons. I think, that they can try this,in spite of the fact that they will insist on locationof nuclear weapons in Europe. In a word, this willgive us a break.

ANDROPOV. Anyway, we don’t lose any-thing.

GROMYKO. New ideas are starting toappear in America, though not officially, but it’svery important. Maybe they will agree to union.Anyway, this line [idea] will have to be fulfilledright away.

We will have an extra plan—it is the con-tinuing of the talks on restrictions of use ofstrategic nuclear armament in the world and re-strictions on nuclear armament in Europe. TheUnited States, as it’s known, is talking about thefact that they can only strike in response toaggression. I think, that they without enoughreason wouldn’t dare to use nuclear missiles.Against the first strike are also Canada, England,France, and Western Germany. This we alsohave to use skillfully in our propaganda and in ourpractical interests.

Regarding Japan, I have an idea: why don’twe use our suggestion regarding the islands ofHamabayi [sic-Habamai?—ed.], Kunashir, andother small islands, that really are very littlespots, and draw the border, I mean make anadjustment of the border. It would be then themost prestigious suggestion.

ANDROPOV. When I talked about Japan,I didn’t mean that suggestion. I talked about jointexploitation of several little islands.

GROMYKO. We could do both at the sametime. These same islands are small dots in theocean and they don’t have such a grand strategicimportance.

About China. The People’s Republic ofChina expresses wishes to broaden our economicties. Even in practice it is starting something inthat sphere, for example the increase of goodsexchange.

ANDROPOV. This should be checked out,as I said.

GROMYKO. I think, that the Chinese aren’tgoing to go for anything else. One of the terms fornormalization of our relations is the withdrawalof our troops from Chinese borders. It seems tome that we could think about that. But then theChinese began to push for withdrawal of Viet-namese troops from Cambodia.

ANDROPOV. I suggest we don’t bring upthat question.

GROMYKO. Regarding Mongolia. Maybewe should withdraw part of the army away fromthe border. There is a danger in the Middle East

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that Israel will strike against Syria. If Syria ruinsReagan’s plans, Americans will go bankrupt.

ANDROPOV. I would suggest we turn toSyria to advise it not to pull itself into thisconflict. If the events start happening, we shouldwarn Syrian leaders beforehand to work out acorresponding plan.

GROMYKO. Syria sends tanks to Leba-non. Our task is to advise Syrian leaders towithhold from any participation in the events ofthe war.

ANDROPOV. May be we should write aletter about that to [Syrian leader Hafez] Assad?

USTINOV. All that we do regarding de-fense we should continue doing. All the missiles,that we planned to install, should be installed. Allthe airplanes should be stationed at the spots weagreed upon. Reading the resolution that wasadopted by the “Big Seven,” I should say, it wasvery cunning and strict. But it has its weak pointsand we should figure out how to use them. Buteverything happens in life, so “they” may beinstalling the missiles in England, FRG, and othercountries.

I consider the suggestion of YuriVladimirovich absolutely correct that we shouldcarry out active work, to counteract against theimperialistic actions of our enemies.

Regarding Mongolia I should say, that if wemove the Soviet army, that’s now located thereback to our territory then we will lose a very goodpost. Everything is already equipped there. That’swhy we have nowhere to move on the Sovietborder.

Regarding Cambodia and Vietnam, we al-ready talked about it not once. I figure that weshouldn’t lose positions won in battles, but weshould retain them. The sanctions which werediscussed earlier by Yuri Vladimirovich, shouldbe supported. We will look at it very carefullyand think about our actions. We also have to thinkabout talks in Vienna and Geneva, in regards tonuclear weapons as well as strategic. In fact Iconsider very rightful the suggestion to combineboth of these talks. Maybe, Y.V. Andropov willconsider it rational to speak out with that sugges-tion, and maybe give another suggestion, let’ssay, about decrease of nuclear weapons by 50percent, including French and English nuclearweapons.

TIKHONOV. England and France will neveragree to that.

USTINOV. If they don’t agree, than ourproposal will sound all over the world. Themiddle-range missiles,- Western countrieswouldn’t refuse against their location in Europe.

GROMYKO. But what then to reduce?USTINOV. We can reduce all the rockets.GROMYKO. We proposed that.USTINOV. Yes, we already proposed, but

we should offer again. About Japan I would liketo say that we can look only at very small islands,but the big island Kunashir—we have quite settled

there. For example, from the Japanese sea we canonly access through the strait of La Pérouse, and,I should say, here we would substantially cut ourmaneuvering space.

About the meeting with governments ofsocialist countries. I completely agree with YuriVladimirovich. We should expose the Westerncountries, their offensive speeches and militarytone. Maybe Yu.V. Andropov should say some-thing on that topic, too.

GROMYKO. I will have a speech at thesession. In that speech, it seems to me, I shouldspell out a number of suggestions.

USTINOV. Maybe I should give an inter-view? In one word, we activize the work, gathersocialist parties and agree with them on thissubject.

CHERNENKO. Even if Romania doesn’tsign, we could adopt a resolution without thesignature of Romania.

USTINOV. Japan hadn’t joined the militaryalliance of the Western countries, yet. That’swhy we should act not only upon Japan, but theother countries, also, so that not only we openlyspoke out against militaristic intentions of Reaganadministration, English, Japanese and others, butthe socialist countries did it, too, and the leadersof the socialist countries could have spoken out,too. By the way, in those situation they have keptsilent. We have, comrades, to build, strengthenthe socialist bloc, but very skillfully. To myregret, the relations between Vietnam and Chinaare very strained. I absolutely agree with thedecision of Yuri Vladimirovich about enforcinganti-war propaganda, targeted at the arms race,wrong suggestions of the Western countries andespecially at the American administration. Itlooks like the Americans thought about installinga space command. In a word, I would like to say,that we should more widely speak out about oursuggestions and expose the militaristic intentionsof the Western countries.

ANDROPOV. Of course, we aren’t goingto change Reagan’s behavior, but we will exposehis antisoviet, militaristic intentions very deci-sively.

TIKHONOV. Reagan doesn’t react anymore to our suggestions. Regarding the unitingof the talks, this is one more of our importantsuggestions, and we should bring it in. Missiles,of course, they will place in Western Europe. But[we] should explain it broadly and clearly to ourpeople and all other nations of other countries.The resolution of the Soviet government is a veryimportant document. We now have only to de-velop propaganda, expose the actions of the Westand have a strong influence over people. I thinkthat meeting that Yuri Vladimirovich talked aboutis vitally important to be held. And with that weshould somehow hint to socialist countries thatthey alone and each one of them, let’s say GDR,Czechoslovakia, Hungary give a speech. Let’ssay a speech for Nuclear-free Zone in Europe and

on the other topics. [Bulgarian leader Todor]Zhivkov, for example, can give a speech aboutNuclear-free Zone in the Balkans. Now aboutChina. All the initiatives about the increase ingoods exchange between USSR and China comefrom China. This is very important. That’s whywe should feel the ground about broadening oureconomic relations with China and send to Chinacomrade Arkhipov for the talks.

Regarding removal of the troops from theChinese border, to me it seems like an unrealisticact.

Regarding Syria, as comrades have talkedabout it, everything is correct. If Syria getsinvolved in a conflict, then we can lose every-thing we have in the Middle East. And we haveto keep Syria in our orbit. That’s why we shouldconduct more work with the Syrian government.We have to find such a method in our propaganda,such forms and methods of conducting it so as totell our people the truth about the nuclear war, butnot to scare them, as Yuri Vladimirovich cor-rectly pointed out.

CHERNENKO. It’s absolutely correct, thatYuri Vladimirovich gathered us today, and thesuggestion is right about a meeting with theleaders of all the members of the Warsaw Pact. Ifyou look attentively at our friends—Czechs, GDR,Hungarians, Bulgarians, you get an impression,that the leaders of these countries don’t worryabout the current situation. That’s why the veryfact of calling a meeting will mean a lot. I thinkthat we should call a meeting in a near future, assaid Yuri Vladimirovich.

VOICES. Support the suggestion about thecalling of a meeting.

CHERNENKO. At that meeting we can talkabout China, about the Middle East and aboutother important questions of the internationalsituation. I think that all the questions that YuriVladimirovich stated in his speech were verycorrect. There gathered a “big Seven” of Westernaggressive states, but we are also a “big Seven,”and we should meet, but this would be now ameeting of “big Seven,” fighting against nucleararms and for peace.

About working out the suggestions, thatYuri Vladimirovich talked about, I think, that,including our interests, we should prepare themwell and introduce [them] to [the] CC.

GRISHIN. I completely support what YuriVladimirovich suggested. The situation is dan-gerous. The resolution of the “Big Seven” thatthey will put the missiles in Europe, has anoffensive character. Actually, there is beingformed a bloc based on an anti-soviet platform.Western countries try to outweigh the countriesof the Warsaw Pact with the nuclear weapons.The meeting should be held before the meeting ofNATO.

GROMYKO. It could be held even afterNATO’s meeting. Then we could find out theirpoint of view on several questions.

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GRISHIN. On our meeting we should callsocialist countries to active counteraction to-ward imperialistic countries. About the invita-tion of Romania, I am for it, though there’s noguarantee they will sign the resolution. Theybehave very badly. Not long ago, as it wasknown, Ceausescu hosted [conservative WestGerman politician, Bavarian state premier FranzJosef] Strauss and during the talks he spoke verybadly. I think that we should prepare a good,short, but sharp document, that will be adoptedthere.

I am completely for opening of wide rangeof propaganda in our press and among our oralpropagandists, which was mentioned before byYuri Vladimirovich.

ANDROPOV. In that sphere we so fardon’t do a whole lot.

GRISHIN. I think that with Japan weshould look for the way to soften the relations.With China we could develop economic rela-tions on higher levels. Of course, China won’tgive up on Cambodia, and on that issue we willnever come to an agreement. I think, that weshould keep Syrians from unnecessary actions,so that they don’t get pulled into military con-frontation.

ANDROPOV. At one point, remember Itold the Cubans that we won’t fight for them andwon’t send any troops to Cuba. And it worked allright, the Cubans accepted it. We should tell thesame thing to Syrians. I think such a saying willprevent them from confrontation.

GORBACHEV. You said it right, YuriVladimirovich, that the time now is calling us toincrease actions, taking necessary steps to de-velop a broad program of counter-measuresagainst the aggressive plans of the Western coun-tries. And in the inside plan we have certainserious tasks. We can take some action towardsthe countries of CMEA [Council on MutualEconomic Assistance], countries of Warsaw Pact,and separate socialist countries. I completelysupport the suggestions about holding a meetingand other actions, that were suggested here,including the military line.

The United States is moving to Europe.Here we can’t wait. We have to act.

ALIEV. I support all the suggestions ofYuri Vladimirovich. This complex of actions isvital to be carried out. Our external politics hasan offensive character, but the character of apeace offensive. The imperialists are irritated byour suggestions. All that you said here, YuriVladimirovich, regarding a meeting of the so-cialist countries, improving relations with China,about the Middle East, especially about startinga wide propaganda—all this deserves specialattention and should be adopted.

DEMICHEV. Why don’t we write a letterto Reagan from the name of comrade Andropov?

ANDROPOV. I would modernize a bit thesuggestion of P. N. Demichev and write a letter

to the participants of the meeting of the “BigSeven,” and then, maybe later, to Reagan.

PONOMAREV. In response to the actionsof the “Big Seven” we should work out oursuggestions. Maybe, after the meeting of theleaders of the socialist countries we should holdparty activities, and meetings in the country.

USTINOV. This is all correct, but what if wescare the people?

PONOMAREV. On 20 June, for example,there’s going to be an Assembly of Peace inPrague, we should use it for propaganda of ourpeaceful propositions.

ZIMYANIN. I completely agree with whatYuri Vladimirovich said. I would ask a permis-sion to begin realization of this ideas startingtomorrow. In particular, gather the editors of theleading newspapers, information agencies andtell them about these ideas, especially point thesharp end of our propaganda at Reagan and hisaggressive suggestions.

KUZNETSOV. I think, we should activizealso the work in parliamentary relations, espe-cially about sending our parliamentary delega-tions to France, USA, and the other countries.Obviously, on the session in A.A.Gromyko’sspeech he should mention these questions.

ANDROPOV. Now I would like to tell you,comrades, the most important [item], what I wouldlike to inform you of. I am talking about improve-ment of our work inside the country, and about theincrease of our, leaders’ responsibility of theassigned tasks. It doesn’t only concern me—Andropov, or Gromyko, Ustinov, we all are per-sonally responsible for the departments that welead. Comrade Tikhonov has to keep a tight gripon Food industry. Comrade Gorbachev has to usefewer weather excuses, but organize a fight for thecrops, mobilize people so that they don’t talkabout bad weather, but work more, so they useevery good day, every minute for gathering morecrops, do all we can to increase wheat crops andother grain and meat and dairy. Comrade Alievhas an important task—improvement of the pub-lic transportation system. Comrade Kapitonovhas to increase the common goods production,more should be done in that field. ComradeDemichev should be stricter with the repertoire ofthe theaters, we have too many negative sides, andthe other questions in the development of ourculture demand more attention. You, Petr Nylovich[Demichev] are the one to be asked from in thissector. I wouldn’t talk about the other comrades,they all know their departments and their goals. Ithink that you should gather all your employeesand tell them about the ideas and tasks that wetalked about today. You can gather all of them oryou can gather them in according to groups,whatever is better.

USTINOV. Maybe I should gather withcomrade Smirnov1 all those in defense and we’lltalk about our defense.

TIKHONOV. I will gather all the ministers

and their VPs and talk to them about these sub-jects.

RUSAKOV. We have to, obviously, checkeverything that’s going on in the socialist coun-tries in these areas and then let them know oursuggestions and give them friendly advice.

ANDROPOV. All this, comrades, can bedone and I think that you will take these tasksactively. There is a suggestion to give to com-rades Gromyko and Zimyanin a task to summa-rize all that we talked about on our session, andprepare a suggestion about the counteractionstowards the actions of the imperialistic states,targeted at worsening of the international situa-tion. Don’t be long with the preparation of thosesuggestions and entering them in the CC. Agreed?

EVERYONE. Agreed.ANDROPOV. On this permit me to end our

meeting.


1. [Ed. note: Evidently a reference to Deputy PrimeMinister Leonid Smirnov, head of the Military-Indus-trial Commission (VPK).]

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The intense, neo-Brezhnevite and al-most neo-Stalinist conservatism of the briefChernenko interregnum (Feb. 1984-March1985) pervades this July 1984 Politburoexcerpt. The transcript also illuminates therelationship between fluctuations in CPSUleadership and reassessments of past partyhistory. On this occasion, the Politburo’sconsideration of requests for rehabilitationfrom several one-time rivals of Nikita S.Khrushchev who had been ousted from theparty in intra-leadership struggles in the1950s prompts a vigorous bout ofKhrushchev-bashing. (The three erstwhileparty stalwarts who had petitioned the Polit-buro—Vyacheslav M. Molotov, the long-time USSR foreign minister; Georgii M.Malenkov, for a time considered Stalin’slikely successor; and Lazar M. Kaganovich,one of Stalin’s key henchmen and FirstDeputy Premier after Stalin’s death—wereall expelled from the party leadership in1957 as members of the “Anti-Party Group”that had allegedly plotted to overthrowKhrushchev. Also seeking additional privi-leges was Alexander Shelepin, once KGBchief under Khrushchev but now denounc-ing him.) Sympathetically considering therequests of the “Anti-Party Group” to berestored to honored party positions, onePolitburo member after another—especiallyDefense Minister Ustinov, Foreign MinistryGromyko, KGB chairman Viktor M.

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Chebrikov and Prime Minister Nikolai A.Tikhonov—lament the damage thatKhrushchev had supposedly caused theUSSR, the CPSU, and international commu-nism as a result of his denunciation of Stalin,his reforms to the state and agriculture, andhis rehabilitation of individuals such asAleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. Caught up in theanti-reformist spirit, Politburo members evenlapse into nostalgia for Stalin himself.

An interesting aspect of the discussionis the cautiously equivocal part played byMikhail Gorbachev, already clearly a lead-ing contender to succeed Chernenko; hesuggests soft-pedaling public announcementof Molotov’s rehabilitation, pipes up inagreement to decry Khrushchev’s impact onagricultural matters (then Gorbachev’s spe-cialty), and declares forthrightly, “This pro-posal has positive and negative sides,” whenUstinov proposes restoring the nameStalingrad to Volgograd. Translation byLoren Utkin.

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Top SecretSingle Copy

Working Notes

MEETING OF POLITBURO OF CPSU12 July 1984

Chair: Com. CHERNENKO K.U.Present: Comrades Aliev, G.A., Vorotnikov V.I.,Gorbachev M.S., Gromyko A.A., Romanov G.V.,Tikhonov N.A., Ustinov D.F., Kuznestov V.V.,Chebrikov V.M., Ligachev Y.K., Ryzhkov N.I.

[...]

CHERNENKO: Departing from today’sagenda, I would like to inform you about a fewletters I have received.

As you know, we have made a decisionconcerning one of the letters. This was therequest of V.M. Molotov about his restoration tothe ranks of the CPSU. I received V. M. Molotov,had a talk with him. He heard our decision withgreat happiness and almost started crying.Molotov said the decision was like being bornagain. Molotov is now 93, but he looks heartyenough and speaks firmly. He declared that thePolitburo CC CPSU has preserved and continuedthat work, which the party persistently conducted.The only bad thing is that you work like we usedto, until midnight. Molotov talked about how heis interested in the press, reads periodical jour-nals. He declared: you are doing things right, andfor this you have the people’s support.

USTINOV: That is an important evalua-tion.

CHERNENKO: Molotov said that he doesnot understand people who hold a grudge andremain in the opposition. He declared that herecognized his mistakes and made the necessaryconclusions. After our conversation VictorVasil’evich Grishin in the city committee of theparty presented him with his party card.

TIKHONOV: In general we did the rightthing in restoring him to the party.

CHERNENKO: And right after this the CCCPSU received letters from Malenkov andKaganovich, and also a letter from [former KGBchairman Alexandr] Shelepin, in which he de-clares that he once was against Khrushchev andincludes a list of requests.

Allow me to read Kaganovich’s letter.(Reads the letter).

A letter with analogous contents, with aconfession of his mistakes was sent by Malenkov.

TIKHONOV: Maybe for now we shouldn’tdo anything with these letters?

CHERNENKO: For now we can do noth-ing, but let’s agree to examine them after theXXVII Congress of our party.

USTINOV: But in my opinion, Malenkovand Kaganovich should be reaccepted into theparty. They were active figures, leaders. I willsay frankly, that if not for Khrushchev, then thedecision to expel these people from the partywould not have been taken. And in general thosescandalous disgraces which Khrushchev com-mitted in relation to Stalin would never haveoccurred. Stalin, no matter what is said, is ourhistory. No one enemy brought us so much harmas Khrushchev did in his policy towards the pastof our party and our state, and towards Stalin.

GROMYKO. In my opinion, we need torestore these two to the party. They were part ofthe party leadership and government, and formany years led specific parts of work. I doubt thatthese were unworthy people. For Khrushchev themost important task was to decide questions ofcadres and not to expose mistakes made by cer-tain people.

TIKHONOV: Maybe we should return tothis question at the end of this year or at thebeginning of next year?

CHEBRIKOV: I would like to inform youthat Western radio stations have been transmit-ting news about the restoration of Molotov intothe party for a long time now. And they are sayingthat to this moment the workers of our countryand the party do not know anything about this.Maybe we should include an announcement inthe Informational Bulletin of the CC CPSU aboutthe restoration of Molotov to the party?

Concerning the question about the restora-tion of Malenkov and Kaganovich into the party,I would request a little time in order to prepare asummary of those resolutions which these indi-viduals wrote on the lists of repressed people.

DOCUMENTATIONIndeed, in the case of their restoration to theparty, one can expect a large stream of lettersfrom those who were rehabilitated during the1950s, who, of course, will be against restoringtheir party membership, especially Kaganovich.We need to be ready for this. I think that such asummary should be viewed by the Politburo ofthe CC before making a final decision.

TIKHONOV: Yes, if not for Khrushchev,they would never have been expelled from theparty. He soiled and stained us and our policiesin the eyes of the whole world.

CHEBRIKOV: Besides that, a whole list ofindividuals were illegally rehabilitated. As amatter of fact they were rightly punished. Take,for example, Solzhenitsyn.

GORBACHEV: I think that we could gowithout publicizing the restoration of Molotov inthe party in the Informational Bulletin of the CCCPSU. The department of organizational andparty work could communicate this in an opera-tional manner to the regional and district com-mittees of the party.

Concerning Malenkov and Kaganovich, Iwould also support their restoration in the party.And we wouldn’t need to connect their restora-tion with the upcoming party congress.

ROMANOV: Yes, these people are al-ready elderly and could die.

USTINOV: I will stand by my evalution ofKhrushchev’s activity, as they say, until I die.He did us a lot of damage. Think about what hedid to our history, to Stalin.

GROMYKO: He rendered an irreversableblow to the positive image of the Soviet Union inthe eyes of the outside world.

USTINOV: It’s not a secret that thewesterners never loved us. But Khrushchevgave them such arguments, such material, thatwe have been discredited for many years.

GROMYKO: Basically thanks to him theso-called “Eurocommunism” was born.

TIKHONOV: And what he did to oureconomy! I myself have had to work in aSovnarkhoz [Soviet regional economic organ].

GORBACHEV: And to the party, breakingit into industrial and agricultural party organiza-tions!

USTINOV: We were always againstsovnarkhozy. And many members of the CCPolitburo, as you remember, stated such an opin-ion.

In connection with the fortieth anniversaryof the Victory over fascism [May 1985] I wouldpropose discussing one more question. Shouldn’twe restore the name Stalingrad to Volgograd?Millions of people would support this. But this,as they say, is information for thought.

GORBACHEV: This proposal has positiveand negative sides.

TIKHONOV: Recently a very good docu-mentary film was released called “MarshallZhukov,” in which Stalin is portrayed rather


fully and positively.CHERNENKO: I watched it. This is a

good film.USTINOV: I really should see it.CHERNENKO: Concerning Shelepin’s let-

ter, it, at the end, requests support on the level offormer Poliburo members.

USTINOV: In my opinion, what he re-ceived upon retiring is quite enough. He raisedthis question in vain.

CHERNENKO. I think that in terms ofthese questions we should limit ourselves toexchanging opinions. But as you understand, wewill have to return to them.

TIKHONOV: We wish you, KonstantinUstinovich, a good rest during the recess.

CHERNENKO: Thank you.

* * * * * *Having taken over the leadership of the

CPSU and USSR from Chernenko in March1985, Gorbachev moved only gradually todismantle the legacy of his more conserva-tive and dogmatic predecessors. This ex-cerpt, from August 1985, finds him dealingwith a nettlesome legacy from the past, thecase of Andrei Sakharov, the Nobel laureatedissident scientist who had been exiled tothe city of Gorky in January 1980 followinghis criticism of the Soviet intervention inAfghanistan, and his equally outspoken wife,Yelena Bonner. The particular question atissue here was whether to permit Bonner tovisit the United States to receive medicaltreatment and visit relatives, a decisioncomplicated by concern about the potentialrisk of an embarrassing uproar if her re-quest was denied barely two months beforeGorbachev’s planned summit meeting inGeneva with Reagan. This danger wasmore than hypothetical; not only wasSakharov’s treatment the subject of persis-tent demonstrations abroad, but the physi-cist had in May 1984 and April 1985 al-ready twice conducted hunger strikes todemand that his wife be allowed to travel,prompting the KGB to hospitalize himagainst his will and to force-feed him intra-venously. (In briefing Gorbachev, Chebrikovalludes euphemistically to “various situa-tions [which] have arisen” and“[a]ppropriate measures,” all allegedly le-gal, taken by the KGB in response.)

On 29 July 1985, a month before themeeting, Sakharov had written Gorbachevand Gromyko pleading for a favorable re-sponse to his wife’s request, and promisingin return to “discontinue my public activi-

ties apart from exceptional circumstances,”and acknowledging the state’s right to re-strict his own foreign travel because of hispast atomic weapons work. To underline hismessage, he had also launched anotherhunger strike, and by August 13 his normalweight of 175 pounds had fallen to 138pounds. (See Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs(New York: Knopf, 1990), 599-601.) (Again,Chebrikov avoids explicit mention of a hun-ger strike, referring only to Sakharov’s “poorhealth” and weight loss.)

Of course, Gorbachev would in Decem-ber 1986 permit Sakharov’s return to Mos-cow, restore his rights to travel, speak andengage in political activity (culminating inhis election to the Congress of People’sDeputies), and joust combatively with himover the direction of Soviet society until hisdeath three tumultuous years later. But thistranscript shows how much disdain and scornSakharov and Bonner inspired among theSoviet leadership, and how Gorbachev ap-peared to fall in with this attitude, as evi-denced by his reported crack about the al-leged influence of Bonner, a Jew, overSakharov—”Now there’s real Zionism.”Even with Chebrikov grudgingly acknowl-edging that Bonner should be allowed toleave for three months, and Prime MinisterRyzhkov supporting that action as “a hu-manitarian step,” Gorbachev seems eager toshow his colleagues, most of whom had beenelevated to the Politburo by previous lead-ers, that his decisions are based purely onhard-boiled realpolitik considerations:“What will hurt us more—to allow Bonner togo abroad or to forbid it?” But at the sametime, he moved gingerly to moderate thestate’s stand toward the man he sardonicallyreferred to as the “not unfamiliar Sakharov,”deciding that it would “meet him halfway”by satisfying his request for his wife to travel,but only if they promised to behave them-selves accordingly—i.e., stifle their publiccriticism of Soviet actions. A week later, aKGB officer visited Sakharov (“polite, al-most deferential,” in contrast to previousvisits) to relay Gorbachev’s terms, and thefollowing month later Bonner received per-mission to travel to the United States, a tripshe undertook in December—ending a three-year struggle. (Sakharov, Memoirs, 601-605.) But many more struggles lay ahead.Translation by Loren Utkin.

* * * * * *


Working Notes

MEETING OF POLITBURO OF CPSU29 August 1985

Chair: Com. GORBACHEV. M.S.Present: Comrades Aliev G.A., Vorotnikov V. I.,

Ryzhkov N.I., Chebrikov V.M., ShevardnadzeE.A., Demichev P.N. , Dolgikh V.I., KuznetsovV.V., Solokov S.L., Yeltsin B. N., Zaikov L.N.,Zimyanin M.V., Kapitonov I.V., Nikonov V.P.

I. Concerning the results of the meeting inthe CC CPSU on the question of formulatingState plans of economic and social developmentof the USSR in 1986 and the Twelfeth Five-YearPlan

GORBACHEV: I won’t touch on all theissues that were discussed at the conference insuch detail, because the majority of the comradeswere there. Now it is clear that we acted correctlyby having such a conference. At the April Ple-num of the Central Committee and the Junemeeting of the CC CPSU the party developed aconception of acceleration of the social-economicdevelopment of the country and marked out theprinciple path of its realization. The people fullysupported the party’s course. The tension andvitality of party life has increased, as has all sociallife of the country. In such a case we have theright to calculate that the results of the work toaccelerate economic and social development willbe reflected in the first year of the Five-Year Plan.It was emphasized that the views of some minis-tries and departments in developing the plans fornext year and the Twelveth Five-Year Plan havearoused concern in the Central Committee. Weare asking our comrades to leave theirdepartment’s trenches and approach the develop-ment of plans from an all-union position.

SHEVARDNADZE: One observes a hugecontrast between the mood of society and theactions of the U.S. administration.

GORBACHEV: As a whole the discussionwas heated, but constructive.

Now a few works on another subject. At theend of July 1 received a letter from the notunfamiliar Sakharov. He is requesting that hiswife, Bonner, be allowed to go abroad to undergotreatment and visit with relatives.

CHEBRIKOV: This is an old story. It hasbeen going on for 20 years. During this timevarious situations have arisen. Appropriate mea-sures were employed in relation to Sakharov andBonner. But no actions were permitted whichwould have violated the law. This is very impor-tant and should be emphasized.

Sakharov is now 65 and Bonner is 63. Sa-kharov is in poor health. He’s undergoing onco-logical tests because he has been losing weight.

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Sakharov as a political figure has basicallylost his image of late and has been saying nothingnew. Bonner should probably be allowed to goabroad for three months. According to the law, itis possible to interrupt the exile for a short periodof time (Bonner, as you know, is in exile). Ofcourse in the West, she could make a statementand receive some award, etc. We cannot excludethe possibility that from Italy, where she’s goingto obtain treatment, she could go to the U.S.Allowing Bonner to go abroad would have theappearance of a humanitarian step.

Two variants of her future behavior arepossible. First, she returns to Gorky. Second, sherefuses to come back and begins to raise thequestion of reunification of the family, whichmeans giving Sakharov permission to leave. Inthis case, appeals from Western officials andeven some representatives of the communist partycould follow. But we cannot let Sakharov goabroad. Minsredmash [Ministry of Middle Ma-chine-Building] is against this because Sakharovknows in detail the entire path of development ofour atomic weapons.

According to specialists, Sakharov couldcontinue to work in military research if he wouldbe given a laboratory. Bonner has a stronginfluence on Sakharov’s behavior.

GORBACHEV: Now there’s real Zionism.CHEBRIKOV: Bonner has a 100 percent

influence over him. We believe that without herhis behavior will change. He has two daughtersand a son from his first marriage. They behavewell and can influence their father.

GORBACHEV: Is it possible to do things insuch a way that Sakharov would state in his letterthat he understands that he cannot go abroad? Isit possible to convince him to make such a state-ment?

CHEBRIKOV: We must resolve this ques-tion right now. If we make this decision prior toor even right after your meetings with Mitterrandand Reagan, it will be seen as a concession, whichis undesirable.

GORBACHEV: Yes. We should make adecision.

ZIMYANIN: No doubt that Bonner will beused against us in the West. But the rebuff of herattempts to reunite with her family could behanded over to our scientists, who could make theappropriate statements. Comrade Slavsky is cor-rect — we cannot let Sakharov go abroad. Andyou can’t expect any kind of decency from Bonner.She’s a beast in a skirt, an imperialist plant.

GORBACHEV: What will hurt us more—to allow Bonner to go abroad or to forbid it?

SHEVARDNADZE: Of course there areserious doubts about allowing Bonner to goabroad. But all the same we will win politically.We should make a decision now.

DOLGIKH: Is it possible to influence Sa-kharov?

RYZHKOV: I am for allowing Bonner to

go. It is a humanitarian step. If she stays there, ofcourse, there will be a lot of noise. But we will beable to influence Sakharov. He even escaped tothe hospital in order to feel freer.

SOKOLOV: I think we need to take thisaction, it won’t make things any worse for us.

KUZNETSOV: The case is complicated.Not allowing Bonner to go abroad could be usedin propaganda against us.

ALIEV: It is difficult to give a preciseanswer to this question. Bonner is under controlnow. Anger has pent up inside her over the years.It will pour out of her once she gets to the West.Bourgeois propaganda will have a concrete per-son for conducting various sorts of press confer-ences and other anti-Soviet acts. The situationwill worsen if Sakharov raises the question ofreuniting with his wife. So there is an element ofrisk here. But let’s take the risk.

DEMICHEV: Most of all I am thinkingabout Comrade M.S. Gorbachev’s meetings withMitterrand and Reagan. If we allow Bonner to goabroad before this, then in the West a loud anti-Soviet campaign will be raised. So it would mostlikely be better to do this after the visits.

KAPITONOV: If we let Bonner out, thenthe story will drag out. She will have a case tounify with her family.

GORBACHEV: Maybe we will do this:confirm that we have received the letter, and say,that we have attended to the matter and given theappropriate assignments. We have to let it beknown, say, that we can meet him halfway on hisrequest to allow Bonner to leave, but everythingdepends on how Sakharov will behave himselfand on how Bonner will act abroad. For now it isadvisable to limit ourselves to this.

(Signed) A. Lukianov.

* * * * * *

Gorbachev continued to move gradu-ally toward a relaxation in persecution ofpolitical dissidents. In this September 1986excerpt, he receives a report from KGB chiefChebrikov that he had requested on “whatkinds of people are serving sentences forcrimes, which Western propaganda callspolitical.” Obviously following Gorbachev’slead, Chebrikov proposes to alleviate theprison sentences of two-thirds of the 240persons he lists under this category; but, inresponse to a question from Gromyko, henotes two cases where the guilty parties hadalready received a sentence that could notbe reduced—execution for espionage. Ofthe two cases Chebrikov mentioned, one,transliterated from the Russian asPolishchuk, is not further identified; theother refers to Adolf G. Tolkachev, a Soviet

electronics expert arrested in June 1985,allegedly after being fingered as an Ameri-can spy by ex-CIA officer Edward L. Howard,who had been recruited by the KGB andsuccessfully escaped to the USSR in Septem-ber 1985. (See David Wise, The Spy WhoGot Away (New York: Random House, 1988),19, 68, 159, 196, 207-8, 234-5, 248-9, 261-2.) Translation by Loren Utkin.

* * * * * *


(Working Notes)

MEETING OF POLITBURO OF CPSU25 September 1986

Chair: Com. GORBACHEV. M.S.Present: Comrades Aliev, G.A., Vorotnikov V.I.,Gromyko A.A., Zaikov L.N., Kunaev D.A.,Ligachev Y.K., Chebrikov V.M., ScherbitskyV.V., Dolgikh V.I., Yeltsin B. N., Soloviev Y. F.,Talyzin N.V., Biryukov A. P., Dobrynin A.F.,Zimyanin M.V., Razymovsky G.P., YakovlevA.N., Kapitonov I.V.

[...]GORBACHEV: I asked Victor Mikhail-

ovich [Chebrikov] to tell us what kinds of peopleare serving their sentence for crimes, which west-ern propaganda calls political.

CHEBRIKOV: According to our laws thesecrimes are especially dangerous state crimes. Atotal of 240 people have been brought to bearresponsibility and are serving sentences for com-mitting the aforementioned crimes. These indi-viduals are convicted of espionage, violatingstate borders, circulating hostile leaflets, hardcurrency counterfeiting, etc. Many of these indi-viduals made statements about their refusal tocontinue their hostile activity. They connect theirstatements with the political changes followingthe April Plenum of the CC CPSU and the XXVIIParty Conference [on 25 February-6 March 1986].

It seems that we could, for a start, free one-third from prison and later one-half of theseindividuals. In this case, only those persons whomaintain hostile positions towards our state wouldcontinue to serve their sentences.

GORBACHEV: It seems that one couldsupport such a proposal.

CHEBRIKOV: We will do this rationally.In order to assure that the aforementioned indi-viduals cease their hostile activity, they will bewatched.

SCHERBITSKY: How does one explainthat relatively few individuals have borne crimi-nal responsibilty for committing especially dan-gerous state crimes? Perestroika?

CHEBRIKOV: It can be explained by the

DOCUMENTATION


preventative measures taken by organs of theKGB. Many individuals are noticed, so to speak,as they approach that line beyond which liescriminally punishable activity. The organs of theKGB and society are used in order to influence.them.

GROMYKO: Which crimes are the mostdangerous and what kind of punishment is metedout with them?

CHEBRIKOV: Espionage. Punishment iseither execution or 15 years in prison.

Polishchuk has been shot for espionage.Yesterday Tolkachev’s sentence was imple-mented.

GORBACHEV: American intelligence wasvery generous with him. They found 2 millionrubles on him.

CHEBRIKOV: This agent gave very im-portant military-technical secrets to the enemy.

GORBACHEV: Let’s come to an under-standing that we agree with Comrade Chebrikov’sideas. Let the KGB draw up proposals in theestablished manner.

MEMBERS OF THE POLITBURO: Weagree.

(signed) A. Lukianov.

* * * * * *

The following Politburo excerpt revealsthe undercurrent of bitterness and mutualrecrimination in U.S.-Soviet relations fol-lowing the failure of the high-stakes, high-drama Reagan-Gorbachev summit meetingin Reykjavik, Iceland, on 11-12 October1986. Although the two leaders had comeclose—shockingly close, to many—toachieving a stunning breakthrough towardmassive cuts in strategic nuclear weapons,or even a pact to abolish nuclear weaponsaltogether, the deal fell apart due toReagan’s insistence on preserving the rightto continue the development of his “StarWars,” program, which the Soviets consid-ered a blatant violation of the 1972 ABM)Treaty. The collapse of the agreement oversuch a narrow point, though disappointingand frustrating, was not in itself enough toinspire the anger which animated the Polit-buro discussion below—indeed, in retro-spect it laid the basis for considerableprogress in the years which followed.

But at the time, the failure to come toterms at Hofdi House was accompanied bya series of additional events which furthersoured the atmosphere of superpower rela-tions. The weeks immediately prior to theIceland meeting had seen tit-for-tat stingoperations leading to arrests on espionage

charges in New York City and Moscow of,respectively, Soviet diplomat GennadiZakharov and American journalist NicholasDaniloff; the standoff threatened plans for aplanned Gorbachev visit to the United States,and required intense high-level negotiationsbetween U.S. Secretary of State George Shultzand Soviet Foreign Minister EduardShevardnadze to find a face-saving resolu-tion involving the release from prison andimmediate expulsion of both men, as well asthe release of imprisoned Soviet dissidentYuri Orlov. While this hurdle had beenovercome, allowing the hastily-arrangedReykjavik rendezvous to take place, thesummit’s aftermath had seen a re-escalationof the espionage and propaganda battle: inaddition to 25 Soviets affiliated with theUSSR UN Mission in New York who hadbeen booted from the country on September17, provoking Moscow to expel five U.S.diplomats, in mid-October Washington kickedout more 55 Soviet diplomats.

Such actions angered Gorbachev—andat this meeting, on October 22, he ordered inretaliation the removal of 250 Soviets work-ing in service positions at the U.S. Embassyin Moscow—but so too did he deeply resentwhat he viewed as the ReaganAdministration’s adamant refusal to ac-knowledge the great concessions that theSoviet Union had already made at Reykjavik,or to advance any constructive arms controlproposals of their own. Some of Washington’sconduct could be written off to the ReaganAdministration’s desire to blame everythingon Moscow, especially with mid-term Con-gressional elections only weeks off. But thatwas no reason for the Kremlin to excuse it,and in this private forum Gorbachev ventedhis ire about “our ‘friends’ in the USA” andexpressed his determination to take aggres-sive counter-measures in blunter languagethan he would in a televised speech to theSoviet people that same night—when he spokenot of the “lies” of the Americans but their“distortions” of what had taken place atReykavik. The emotional atmosphere of thePolitburo session only reminds us of howremarkable would be the transformation inthe U.S-Soviet relationship in the remainingtwo years of Reagan’s second term (as bothhe and Gorbachev looked to foreign achieve-ments to muffle domestic criticism), not onlyin substance but in atmosphere and personaltrust. Translation by Loren Utkin.

* * * * * *Sc

Top SecretWorking Notes

Single Copy

MEETING OF POLITBURO OF CPSU22 October 1986

Chair: Com. GORBACHEV. M.S.Present: Comrades Aliev, G.A., Gromyko A.A.,Zaikov L.N., Ligachev Y.K., Ryzhkov N.I.,Solomentsev M.S., Cherbikov V.M.,Shevardnadze E.A., Dolgikh V.I., Yeltsin B. N.,Talyzin N.V., Biryukov A. P., Dobrynin A.F.,Zimyanin M.V., Medvedev V.A., PazymovskyG.P., Yakovlev A.N., Kapitonov I.V.

I. Concerning the deportation of Soviet colleaguesfrom the United States.

GORBACHEV: We need to exchange opin-ions concerning measures in connection with thenew hostile action by the USA administration.The development of events after Reykjavik showsthat our “friends” in the USA don’t have anyconstructive program and are doing everything toinflame the atmosphere. In addition to this theyare acting very rudely and are behaving likebandits.

SOLOMENTSEV: Yes, they are acting likebandits from the big road [from Russian folk-lore].

GORBACHEV: It’s impossible to expectany constructive actions or suggestions from theU.S. administration. In this extremely complexsituation we need to win some propaganda points,to continue to carry out offensive explanatorywork oriented towards American and all interna-tional society. Washington politicians are afraidof this. For three days materials featuring myspeech at the Reykjavik press conference andappearances on Soviet television have been de-layed at customs.

YAKOVLEV: Comrade Bugaev called meand said that this material is still held up atAmerican customs.

GORBACHEV: We need to continue to putpressure on the American administration, ex-plaining our positions to the population and show-ing that the American side is responsible for thebreakdown in the agreement over the questions ofreduction and liquidation of nuclear weapons.

Lately, Reagan and his staff haven’t foundanything better to do than commit another hostileact — deport 55 Soviet diplomats. Five of ourofficials have been declared persona non-grata,as they explain in Washington, in response to ourdeportation of 5 American diplomats, and 50 arebeing removed under the guise of establishingequal numbers of American and Soviet diplo-matic representatives.

We cannot let this hostile action go unan-swered. We should not exclude the most decisive

DOCUMENTATION


measures. Americans are making threats andclaiming that if we take retaliatory measures,then they will take further steps towards ourdiplomatic personnel in the United States. Well,I think that given the limited character of Soviet-American relations, our embassy in the USA willbe able to handle its assignments.

It is essential to come up with serious pro-posals. What specifically should we do? Weshould remove our people who work as servicepersonnel in the American Embassy. Further-more, the number of American representativesvisiting the USA Embassy Moscow on businessshould be limited. Annually about 500 Americancitizens come here via this channel. Finally, thenumber of guests visiting the American ambassa-dor in Moscow, which reaches up to 200 personsannually, should be determined on the basis ofequality. Our people rarely take business trips orvisit our ambassador. It is essential that such tripstake place on an equal basis in the future.

In general, this confirmed what I said to thePresident of the United States in Reykjavik, thatthe normalization of Soviet-American relationsis the business of future generations.

SHEVARDNADZE: Our personnel in theembassy in the United States numbers 43, whilethe consulate in San Francisco has 25 workers.There are 229 people in the USA Embassy inMoscow and 25 in the Leningrad Consulate.Besides that, the Americans have over 250 of ourcitizens working in service positions. We canhave them removed. This will surely hinder theactivity of the American representatives. In termsof business travel, about 500 people make busi-ness trips to the American Embassy annually.We, in contrast, hardly ever make use of thesetypes of trips to the USA. Therefore, a principleof reciprocity should be imposed. The Ameri-cans will lose more than we will. We also do notmake use of private invitations from the Ambas-sador. Up to 180 people visit the AmericanAmbassador every year.

DOBRYNIN: And the Ambassador doesn’teven know many of these “guests” personally.

SHEVARDNADZE: There are 14 peoplefrom Finland working in the American Embassyin Moscow as service personnel. We have todemand their departure as well as the 8 Americandiplomats suspected of some illegal activity. Wealso have to take adequate measures against theAmerican military attache. The result is that wewill end up with an equal number of employees—251 in the embassies and 25 in the consulates.

The fact that the quota for our officials was320 people reveals the provocative character ofactions of the American administration. We havenever filled our quota.

GORBACHEV: All this should be writtendown with appropriate arguments and preparedin a powerful political document.

SHEVARDNADZE: The USA administra-tion needed a new aggressive action prior to the

elections. It should be emphasized in our docu-ment that if the Americans will take retaliatorymeasures in response to our actions, we will dothe same.

GORBACHEV: Do my comrades have anydoubts about these proposals?

MEMBERS OF THE POLITBURO: No.DOBRYNIN: It would be advisable to

apply these measures to the consulates in Kievand New York.

GROMYKO: Perhaps their opening shouldnot be rushed in this situation. There is no reasonto do it now.

GORBACHEV: This question should bedefinitively decided. In terms of our overallstance, we have to act calmly but decisively. Thisis important not only from the point of view ofSoviet-American Relations, but international re-lations as well. If they are talking with the SovietUnion in such a manner, one can imagine howthey will act with other countries.

I had a conversation with Nikolai Ivanovich[Ryzhkov]. We should refrain from purchasingcorn from the Americans for now.

GROMYKO: Perhaps we shouldn’t an-nounce this outright, but realize it de facto.

SOLOMENTSEV: The statistics ComradeShevardnadze was talking about should be in-cluded in our document.

DOBRYNIN: The American actions to-ward our military attache are unprecedented.

GORBACHEV: We should deport allAmerican military personnel.

CHEBRIKOV: We have another possiblecourse of action which can be employed if neces-sary. As I already reported to the Politburo, wediscovered many eavesdropping devices in ouroffices in the USA. This fact should be madepublic in order to expose American espionage,and a press conference should be called with ademonstration of American espionage’s eaves-dropping devices.

GROMYKO: How many eavesdroppingdevices were found in their offices?

CHEBRIKOV: One. The numbers are inour favor—1 to 150.

GORBACHEV: This should be empha-sized.

SHEVARDNADZE: When should our an-nouncement be promulgated?

GORBACHEV: As soon as it is ready.After we look it over, it should be transmittedover the radio and television and published in thepress.

MEMBERS OF THE POLITBURO: Weagree.

GORBACHEV: I was intending to have apress conference and show where the Americansare leading things after Reykjavik. To exposetheir lies and underhanded actions. But, now is aninappropriate time. It would probably be better toappear on television and communicate these factsto our people, rather than at a press conference.

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CWIHP CONFERENCEcontinued from page 49

Comrades!’: Letters from East German Old Com-munists on the Field Case”; Arnd Bauerkamper(FSP), “Pressure from Above—Mobilization fromBelow. Land Reform in the Soviet OccupationZone”; Patrick Major (Univ. of Warwick), “Com-munism on the Rhine”?: the Expansion and Con-tainment of German Communism beyond theSBZ/DDR, 1945-1956"

Reports on the conference in Germanpublications include:Neue Ruhr Zeitung, 29June 1994; Die Welt, 2 July 1994; WolframKaiser, “Die Sowjetische Deutschlandpolitikim Kalten Krieg—Neue Ergebnisse derinternationalen Forschung,” DA 9 (Sept.1994), 983-5; and Jürgen Reuter, “Archiveundjungere Forschungen zur Frühgeschichtevon SBZ und DDR,” ZfG 10 (1994), 929-32.

Recent CWIHP working papers havefeatured Norman Naimark’s report on thecreation of the Stasi #10) and ChristianOstermann’s analysis of U.S.-East Germaninteractions following the June 1953 GDRuprising (#11). More findings from the EastGerman archives will appear in futureCWIHP Bulletins and Working Papers.

RYZHKOV: Correct.GORBACHEV: No new suggestions will

appear in the speech. Therefore it is unnecessaryto circulate the text of the speech. In the frame ofthe position which was formulated it should beshown that the USA administration bears fullresponsibility for the failure of the agreement atReykjavik and engages in underhanded activityin order to misrepresent facts and mislead soci-ety. It could be said that the development ofevents after Reykjavik shows the inability ofReagan to handle his gang.

GROMYKO: This could be said, but in aform which does not fence off Reagan himself.

GORBACHEV: Yes. Reagan appears as aliar. The appropriate formulation should be found.

Do you comrades have any other sugges-tions?

MEMBERS OF THE POLITBURO: No.The resolution is accepted.

2. Concerning activities in connection with thedeath of S[amora]. Machel, President of thePeople’s Republic of Mozambique.

GORBACHEV: We need to make a deci-sion about measures in connection with the deathof Machel. Comrade Aliev will fly to Mozambiquetomorrow. The last report of our pilot was: “Wehave been shot down.”

ALIEV: He [the pilot] is now in the SouthAfrican Republic.

GROMYKO: All measures should be takento visit him and set him free through the RedCross.


the Soviet invasions of those countries in 1956and 1968, respectively), Poland (about Sovietpolicy on the 1980-81 crisis), and South Korea(about Moscow’s role in the Korean War and thedowning of Korean Airlines flight 007).3

These actions have undoubtedly contributedto the historical record, but have also drawn alle-gations of politicization and favoritism. Thedispute was long mostly limited to scholarly circles,but burst into public view in July 1994 when anIzvestia article criticized APRF practices.4 Cit-ing the examples of new journals which hadpublished APRF materials without appropriatecitations, journalist Ella Maksimova complainedthat despite promised reforms, “the PresidentialArchive (the former Politburo Archive) worksaccording to the same super-secret regime, inac-cessible to the mass of researchers [and] even [its]very existence...is not advertised.”

Maksimova wrote that in 1992 Roskomarkhiv(now Rosarkhiv) chairman R. G. Pikhoia, head ofthe Presidential Administration S.A. Filatov,Volkogonov, and APRF director A.V. Korotkovappealed to Yeltsin to transfer to state archives12,000 of the rumored 100-150,000 files in theAPRF, “thus removing grounds for political specu-lation connected with the preservation of histori-cal materials in archives which are closed toresearchers.” Yeltsin reportedly responded:

“I agree. Please carry out the necessarywork.” If the President had limited himself tothis resolution, it would have been possible tohope that everything, little by little, wouldgradually be returned to society. However,on the list of fondy alongside No. 1 (PartyCongresses, 1947-1986) and No. 2 (Plenumsof the CC VPK (b) and the CC CPSU 1941-1990) a decisive “No” was printed in thatsame presidential hand.

Rather than blaming Yeltsin, Maksimovasurmised that someone had stood at his “elbowwhispering that ‘it’s dangerous, it’s not worth it.’”Maksimova said access to the APRF currentlydepended on users’ “presence in the President’scircle, their political weight and connections,”and noted that the APRF had been excluded froma presidential order mandating that most stateministries, after periods of “temporary storage,”transfer their files to permanent state archives,which are, the article said, “generally accessibleand open to the public.” She concluded:

There are in the world some confidentialarchives for use by a narrow circle, but theyare private. A confidential state archiveviolates a basic principle of democracy—free access to information. It is a dangerousprecedent, especially in the current situation,when, alas, not all of society is eager to digitself out of the prison of lies of its 70-yearhistory.

The Presidential Archive remains an oa-sis of the socialist system of informationprivileges. The Party Archive, although out-

RUSSIAN ARC

lawed, fell outside all currently valid laws.The collection of original documentation ofthe country’s ruling state-political organ,which was the focus of the main organizingideas, drafts, and decisions which deter-mined over seventy years the life of thepeople and the world, has been desiccatedand held in isolation from scholarship.

It’s regrettable that this has all been donein the name of the President, in his domain,and with his help. One wants to believe thathe’s done it unintentionally, and was ill-informed.

The article provoked an uproar, to judgefrom subsequent comments by Russian scholarsand archivists. Scholars named in the article asreceiving privileged access denied any impropri-ety.5 The issues raised in the article were, for themost part, not new, since scholars, journalists,archivists, and others had clamored for quickerand fuller access to the APRF almost from themoment the collection’s existence became known.Still, the ensuing controversy helped prompt areconsideration of the APRF’s status that re-sulted, in September, in a presidential decreerequiring the transfer of APRF materials to statearchives in 1994-95 and established a new com-mission to declassify CPSU documents (see be-low). Both archivists and researchers greeted themove as potentially a significant step forward.

While the flap over the Presidential Archivegathered the most press in Moscow, among Rus-sian archives of interest to Cold War historiansperhaps the most systematic effort to expandaccess has been made by Archive of ForeignPolicy of the Russian Federation (AVP RF).Thanks in large measure to a declassificationprogram initiated in cooperation with an interna-tional advisory group organized by the Norwe-gian Nobel Institute in Oslo,6 declassification ofForeign Ministry (MID) holdings for the years1917-27 and 1945-55 should have concluded bySeptember 1994. Much of this work has beendone on schedule and, as reported previously,MID has also opened a new reading room. How-ever, a logjam emerged over the question ofdeclassifying the large number of decipheredtelegrams; concerns were apparently expressedby Russian security officials, while foreign schol-ars contend that data pertaining to codes fromthose periods would be obsolete and non-sensi-tive, or at any rate could be easily excised.7

Some progress may have been made on thisquestion and another sticking point, the availabil-ity of finding aids (opisi) in the AVP RF readingroom, at an international advisory group meetingwith MID officials Igor V. Lebedev and Igor V.Bukharkin in Cortona, Italy, on 22 September1994. According to reports from participants,technical, not security, concerns are now themain obstacle to releasing deciphered telegramsfrom before and after the 1940s, and a mechanismwas agreed upon to begin to makeopisi available

RUSSIAN ARCHIVES REVIEW

by Jim Hershberg

Scholars conducting research in Russianarchives dealing with the Cold War over the pastyear (since late 1993) continued to report amixture of positive and negative experiences,with signs of progress mingled with many persis-tent frustrations. While individual accountsranged from exhiliration to exasperation, andoften encompassed both emotions, reports fromCold War historians visiting Moscow archives inthe summer and autumn of 1994 sounded slightlymore upbeat, notwithstanding continuing woesover photocopying, fees, access to documentsand finding aids, and declassification delays.Although grave financial troubles stemming frominflation and reduced state budgets continue toplague all archives, their dealings with research-ers may be growing more connected to laws andregulations rather than to shifts in personalitiesor political trends. In particular, time seems tohave thawed the chill that descended in early1993 after a controversy erupted over the discov-ery of a document in the former CPSU CCarchives suggesting that North Vietnam heldhundreds more U.S. POWs in 1972 than it thenacknowledged.1 In conversations with the authorduring a trip to Moscow in September 1994,neither Russian archivists nor scholars men-tioned the controversy—which led to a tempo-rary clampdown on research in the former CPSUCC archives—for the first time in over a year ofrepeated visits.

Major complaints persist, however, overaccess to documents in the so-called Presidentialor Kremlin Archive, the collection of sensitivematerials known officially as the Archive of thePresident of the Russian Federation (APRF).This archive passed from Mikhail Gorbachev’spersonal control to Boris Yeltsin’s after theUSSR’s collapse in 1991. Since then, Russianarchival officials have repeatedly vowed to trans-fer APRF historical materials to more accessiblerepositories under the authority of the RussianState Archival Service (Rosarkhiv), such as theCenter for the Storage of Contemporary Docu-mentation (TsKhSD), which holds post-1952CPSU CC records, but, as only very limitedtransfers have taken place,the process has beentoo slow to satisfy archivists and researchers.

Instead, documents have emerged sporadi-cally from the APRF via ad hoc arrangementswith particular journals or scholars, and in state-to-state gestures to enhance Russian foreignpolicy. Recent examples of these practices in-cluded the new Lenin biography by DmitriVolkogonov, head of a presidential commissionon the declassification of Russian archives, whocited extensively from APRF materials to whichother scholars have not yet had access,2 andpresentations of APRF documents by Russianofficials to Hungary and Czechoslovakia (about


to researchers, who until now have had to makerequests to archive staff who then consulted inter-nal finding aids.8 Some possible progress wasalso reported on the question of photocopyingfees and procedures, about which some scholarshave complained. Despite such apparently posi-tive steps, however, it was uncertain whether theresults to date were sufficient enable the interna-tional advisory group to raise additional funds.

Several AVP RF staff members have cre-ated an organization to assist researchers andsupport the archive’s work. The InternationalDiplomatic Archives Association, headed byBukharkin, was organized in 1993 to help re-searchers, on a contractual basis, locate and sub-mit for declassification desired archival materi-als related to the history of Soviet foreign policyand diplomacy. (It should be stressed that it is notnecessary to be a member of the association toconduct research at the archive.) The associationalso aids publication projects of MID materials,modernizing archive facilities, and involving re-tired diplomats to expedite declassification.9

At the State Archive of the Russian Federa-tion (GARF), headed by Sergei V. Mironenko,which contain records of many Soviet-era minis-tries, a project has been launched with the Uni-versity of Pittsburgh to publish detailed guides todocument collections of interest to Cold Warhistorians. The Russian Publications Project’sRussian Archive Series includes guides to “spe-cial files” (osoboye papki) of the Interior Minis-try and secret police, beginning with V.A. Kozlovand S.V. Mironenko, eds., “Special Files” forI.V. Stalin: Materials of the Secretariat of theNKVD-MVD of the USSR, 1944-1953, Archive ofContemporary Russian History, vol. 1 (Moscow:Blagovest, 1993). Projected volumes are: vol. 2,Molotov’s “Special Files,” 1944-1955; vol. 3,Khrushchev’s “Special Files,” 1944-59; vol. 4,Malenkov’s “Special Files,” 1944-55; vol. 5,Beria’s “Special Files,” 1944-53; vol. 6, Guideto Correspondence between the Ministry of Inter-nal Affairs and the Foreign Ministry, 1944-59.The project has also published a guide to holdingsof the Russian Center for the Preservation andStudy of Documents of Contemporary History(RTsKhIDNI), which contains CC CPSU files upto 1952: J. Arch Getty and V.P. Kozlov, eds., TheState Archival Service of the Russian Federation:Russian Center for Preservation and Study ofDocuments of Contemporary History (formerlythe Central Party Archive): A Research Guide,(Moscow: Blagovest, 1993).10

A more problematic situation persists re-garding access to Cold War-era Soviet militarydocuments, although in March 1994 RussianDefense Ministry officials participated in a Pen-tagon-sponsored conference on declassifyingNATO and Warsaw Pact Cold War records, andsome Soviet General Staff files on the KoreanWar, Berlin and Cuban Missile Crises, and otherCold War events have been declassified in con-

nection with specific conferences or projects.The files of the former KGB remain tightly con-trolled as well, with limited exceptions for fami-lies of victims of repression and an agreementwith Crown Books to publish a series of booksbased on selected KGB documents.

Several recent U.S. initiatives to enhanceties with Russian archives should also be noted.In November 1994, CWIHP brought three Rus-sian archival leaders to the United States formeetings with scholars and archivists. The threewere Igor V. Lebedev, Director, Department ofHistory and Records, Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs, Russian Federation; Sergei V. Mironenko,Director, State Archive of the Russian Federa-tion; and Natalia G. Tomilina, Director, Centerfor the Storage of Contemporay Documentation.Their program in Washington, D.C., includedmeetings at the Wilson Center and its KennanInstitute for Advanced Russian Studies; Libraryof Congress; National Archives I & II; NationalSecurity Archive; historical offices of the CIA,State Department, Office of the Secretary ofDefense, Holocaust Museum, and National Air& Space Museum; and the International Re-search & Exchanges Board (IREX). CWIHPthen brought them to the 26th National Conven-tion of the American Association for the Ad-vancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) in Phila-delphia, where the project organized a round-table on “Researching the Cold War in Moscow:A Dialogue with Russian Archival Leaders.”11

In Philadelphia, the archivists met with anew AAASS/American Historical AssociationTask Force on the Russian and East EuropeanArchives. Its members are Norman Naimark(Stanford U., AAASS coordinator); William G.Rosenberg (Univ. of Michigan, AHA coordina-tor); William Taubman (Amherst C.); KathrynWeathersby (Florida State U.); Donald J. Raleigh(U. of North Carolina); Gregory Freeze (BrandeisU.); and David Ransel (Indiana U.) The groupprepared a draft report on the situation of theRussian and East European archives, examiningthe possibility of a “general statement of policieson ... the appropriate use of and access to ar-chives”; exploring ways AAASS and AHA mightassist archives in the area; and considering waysto improve coordination among various relevantprojects, scholars, and institutions.12

Meanwhile, Russian and East-bloc archivesand archival materials on Cold War topics werediscussed at various other conferences held overthe past year, including:

* a conference on “Archives and Researchin Russia and Eastern Europe,” in Aero, Den-mark, on 3-6 December 1993; organized by aresearch network based at Odense University andthe University of Copenhagen, the meeting heardreports by Russian and East European archiveadministrators and scholarly users;13

* a “Conference on Access to Archives” inBellagio, Italy, on 28 Feb.-Mar. 3 1994 gathered

Eastern and Western archival figures, includingU.S. Acting National Archivist Trudy Peterson,Rosarkhiv director R.G. Pikhoia, GARF directorS.V. Mironenko and Czech, Estonian, Polish,and Ukrainian representatives;

* a “Conference on Cold War MilitaryRecords and History” for representatives of NATOand Warsaw Pact countries, held on 21-26 March1994 near Washington, D.C.; the U.S. ArmyCenter of Military History, which organized theconference in cooperation with the Office of theSecretary of Defense, intends to publish confer-ence reports and to create a newsletter;14

* a seminar on Soviet-Finnish Relations,1944-48, was held in Helsinki on 21-25 March1994 organized by the Department of PoliticalHistory, University of Helsinki, in cooperationwith the Institute of Universal History, RussianAcademy of Sciences, Moscow;15

* on 29-31 March 1994, a conference on“The Establishment of Communist Regimes inEastern Europe, 1945-1950: A Reassessment”was held in Moscow, sponsored by the Instituteof Slavonic & Balkan Studies, Russian Academyof Sciences, Moscow; the American Council ofLearned Societies; the Social Science ResearchCouncil; and IREX;16

* a conference on “Czechoslovakia and theWorld, 1968: The New Archival Evidence” washeld in Prague, 18-20 April 1994, co-sponsoredby the Prague Spring 1968 Foundation, the Na-tional Security Archive, and CWIHP;17

* on 6-9 May 1994, Brown University’sCenter for Foreign Policy Development held aconference involving ex-officials of the Brezhnevand Carter administrations at the Musgrove Pla-nation, St. Simons Island, Georgia, one of a seriesof planned meetings on the collapse of deténte inthe late 1970s (the Carter-Brezhnev project isworking with MID and TsKhSD, as well as U.S.government agencies, to expedite declassifica-tion of relevant U.S. and Soviet documents);18

* on September 23-24, in Cortona, Italy, aconference on “The Soviet Union and Europe inthe Cold War (1943-1953)” took place, spon-sored by the Institute of Universal History, Mos-cow, the Feltrinelli Foundation in Milan, and theGramsci Foundation Institute in Rome;19

* on 27-29 September 1994, a conference on“The Caribbean Crisis in the Documents in theArchival Fonds of Russia, the United States, andthe Republic of Cuba: Analysis, Outcomes, Les-sons” was organized in Moscow by Rosarkhivand the U.S. Naval Academy.20

* on 26-30 September 1994, a seminar onarchival issues was held in Moscow at the His-torical Archives Institute, Russian HumanitiesUniversity, with visiting archivists from theBentley Historical Library, University of Michi-gan and support from IREX; CWIHP organized asession on declassifying Cold War materials.

Other noteworthy developments concern-ing Cold War-related Russian archives included:

CHIVES NEWS


* the appointment of N. G. Tomilina asdirector, rather than acting director, of TsKhSD;

* the continuation of the “Archives of theSoviet Communist Party and State” project tomicrofilm finding aids and selected documentsfrom GARF, RTsKhIDNI, and TsKhSD, under-taken by the Russian State Archives Service andthe Hoover Institution on War, Revolution andPeace; according to Chadwyck-Healey, theproject’s distributor, a catalogue listing the first1,000 reels of microfilm is now available;21

* Yale University Press has started a publi-cations series, Annals of Communism, present-ing documents from several Russian archives;22

* RTsKhIDNI and the Dutch company IDChave launched a project to microfilm theComintern Archive and make the collection avail-able on microfiche by 1997;23

* RTsKhIDNI and the Feltrinelli Founda-tion (Milan) have cooperated to publish the min-utes of the Cominform Conferences, 1947-49;24

* Raymond L. Garthoff (Brookings Institu-tion) has published two works that, collectively,constitute a major effort to integrate severalyears of recent disclosures from Russian sourcesand archives into almost three decades of ColdWar history: a revised edition of Detente andConfrontation: American-Soviet Relations fromNixon to Reagan, and The Great Transition:American-Soviet Relations and the End of theCold War, both published in 1994 by Brookings;

* with the closure of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headquarters in Munich due toU.S. government budget cuts, operations arebeing moved and reorganized on a semi-privatebasis via the U.S. Board for International Broad-casting and the Open Society Institute; the RFE/RL historical archives will be located in Budapest,while contemporary materials and activities willbe centered at OMRI in Prague; the RFE/RLResearch Report has discontinued publication,but OMRI plans in January 1995 to begin a new,weekly journal, Societies in Transition. 25

1. See Mark Kramer, “Archival Research in Moscow:Progress and Pitfalls,” Cold War International HistoryProect Bulletin 3 (Fall 1993), 1, 18-39.2. Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: A New Biography (NewYork: Free Press, 1994). A longer Russian version waspublished. The U.S. edition includes a statement (p.xxv) by editor Harold Shukman that, “Subject to therules and regulations of the Russian Archive Commis-sion (Rosarkhiv), all the documents cited in this bookcan be seen at the various locations indicated. Docu-ments from the Archives of the President of the Rus-sian Federation (APRF) have been transferred from theKremlin to the archives of the former Central Commit-tee (RTsKhIDNI) and TsKhSD).”3. The CWIHP Bulletin plans to include reports onsome of these materials in its next issue.4. Ella Maksimova, “Merchants of Sensations from thePresidential Archive,” Izvestiya 131 (13 July 1994).Quotations in this article are from an unofficial trans-lation by Mark H. Doctoroff.5. See letters fromVolkogonov and Stephen Cohen(Princeton Univ.) in Izvestia, July 19, August 17, 1994.

Copenhagen S, Denmark; tel.: +4535 328-520/1; fax:+4535 328-532. Contact Prof. Bent Jensen, Odense U.14. Contact John T. Greenwood, Chief, Field andInternational Division, U.S. Army Center of MilitaryHistory; 1099 14th St. NW; Washington, D.C. 20005-3402; tel.: 202/504-5368; fax: 202/504-5443.15. A conference volume containing English-languageversions of the papers, many of them based on Russianarchival sources, has been published: Jukka Nevakivi,ed., Finnish-Soviet Relations 1944-1948 (Helsinki:Department of Political History, Univ. of Helsinki,1994); copies from: Department of Political History,PL 54 (Snellmaninkatu 14A); 00014 Univ. of Helsinki;Finland; fax: 358-0-191 8942.16. Contact Dr. Leonid Gibianski, Inst. of Slavonic &Balkan Studies, Moscow, fax: (7-095) 938-2288; orProf. Norman Naimark, History Dept., Stanford U.,Stanford, CA 94305-2024.17. Contact Malcolm Byrne, National Security Archive,1755 Mass. Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036; tel.:(202) 797-0882; fax: (202) 387-6315.18. Contact James G. Blight, Center for Foreign PolicyDevelopment, Thomas J. Watson Institute for Interna-tional Studies, Brown Univ., Box 1948, Two StimsonAve., Providence, RI 02912; fax: (401) 863-7440.19. Contact Prof. Francesca Gori, Fondazione Feltrinelli,Via Romagnosi 3, Milan, Italy 20121, fax: 39/2/86461855; or Academician A.O. Chubarian, Inst. forUniversal History, Russian Academy of Sciences,Moscow, Russia, fax: (7-095) 938-2288.20. Contact Rosarkhiv or Prof. Robert W. Love, U.S.Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, fax: (410) 267-2256..21. Contact: Chadwyck-Healey Ltd.; The Quorum;Barnwell Road; Cambridge CB5 8SW; UK; tel: 0223215512; fax: 0223 215514; in USA/Canada: Chadwyck-Healey Inc.; 1101 King Street; Alexandria, VA 22314;tel: 703 683-4890, 800 752 0515; fax: 703 683-7589.22. Two volumes are planned for 1995: Harvey Klehr,John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, eds.,The Secret World of American Communism, and Lars T.Lih and Oleg V. Naumov, eds., Stalin’s Letters toMolotov, 1925-1936; subjects of future projected vol-umes include the Katyn Massacre, Georgi Dimitrov’sletters to Stalin (1934-45) and diary (1933-49), theGULAG (1920-89), and Anti-Government Oppositionunder Khrushchev and Brezhnev. Contact: Yale Uni-versity Press; PO Box 209040; New Haven, CT 06520-9040; tel: 1-800-YUP-READ; fax: 203/432-0948.23. Contact: IDC bv; P.O. Box 11205; 2301 EE Leiden;The Netherlands; fax: 31-71-13 17 21; bankers: ABN-AMRO, Leiden, The Netherlands, account no. 566 314967/SWIFT no. ABN ANL 2A. IDC also markets amicrofiche set of finding aids to archives and manu-script collections in Russia, Baltic Republics, Ukraine,Belorussia, and Moldovia, edited by Dr. PatriciaKennedy Grimsted; a microfiche documentary collec-tion on Anti-Semitism and nationalism at the end of theSoviet Era, prepared by the Institute of HumanitarianPolitical Research and “Memorial” (Moscow), and theSecond World Center and International Institute ofSocial History (Amsterdam); and other microfiche col-lections of Soviet-bloc materials.24. G. Procacci, G. Adibekov, A. Di Biagio, L.Gibianskii, F. Gori, and S. Pons, eds., THECOMFINFORM: Minutes of the Three Conferences1947/1948/1949, “Annali” of the Feltrinelli Founda-tion, 1994, vol., XXX. Orders: Feltrinelli Editore,Ufficio Commerciale, Via Andegari 6, 20121 Milano,Italy; fax: 02/72001064.25. Contact Open Media Research Inst.; Motokov Build-ing; Na Strzi 63; 14062 Prague 4; Czech Republic.

6. Organizers of the international advisory group are O.A. Westad (Norwegian Nobel Inst.) and S. G. Holtsmark(Norwegian Inst. for Defense Studies); members in-clude W.Taubman (Amherst C.); J. Haslem (CambridgeU.); G.N. Sevast’yanov (Russian Academy of Sciences);and G. Wettig (Federal Institute for Russian, East Euro-pean, and International Studies, Cologne).7. See Vladimir V. Sokolov and Sven G. Holtsmark,“Note on the Foreign Policy Archive of the RussianFederation,” Cold War International History ProjectBulletin 3 (Fall 1993), 26, 52.8. Dr. Lebedev announced at the AAASS meeting inPhiladelphia in November 1994 that MID hopes topublish an extensive guide to the archives within twoyears; meanwhile, researchers may consult a list offondy in the MID reading room, and, under the Cortonaagreement, may pay 50 cents per page to copy findingaids, which will then be generally available in thereading room, to specific collections.9. For further information contact Igor V. Bukharkin,Deputy Director, Department of History and Records,Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russian Federation; 16Gogolesvskiy bul., Moscow 121019, Russia; tel: (095)241-49-31; (095) 925-26-67; fax: (095) 244-51-06;Bank Account: 000070265/ 001073048, Inkombank,Moscow, branch “Triumphalny”; (S.W.I.F.T. BIG:INCOMRUMM) via Account/ 890-0056-096 with Bankof New York, USA N 890-0056-096.10. Contact: Russian Publications Project; Center forRussian & East European Studies--4G12 FQ;Universityof Pittsburgh; Pittsburgh, PA 15260; fax: 412/648-2199; tel: 412/648-7403/7.11. Profs. W. Taubman (Amherst C.) and K. Weathersby(Florida State U.) also participated in the roundtable.CWIHP also organized the following sessions at the1993 annual AAASS meeting:

* Roundtable, “Researching Cold War History inSoviet-bloc Archives: Initial Findings and Method-ological Challenges.” Participants: J. Hershberg(CWIHP); Hope Harrison (Harvard [now Brandeis] U.),Mark Kramer (Brown and Harvard Univs.), VladislavM. Zubok (Kennan Institute for Advanced RussianStudies [now National Security Archive], NormanNaimark (Stanford U.), David Wolff (Princeton U.);

* Panel, “Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet ForeignPolicy, and the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1962”: Chair: J.Hershberg (CWIHP); Papers: H. Harrison (now BrandeisU.), “Khrushchev, Ulbrict, and the Berlin Crisis: NewEvidence from Moscow and Berlin”; V. Zubok (NSA),“Khrushchev, Berlin, and the West: New Evidence fromSoviet Archives”; Commentators: William Taubman(Amherst C.), Hannes Adomeit (Fletcher School of Lawand Diplomacy, Tufts U.);

* Panel, “Cold War Soviet Foreign Policy Revis-ited: New Evidence from Soviet, East European andChinese Archives”: Chair: H. Adomeit (Fletcher Schoolof Law and Diplomacy, Tufts U.); Papers: K. Weathersby(Florida State U.), “The Soviet Role in the Outbreak ofthe Korean War”; M. Kramer (Brown and Harvard U.),“Soviet Intervention in Hungary, 1956”; StevenGoldstein (Smith Coll.), “Khrushchev and Mao: NewRevelations from China.”12. See the announcement printed in the October 1994AHA Newsletter (Perspectives), p. 27.13. Conference papers were published by The ResearchNetwork: Change and Continuity in Russia, the BalticStates and Eastern Europe, Dept. of Slavonic Studies,Odense U.; Campusvej 55; DK-5230 Odense M; Den-mark; tel.: +45 66 158600, ext. 3388/ 3416; fax: +45 66157892; e-mail: [email protected]; or: Inst. of East Euro-pean Studies, U. of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 78, 3.; 2300


Yeltsin’s Directive on Declassification

Translated and Introduced by Mark Kramer

This directive (“rasporyazhenie”), issuedby Russian President Boris Yeltsin on 22 Sep-tember 1994, was published in RossiiskayaGazeta, 27 September 1994, p. 4. The languagein the directive is unusually turgid and awkward,even by the standards of government decrees.Hence, the translation is necessarily cumbersomeas well. For the sake of clarity, abbreviationsused in the directive other than “Rosarkhiv” havebeen provided in full.

The directive is intended to expedite thedeclassification of Soviet-era documents upthrough 1963. Although Points 1 and 2, whichestablish a declassification commission, pertainonly to “documents created by the CPSU,” Points3 and 4 make clear that the directive is alsosupposed to cover documents created by Sovietstate organs, including items preserved in theRussian Foreign Ministry (MID) archives, themilitary archives, and the former KGB archives.(The KGB has now been split up and renamed:The Foreign Intelligence Service handles foreignintelligence, formerly the province of the FirstChief Directorate of the KGB; and the FederalCounterintelligence Service handles most of theold KGB’s domestic functions.)

Point 4 has two potentially important fea-tures: First, it provides for departmental docu-ments (i.e., documents produced by MID, theKGB, etc.) to be transferred to archives underRosarkhiv’s direct jurisdiction once the storageperiod of those documents has expired. It re-mains to be seen how this will work out inpractice, but it could eventually facilitate accessto materials that have been off-limits up to now.Second, Point 4 raises the question of giving thedirectors of archives under Rosarkhiv’s immedi-ate jursidiction the power to declassify docu-ments stored on their premises. Presently, thedeclassification of documents is permissible onlyif consent is obtained from all agencies involvedin the original preparation of the documents. Thisextremely cumbersome process has all but haltedattempts to declassify certain materials. Theprocedure could be greatly expedited if directorsof Rosarkhiv-controlled archives could makedeclassification decisions on their own.

Perhaps the most important element in thedirective is Point 5, which requires a phasedtransfer of original documents from the Presiden-tial Archive (APRF) to archives under the juris-diction of the State Archival Service (Rosarkhiv)by the end of 1995. This sort of transfer had beenpromised since late 1991, but scant progress hadbeen achieved as of mid-1994, sparking com-plaints in a lengthy article by Ella Maksimova on13 July 1994 in Izvestiya. The establishment of aset timeframe for the transfer is a decided stepforward, but several qualifications should benoted:

1) the transfer applies only to “documentsfrom the former archive of the CPSU CC Polit-buro,” implying that key non-Politburo docu-ments in the APRF, including the personal filesof top Soviet officials, will not be turned over toRosarkhiv. If so, these documents will not besubject to the provisions of the 22 Septemberdirective, which apply only to “state archives,”“document storage centers,” and “departmentalarchives.” The APRF has its own special statusunder the Russian President’s direct control.

2) the transfer applies only to documentscreated “in or before 1963.” This implies thatdocuments dating from 1964 and later, asidefrom those declassified for political reasons,will be released in the future only if there isanother Presidential directive. It is unfortunatethat the 30-year rule, itself a relic of the ColdWar that deserves to be reexamined and paredback, has been so firmly enshrined (both hereand elsewhere) in Russian archival policy.

3) the directive does not promise that recordstransferred from the APRF to Rosarkhiv will beany more accessible than at present. Althoughthe directive implies that transferred files willbe subject to expedited declassification, that isnot spelled out explicitly.

The composition of the new Declassifica-tion Commission is encouraging, because it in-cludes the director and deputy director ofRosarkhiv and the heads of the APRF, of both ofthe former KGB’s main archives, and of the MIDand military archives. Somewhat less desirable isthe inclusion of several prominent political fig-ures, whose presence may mean that archivalprocedures will be even more vulnerable to shiftsin the political wind. At the same time, theparticipation of these officials may be the onlyway to ensure that archival matters and questionsof declassification will be able to command high-level attention in the future.

On balance, then, the directive providessome basis for guarded optimism.

DIRECTIVEof the President of the Russian Federation

Taking account of the demands of the public, inthe aim of speeding up work to remove unwarrantedrestrictive classifications from archival documentsin the state and departmental archives as well as inthe document storage centers, and also to promotethe declassification of archival documents storedthere whose period of secrecy has expired, in accor-dance with legislation of the Russian Federation:

1. A Commission on the Declassification ofDocuments Created by the CPSU, which will be anintegral sub-division of the Interdepartmental Com-mission on the Protection of State Secrets, is to beformed.

2. The appended composition of the Commissionon the Declassification of Documents Created bythe CPSU is affirmed.

3. The Federal Service of Counterintelligence of

Russia, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia,the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, and theState Archival Service of Russia are assigned thetask of working out procedures for the declassifica-tion of documents in closed collections of the statearchives, the document storage centers, and depart-mental archives, and for the extension of the periodsof their secret storage.

4. The federal organs of state authority, whosedirectors are empowered to render information asstate secrets are to:

review, by the end of 1994, the archival docu-ments created in or before 1963 that are stored intheir archives and the archival departments of theirinstitutions, organizations, and enterprises, with aneye to determining the basis for their classificationand whether this corresponds to the degree of se-crecy established earlier;

organize in a prescribed manner the prompt trans-fer of documents, after their period of departmentalstorage has expired, to the state archives and thedocument storage centers; and

examine the question about delegating powers tothe directors of state archives and the directors ofdocument storage centers to declassify documentslocated in the storage areas and closed fonds of thesearchives and centers.

5. In the course of 1994-1995, the Administrationof the President of the Russian Federation, togetherwith Rosarkhiv, is to organize a stage-by-stagetransfer—from the Archive of the President of theRussian Federation to archival institutions under theauspices of Rosarkhiv—of original documents fromthe former archive of the CPSU CC Politburo cre-ated through 1963 inclusively.

6. The Commission on Declassification of Docu-ments Created by the CPSU is to present a quarterlyreport to the President of the Russian Federation onthe work it has carried out.

President of the Russian FederationB. Yeltsin

22 September 1994No. 489-rp_____________

Composition of the Commission on theDeclassification of Documents Created by the CPSU

Krasanchenko, S. N.—First Deputy Director ofthe Administration of the President of the RussianFederation (chairman of the Commission); Yakovlev,A. N.—Director of the Federal Service of Russia forTelevision and Radio Broadcasting (deputy chair-man of the Commission); Pikhoya, R. G.—Directorof Rosarkhiv and Chief State Archivist of the Rus-sian Federation (deputy chairman of the Commis-sion); Krivova, N. A.—Assistant to the Director ofRosarkhiv (senior secretary of the Commission);Abramov, E. A.—Deputy Minister of Internal Af-fairs of the Russian Federation; Belozerov, A. P.—Chief of a Directorate of the Foreign IntelligenceService of Russia; Volkogonov, D. A.—Deputy ofthe State Duma of the Federal Assembly;Zolotukhin,B. A.—Deputy of the State Duma of the FederalAssembly; Kozlov, V. P.—Deputy Director of



The Update section summarizes items in thepopular and scholarly press containing new in-formation on Cold War history emanating fromthe former Communist bloc. Readers are invitedto alert CWIHP to relevant citations.

Abbreviations:

DA = Deutschland ArchivFBIS = Foreign Broadcast Information ServiceNYT = New York TimesRFE/RL = Radio Free Europe/Radio LibertyVfZ = Viertelsjahrhefte fuer ZeitgeschichteWP = Washington PostZfG = Zeitschrift fuer Geschichtswissenschaft

Russia/Former Soviet Union

Survey of questions, evidence, and historiogra-phy concerning Stalin, USSR, and Cold Warorigins, by two Russian historians. (V. Zubokand C. Pleshakov, “The Soviet Union,” in DavidReynolds, The Origins of the Cold War in Eu-rope: International Perspectives (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1994), 53-76.)

Russian archives, particularly Russian Centerfor the Preservation and Study of Documents ofRecent History, offer insights into history Sovietties to CPUSA; article focuses on Cominternfiles on Minnesota Communists. (John EarlHaynes and Harvey Klehr, “Researching Minne-sota History in Moscow,” Minnesota History:The Quarterly of the Minnesota Historical Soci-ety 54/1 (Spring 1994), 2-15.)

Second largest camp system in USSR gulag from1939-53, the GUPVI, examined. (Stefan Karner,“Die sowjetische Hauptverwaltung fuerKriegsgefangene und Internierte. EinZwischenbericht.” [“The Soviet Main Adminis-tration for POWs and Internees: An InterimReport”], VfZ 3 (July 1994), 447-72.)

Ministry of Defense document on Wallenberg’sarrest in 1945 located. (Ella Maksimova,“Wallenberg is Dead; Unfortunately, the Proof isSufficient,” Izvestia, 6/3/93.)

Zhdanov papers, other archival sources informanalysis of why the “Big Bear”—the USSR—“knocked more than once on the Finnish door,[but] never tried to come in by force” in 1944-47.(Jukka Navakivi, “A Decisive Armistic 1944-1947: Why Was Finland Not Sovietized?” Scan-dinavian Journal of History 19 (1994), 91-115.)

Jukka Nevakivi, ed., Finnish-Soviet Relations1944-1948 (Helsinki: Department of PoliticalHistory, University of Helsinki, 1994), containspapers, many based on Russian archival sources,prepared for a seminar in Helsinki on 21-25March 1994 organized by the Department of

Political History, University of Helsinki, in coop-eration with the Institute of Universal History,Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Copiesfrom: Dept. of Political History, PL 54(Snellmaninkatu 14A); 00014 University ofHelsinki; Finland; fax: 358-0-191 8942

Scholar uses newly-available archival material toassess Soviet rejection of the Marshall Plan in1947; also see CWIHP Working Paper #9 by thesame author. (M.M. Narinsky, “The USSR andthe Marshall Plan, According to Materials fromthe Archive of the President of Russia,” New andNewest History 2 (1993), 11-19.)

Document on Stalin’s military thinking. (M.A.Gareev, “The Science and Art of Warfare,” Mili-tary-Historical Journal 5 (1993), 2-8.)

Senior military officer discusses creation of So-viet nuclear shield, argues that USSR’s defensivenuclear program helped ensure global peace dur-ing Cold War. (A.S. Kalashnikov, “The AtomicMonster that Served Peace,” Military-HistoricalJournal 3 (1994), 13-24.)

Report on Stalin’s role in formation and earlyyears of Soviet nuclear project. (Yu. N. Smirnov,“Stalin and the Atomic Bomb,” Voprosy istoriiestestvoznaniia i tekniki 2 (1994), 125-30.)

Author discusses origins of Soviet nuclear projectand whether Moscow’s bomb was invented orstolen. (Valerii N. Soifer, “Myths about ‘TheTheft of the Century’: Who Profits by AccusingSoviet Physicists?” Izvestia 193 (10/7/94), 5.)

Discussion of Stalin’s tactics in 1948 in responseto Yugoslav-Bulgarian agreement and suicide ofAlbanian official Spiru Niku. (V. Tarlinski, “TheFate of the Federation,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta,12/17/93.)

Document from autumn 1952 discloses discus-sion of Soviet plans to assassinate Tito. (D.Volkogonov, “Attempts that Never Took Place,”Izvestia, 6/11/93.)

Archival documents from Stalin’s death to Beria’sarrest (March-June 1953) suggest seriousness ofBeria’s proposed reforms. (B. Starkov, “Some-thing Brand-New on Beria,” Argumenty i Fakty46 (Nov. 1993).)

Documents on transfer of Crimea from Russia toUkraine in 1954. (O. Volobueva, G. Iofis, “ASimply Remarkable Act of Brotherly Assistance,”Historical Archives 1 (1992), 39-54.)

Court reviewing effects of fall-out from top-se-cret 1954 nuclear tests in southern Urals. (S.Mostovshchikov, “How a Nuclear Victory wasForged in 1954,” Izvestia, 12/17/93.)

Remains of U.S. servicemen recovered from planeshot down by Soviets on 7 October 1952. (“Flier’sBones Found,” WP, 9/15/94.)

Investigation of aerial encounters between So-viet and US/NATO aircraft over the Far East in1954 and the Kola Peninsula in 1954 and 1978.(V.I. Dudin, I.N. Kosenko, “Planned Tragedy,”Military-Historical Journal 1 (1993), 16-22.)

Unpublished memoirs of Adm. Kuznetsov, con-tinuation of series begun in 1992, discuss assign-ment to investigate destruction of battleship“Novorossisk” at Sevastopol in 1955. (I.G.Kuznetsov, “Sudden Turns,” Military-HistoricalJournal 10 (1993), 43-49.)

Records of Moscow State University party com-mittee show extent of surveillance. (E. Taranov,“We’re Shaking Lenin Hills!: From a History ofSubversive Thought at MGU, 1955-56,”Svobodnaya Mysl’ 3 (1993), 52-61.)

Newly-opened CPSU documents from 1956-57on treatment and repatriation of Japanese POWS.(A. Petrov, “The Last Prisoners of WW II,”Historical Archives 1 (1993), 68-78.)

Series details air reconnaissance and aerial bor-der violations in 1950s-60s (issue #9), warningsystem for missile attacks in 1960s-70s (#10),and space control systems in 1970s-80s (#11).(U.V. Votintsev, “The Little-Known Forces of aVanished Superpower,” Military-Historical Jour-nal 8-11 (1993).)

Memoirs of Soviet General Staff officer in the1950s-60s. (I.S. Glebov, “Intrigues in the Gen-eral Staff,” Military-Historical Journal 11 (1993),37-42.)

Ex-interpreter recounts Soviet discussions ofSukarno’s 1956 trip to Moscow. (I. Kashmakdze,“Why a Living Statue Was Not Enough for thePresident,” New Time 19 (1993), 30-33.)

Memoirs of Soviet adviser to Chinese militarycommand in 1956-58. (I.S. Glebov, “I was aMilitary Adviser in China,” Military-HistoricalJournal 8 (1993), 49-53.)

Yeltsin transfers to Hungary once secret docu-ments (47 from Presidential Archives, 17 fromForeign Ministry archives) on 1956 events. (V.Musatov, “1956,” New Time 8 (1993), 38-39.)

Collection of newly-opened documents on So-viet policy and actions in Hungary in 1956 fromCPSU CC archives. (T.M. Islamov, “Hungary,April-October 1956,” Historical Archives 4(1993), 103-142; and V.T. Seredi, “Hungary,October-November, 1956,” Historical Archives5 (1993), 132-60.)

UPDATE


Memoirs of Lt.-Gen. Malashenko concerning1956 Hugarian events, including his role in de-veloping military plans (“Compass”) during up-rising; initial decision to withdraw Soviet troopson October 31; and subsequent invasion. (E.I.Malashenko, “Special Corps in the BudapestFire,” Military-Historical Journal 10 (1993), 22-30; 11 (1993), 44-51; and 1 (1994), 30-36.)

Profile of M. Rakosa, Stalin’s deputy in Budapest,including role in 1956 events. (Y. Gusev, “Homocominternicus,” New Time 7 (1993), 29-32.)

Reassessment of Soviet actions in Hungary in1956, based on newly-released CPSU documents.(V.L. Musatov, “The USSR and Events in Hun-gary in 1956: New Archival Materials,” New andNewest History 1 (1993), 3-22.) More secretdocuments on crisis, including situation reportson situation in Budapest on Nov. 4-5. Military-Historical Journal 8 (1993), 86-87.)

Publication of stenographic transcript (begun inissue #3, 1993) of June 1957 Plenum of theCPSU. (“The Last Anti-Party Group,” HistoricalArchives 4 (1993), 4-73 and 5 (1993), 4-78.)

Khrushchev letter to British Prime MinisterMacmillan in April 1959 on nuclear issues, Ber-lin Crisis published. (Vestnik 7-8 (April 1993),74-79; see also I.V. Lebedev, “New Documents:Top Level Exchanges of Messages, April 1959,”FCO Historical Branch Occasional Papers No. 7:Changes in British and Russian Records Policy(London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office,Historical Branch, Nov. 1993), 20-23.)

Ex-Soviet envoy to Great Britain recounts con-troversy over Yuri Gagarin’s visit. (A. Soldatov,“Y. Gagarin in England in June 1961,” New andNewest History 5 (1993), 116-19.)

Documents on violent Soviet suppression of 1962workers’ uprising in Novocherkassk. (R. Pikhoia,et. al., “The Novocherkassk Tragedy, 1962,”Historical Archives 1 (1993), 110-36; and 4(1993), 143-77.)

Ex-Soviet general’s account of Cuban MissileCrisis. (A.I. Gribkov, “The Caribbean Crisis,”Military-Historical Journal 1 (1993), 2-10.)

Account of the 29 Oct. 1962-7 Jan. 1963 negotia-tions in New York between the USSR, USA, andCuba, and other meetings in Washington andHavana, concerning the outcome of the CubanMissile Crisis. (Y.G. Murin, V. A. Lebedev, “TheCaribbean Crisis,” Military-Historical Journal 1(1993), 11-16.)

Serial publication of Khrushchev’s memoirs.(Khrushchev, “Memoirs,” Voprosii Istorii 2-5, 7-10 (1993); 2 (1994), 77-95; and 3 (1994), 77-94.)

Former officials (including Gorbachev and ex-KGB head Semychastnyi), associates, friendsassess Khrushchev’s legacy at conference mark-ing centenary of birth. (RFE/RL News Briefs 3:17(18-22 April 1994), 1-2.)

Materials from Oct. 1964 CPSU party plenum atwhich Khrushchev was overthrown. (S. Melchin,et. al., “How They Removed N. Khrushchev,”Historical Archives 1 (1993), 3-19.)

Entries from the diary of A. Zlobin from early1970s, mainly related to Khrushchev’s death andburial. (A. Zlobin, “Sanitary Day,” New Time 12(1993), 48-51.)

Soviet military adviser to Cairo relates experi-ences in 1967 war and subsequent rebuilding ofEgyptian army. (E.I. Malashenko, “Front Line—Suez Canal,” Military-Historical Journal 4(1994), 36-42.)

Lt.-Gen. Zolotov on Warsaw Pact intervention inCzechoslovakia in 1968. (S.M. Zolotov, “WeWent to Help Our Friends,” Military-HistoricalJournal 4 (1994), 14-21.)

Television program shows previously classifiedpictures of two 1969 launch failures of interplan-etary probes. (“Aerospace salon,” MoscowOstankino Television First Channel Network, 5June, FBIS-SOV-94-108 (6/6/94), 25.)

Author deplores Soviet-era violations of interna-tional whaling agreements, particularly in 1960s-’70s, calls for declassification of documents. (E.Chernyi, “Soviet Secrets of the Whaling Indus-try,” Izvestia, 3/2/94.)

Account of 1971 Soviet nuclear testing in PermTaiga, exchange on whether warheads remainedafterward. (Alexander Pashkov, VladimirKasatkin, Igor Yuferov, “Twenty years ago inPerm Taiga were left nuclear bombs, reports ourcorrespondent, but there are no nuclear warheadsleft in Taiga, insist specialists of MinAtom,”Izvestia 186 (9/28/94), 1, 4.)

Author examines Soviet participation in UNpeacekeeping missions during Cold War, par-ticularly in Golan Heights after 1973 Mideastwar. (N.F. Belik, “In a Zone of Sudden Fire,”Military-Historical Journal 4 (1994), 43-52.)

Head Soviet military adviser to Syrian DefenseMinistry in 1974-77 discusses experiences. (M.N.Tereshchenko, “Mission to Damask,” Military-Historical Journal 2 (1994), 25-34.)

Ex-general on activities of “general command”in 1970s-80s. (M.N. Tereshchenko, “On the West-ern Front,” Military-Historical Journal 5 (1993),9-17.)

Documents from Presidential Archive illuminateSoviet state suppression of art and culture during1970s, including denial of citizenship to M.L.Rostropovich. (G.A. Razin, et.al., “We Don’tAcknowledge Your Rights To Commit Acts ofViolence Against US,” Historical Archives 5(1993), 161-85.)

Maj.-Gen. Golitsin discusses role of Soviet mili-tary in Ethiopia during conflict with Somalia in1977-78. (P.A. Golitsin, “My Third War,” Mili-tary-Historical Journal 3 (1994), 54-60.)

CPSU CC archives illuminate Soviet reaction to1978 election of Pope John Paul II; initial surprisegave way to deep suspicion after Pope’s visit toPoland the following year, documents show. (FelixCorley, “Soviet Reaction to the Election of PopeJohn Paul II,” Religion, State and Society 22:1(1994), 37-64.)

Using newly-available documents from CPSUarchives, Norwegian scholar explores Soviet-Afghan relations in 1978-79. (O. Westad, “TheEve of the Introduction of Soviet Troops in Af-ghanistan, 1978-9,” New and Newest History 2(1994), 19-34; Odd Arne Westad, “Prelude toInvasion: The Soviet Union and the Afghan Com-munists, 1978-1979,” International History Re-view 16:1 (Feb. 1994), 49-69.)

Declassified documents on Afghanistan deci-sions, Dec. 1979-May 1989, show interventionwas approved by a handful of elite leaders, vio-lated Soviet Constitution. (A.S. Grossmann, “Se-cret Documents from the Special Folder: Af-ghanistan,” Voprosii Istorii 3 (1993), 3-31.)

Ex-deputy foreign minister and CPSU CC mem-ber recounts Afghan events. (G.M. Kornienko,“How the Decision was Made to Send Troops toAfghanistan—Then Withdraw Them,” New andNewest History 3 (1993), 107-118.)

First two installments in series of memoirs by aSoviet colonel-general who served in Afghani-stan from 1979-84. (V.A. Merimskii, “War byDecree,” Military-Historical Journal 10 (1993),11-21; 11 (1993), 30-36; and 1 (1994), 24-29.)

Japanese relatives of KAL 007 crash victimslocate remains in Sakhalin. (V. Kulbakov, “Rela-tives found mysterious remains of the victims ofB-747 in Nevelsk,” Izvestia, 9/4/93, 1.)

International investigative report underscoresdecisive factor of timing in downing of Koreanairliner. (A. Shalnev, “ICAO Closes the Case onthe Investigation of the Victims of the SouthKorean Boeing,” Izvestia, 6/16/93.) Analysis ofreport. (A. Ilesh, A. Shalnev, “The Mystery of theSouth Korean Boeing 747 has beenRevealed...Will we Forget?” Izvestia, 6/25/93.)

UPDATE


Questions about downing persist despite case’sofficial closure; interview with RudolfTeymurazov, chair of Commission on FlightSecurity of International Aviation Committee.(N. Burbyga, A. Illesh, “The Gloomy Secret ofKAL-007,” Izvestia, 10/9/93.)

Review of KAL 007 investigation, findings (in-cluding Black Box transcripts), journalist’s rolein exposing cover-up. (Murray Sayle, “A Re-porter at Large: Closing the File on Flight 007,”The New Yorker 69:42 (12/13/93), 90-101.)

CPSU archival documents contradict JapaneseCommunist Party claims it operated indepen-dently of Moscow. (V. Tsvetov, “A Snake in theBamboo Pipe,” New Time 20 (1993), 32-35.)

CPSU documents implicate party, KGB in sub-versive activities in Italy, report says; editorsblast archivists for denying access to key docu-ments under pretext of state secrecy. (Press con-ference by editors of Stoliza Magazine on “Ital-ian Trial of the CPSU’s Money,” Official Krem-lin International News Broadcasts, 9/20/93.)

Russian Procurator’s Office considers fate ofinvestigation into CPSU finances and attempts torecover funds abroad. (V. Rudnev, “The Case ofParty Finances,” Izvestia, 11/19/93.)

Alexander Agentov, ex-adviser to CPSU Gen-eral Secretaries from Brezhnev to Gorbachev,interviewed. (I. Zamyatin, “An Interview with aMan who was Silent for a Long Time,” Argu-ments and Facts, 5/20/93, 6.)

Documents from mid-1980s on state surveil-lance of religious activities in USSR from Coun-cil of Ministers. (N. Krivova, et.al., “Religionand the Church in the USSR,” Historical Ar-chives 1 (1993), 137-44.)

Transcript of talks between Gorbachev and Ital-ian Communist Party chief A.G. Occhetto inMoscow on 28 February 1989; continuation ofseries of publications from Gorbachev Archives.(“Gorbachev-Occhetto,” Svobodnaya Misl [FreeThought] 4 (1993).)

Previously secret documents from 1989-90 onestablishing USSR presidency republished; in-cluded are reports by G. Shaknazarov/V.Medvedev, S. Stankevich, and A. Sobchak, andnotes of top-level working group on a new SovietConstitution. (Nikolai V. Zlobin, ed., “From theArchives: Soviet Presidency,” Demokratizatsiya:The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 2:2(Spring 1994), 316-31.)

Analysis of Soviet collapse and Cold War’s end,including Gorbachev interview comments. (Ri-chard Ned Lebow and Janice Stein, “Reagan and

the Russians,” The Atlantic Monthly 273:2 (Feb.1994), 35-37.)

Politburo records from 5-6 March 1990 on discus-sion of “urgent measures” on Lithuania’s plans toleave USSR. (A. Chernovin, “How they OpposedLithuania’s Secession from the USSR,” Histori-cal Archives 1 (1992), 3-5.)

Documents disclose plans to capture high-rank-ing Lithuanian government officials during win-ter 1991 crisis in Vilnius. (N. Lashkevich, “TheManeuvers of Defense Minister Achalov at theVilnius TV Tower,” Izvestia, 10/21/93.)

Ex-KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov says he par-ticipated in August 1991 coup attempt becauseKGB had reports that US and NATO planned todismember the Soviet Union and Gorbachev failedto respond adequately to this information. (RFE/RL News Briefs 2:49 (29 Nov-3 Dec 1993), 3.)

Book by Yeltsin includes excerpts from KGBdocuments on Kennedy assassination, covert armsdeal with IRA. (Boris Yeltsin, trans. Catherine A.Fitzpatrick, The Struggle for Russia (New York:Times Books, 1994), app. B (“From the Archivesof the General Secretary”), pp. 305-316.)

Assessment of recent tendencies in Russian coldwar historiography. (Jan Foitzik, “Neue Trends inder russischen Westeuropa-Zeitgeschichts-forschung” [“New Trends in Russian Research onthe Contemporary History of Western Europe”],ZfG 10 (Oct. 1993), 867-75.)

Publications: Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: A NewBiography (New York: Free Press, 1994); J.ArchGetty and Roberta T. Manning, eds., StalinistTerror (New York: Cambridge University Press,1993); David Reynolds, Warren F. Kimball, andA.O. Chubarian, eds., Allies at War: The Soviet,American, and British experience, 1939-1945(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994); LouiseL’Estrange Fawcett, Iran and the Cold War: TheAzerbaijan Crisis of 1946 (Cambridge UniversityPress, 1992); David Holloway, Stalin and theBomb (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994);Valentin M. Berezhkov, trans. Sergei V.Mikheyev, At Stalin’s Side: His Interpreter’sMemoirs From the October Revolution To theFall of the Dictator’s Empire (Birch Lane, 1994);W.N. Denisow, W.P. Dolmatow, J.G. Morin, andA.W. Pankow, J.W. Stalin: “Dein Sosso.” Briefe,Dokumente, und Tagebuchaufzeichungen aus demUmkreis der Familie [J.W. Stalin: “Your Sosso.”Letters, Documents, and Diary Entries from theFamily Circle](Berlin: Edition q, 1994); LarissaVasilieva, Kremlin Wives (New York: Arcade,1992, 1954); Adam Hochschild, The UnquietGhost: Russians Remember Stalin (New York:Penguin Press, 1994); Amy Knight, Beria: Stalin’sFirst Lieutenant (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1993); James G. Richter, Khrushchev’sDouble Bind: International Pressures and Do-mestic Coalition Politics (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1994); John Ander-son, Religion, State and Politics in the SovietUnion and Successor States, 1953-1993 (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1994); S.Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev: Krizisy i Rakety[Nikita Khrushchev: Crises and Rockets], 2 vols.,Moscow: Novosti Press, 1994; Julij Kwizinskij,Vor dem Sturm. Erinnerungen eines Diplomaten[Before the Storm: Memoirs of a Diplomat] (Ber-lin: Siedler Verlag, 1993); Raymond L. Garthoff,The Great Transition: American-Soviet Rela-tions and the End of the Cold War (Washington,DC: Brookings, 1994); Hall Gardner, Survivingthe Millenium: American Global Strategy, theCollapse of the Soviet Empire, and the Questionof Peace (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers,1994); Walter Laqueur, The Dream that Failed:Reflections on the Soviet Union (Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1994).

Espionage/Intelligence Issues

Analysis of alleged military counter-intelligence“successes” in the 1980s. (A. Zhdankin, “Spiesand Lies,” Arguments and Facts, 6/25/93, 2.)

Article recounts KGB’s role in Soviet policy onGermany in the 1980s and contends that spyservice maintains its network in eastern Ger-many. (Y. Bovkun, “The KGB in the BrightKingdom of Capitalism,” Izvestia, 9/22/93.)

Ex-KGB Gen. Oleg Kalugin arrested in Londonfor alleged complicity in murder of Bulgariandissident Georgi Markov. (RFE/RL News Briefs2:45 (1-5 Nov 1993), 2; The Guardian, 11/2/93;N. Gevoykyan, “General Kalugin Arrested inLondon,” Moscow News, 11/5/93.)

Widow of Kim Philby has reportedly decided tosell his literary and personal archives; materialsanalyzed. (A. Krivopalov, “The Archives of KimPhilby Might Be Auctioned,” Izvestia, 11/17/93;see also Ron Rosenbaum, “Kim Philby and theAge of Paranoia,” The New York Times Magazine(7/10/94), 28-37, 50, 53-54.)

KGB records suggest Soviet spy agency neverfully trusted Philby or fellow British spies in theCambridge circle; detailed story in GenrikhBorovik, ed. and intro. by Phillip Knightley, ThePhilby Files (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994). (StuartWavell, “KGB files reveal Philby was not trustedby Russians,” The Sunday Times (London), 8/21/94, 1:3, and Genrikh Borovik and PhillipKnightley, “The Spy Nobody Believed,” TheSunday Times (London), 8/21/94, 4:1-2.)

Ex-KGB Major Viktor Sheimov describes es-cape from USSR with CIA aid in 1980. (D.

UPDATE


Radushevsky, “Escape of the Century,” MoscowNews 49, 11/19/93, 14.)

Author discusses CIA’s 1981 secret operation“Ivy Bells” in Sea of Okhotsk. (N. Burbiga, “AFishy Day at the CIA,” Izvestia, 3/1/94.)

Ex-spy Oleg Nechiporenko discusses arrest ofAldrich Ames in context of US-Soviet intelli-gence dealings in 1980s. (V. Ivanidze, “The Scan-dal about a Mole in the CIA from the Point ofView of Russian Intelligence,” Izvestia, 3/2/94.)

St. Petersburg mayor Anatolii Sobchak allegesthat nationalist politician Vladimir Zhironovskyholds the rank of KGB captain and that Gorbachevsaid in 1990 that the KGB created Zhirinovsky’sLiberal Democratic Party. (Chas pik (St. Peters-burg) 1 (1994), cited in RFE/RL News Briefs 3:4(10-21 Jan 1994), 5.)

Report on KGB archives. (A. Knight, “The Fateof the KGB Archives,” Slavic Review 52:3 (Fall1993), 582-6.)

Controversy erupts over charge by former Sovietintelligence official Pavel Sudoplatov that lead-ing Western scientists, including J.RobertOppenheimer, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and LeoSzilard, knowingly passed secret atomic data toMoscow. See: Pavel Sudoplatov and AnatoliSudoplatov with Jerrold L. and Leona P.Schechter, foreward by Robert Conquest, Spe-cial Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Wit-ness—A Soviet Spymaster (Boston: Little, Brown,& Co., 1994), esp. chap. 7 (“Atomic Spies”)(excerpt printed in Time, 4/25/94, 64-72); Will-iam J. Broad, “Book Charges Creators Of A-Bomb Aided Soviets,” NYT, 4/19/94; RichardBernstein, “Culling History From Propaganda,”NYT Week-in-Review, 4/24/94; Priscilla JohnsonMcMillan, “They Weren’t Spies,” WP, 4/26/94;William J. Broad, “Physicists Try to DiscreditBook Asserting Atom Architects Spies,” NYT, 5/1/94; Jerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter, “In De-fense of Gen. Sudoplatov’s Story,” WP, 5/2/94;Priscilla Johnson McMillan, “‘Atomic Spies’(Cont’d),” WP, 5/3/94; Richard Rhodes, “AtomicSpies, or Atomic Lies?” and Amy Knight, “TheMan Who Wasn’t There,” NYT, 5/3/94; PaulQuinn-Judge, “Ex-Soviet spy stirs debate,” Bos-ton Globe, 5/8/94; Edward Teller, “Scientists, notspies,” Wall Street Journal, 5/11/94, A14; F.A.S.Public Interest Report: Journal of the Federationof American Scientists 47:3 (May/June 1994),passim; F.A.S. Public Interest Report: Journal ofthe Federation of American Scientists 47:4 (July/Aug. 1994), 5-8, 13-15; David Holloway,“Charges of Espionage,” Science 264 (5/27/94),1346-47; Thomas Powers, “Were the AtomicScientists Spies?” The New York Review of Books41:11 (6/9/94), 10-17; letter from Jerrold L. andLeona P. Schecter, response by Thomas Powers,

“‘Were the Atom Scientists Spies?’—An Ex-change,” New York Review of Books 41:15 (9/22/94), 72-4; “Traduced,” The Economist, 6/11/94,89-90; Matthew Campbell, “KGB files show topscientist gave Stalin nuclear secrets,” The SundayTimes (London), 6/26/94, 17; Priscilla JohnsonMcMillan, “Flimsy Memories,” and SergeiLeskov, “An Unreliable Witness,” The Bulletinof the Atomic Scientists 50:4 (July/August 1994),30-33, 33-36; letters to editor, The Bulletin of theAtomic Scientists 50:5 (Sept./Oct. 1994), 3, 59-60; Roald Sagdeev, “How the Soviets Got theBomb,” Popular Science, Aug. 1994, 28-31, 74-75; Eric Breindel, “A Case of Book Burning,”National Review, 8/29/94, 36-38.)

Publications: Oleg Kalugin with Fen Montaigne,The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelli-gence and Espionage Against the West (NewYork: St. Martin’s Press, 1994); Yevgenia Albats,The State Within A State: The KGB and Its Holdon Russia—Past, Present and Future (New York:Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1994).

Archives Developments

Survey of Russian state archives, including guideto regional records centers. (“The System ofArchives of the Federal Government and Centersof Document Storage/Preservation,” HistoricalArchives 1 (1993), 222-23.)

Ministry of Foreign Affairs resumes Documentson Foreign Affairs series after 12-year hiatuswith volume on 1939 events. (“The Next Volumeof ‘Documents on Foreign Affairs,’” Vestnik 9-10 (May 1993).)

Internal documents inform account of crucialyears in the journal Historical Archives’ history.(V. Esakov, “The Fate of a Journal: HistoricalArchives in 1955-62,” Historical Archives 1(1992), 194-211.)

Hoover Institution transfers 4,640 microfilm reelsof documents to State Archives of Russian Fed-eration as part of 1992 agreement to exchangearchival materials. (A. Krylovich, “AmericanInstitute Gives Documents to Russian Archives,”TASS, 21 May 1993.)

Author notes pitfalls of research in military ar-chives, says no more than 15 percent of materialsopened. (E. Moskal, “Military History: Problemsand Perspectives of its Study,” New and NewestHistory 5 (1993), 249-51.)

Russian archives head discusses impact of newlaw on researcher access. (V. Nikolaeva, “FromPeter’s Regulations to the Law on Archives,”Izvestia, 6/3/93.)

Russian historian who investigated victims of

Stalin’s purges gives critical account of currentresearch conditions in Moscow. (“Hinter siebenSiegeln. Nach wie vor kein Zugang zu denArchiven des KGB. Interview mit dem russischenHistoriker Dmitri Jurassov” [“Behind SevenSeals: Like before, no Entrance to the KGBArchives: An Interview with Russian HistorianDmitri Jurassov”], DA 7 (July 1993), 868-72.)

Despite new law, bureaucratic and financial ob-stacles could hamper access to archives. (V.Rudnev, “Law on Archives Removes Barriers toResearchers,” Izvestia, 7/14/93, 5.)

Yeltsin returns text of law on secrecy to parlia-ment committee on security, saying it inadequatelyprotects citizens’ rights to state secrets. (N.Gevoykyan, “Yeltsin Does Not Sign Law onState Secrets,” Moscow News 36 (9/3/93).)

Six scholars express concern that access might becut off to newly created center for CPSU partyarchives. (“When they struggle with the Archives,Society Suffers,” Izvestia, 9/9/93.)

Russian archive head Pikhoia rebuts charges ofselling original documents abroad. (“RussianArchive Report Denies Selling DocumentsAbroad,” Mayak Radio, Moscow, 10/17/93.)

Status reports on Russian archives presented at a6/15/93 Records Policy seminar held at the For-eign & Commonwealth Office in London.(Jonathan Haslam, “The Use of Russian Archivesfor the Study of Soviet Foreign Policy,” andRichard Bevins, “Note on Russian Archives,” inFCO Historical Branch Occasional Papers No. 7:Changes in British and Russian Records Policy(London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office,Historical Branch, Nov. 1993), 17-19, 33-38.)

Director of “Gosteleradionfond” audio-video ar-chives Yuri Kornilov was arrested for allegedlyaccepting a US $5,000 bribe from a US firm(“USSU Art Group”) for access to a collection.(RFE/RL News Briefs 2:47 (15-19 Nov 1993), 6-7, citing Moskovskie novosti 46 andKomsomolskya pravda, 11/11/93.)

Yeltsin orders creation of commission to bechaired by Dmitrii Volkogonov to investigatefates of foreigners and Russian who disappearedwithin Soviet Union’s borders during the ColdWar. (V. Rudnev, “Russia Continues to Search,”Izvestia, 10/28/93.)

Volkogonov says US-Russian commission onPOWs/MIAs has determined that no Americanswere detained in Russia today; says RussianSecurity Ministry was opening relevant files, butacknowledges mid-level officials treat the com-mission negatively. (“Volkogonov: No U.S. MIAsForced to Stay,” Interfax, Moscow, 12/8/93.)

UPDATE


Malcolm Toon, co-chair of commission, reportsthat Soviet pilots in Korean War tried to downU.S. F-86 fighter jets safely and two were cap-tured and brought to Moscow; question remainswhether more important data awaits discovery inRussian archives. (R. Boudreaux, “U.S. GetsNew Leads in Search for MIAs,” Los AngelesTimes, 12/9/93, A4.)

US-Russian commission chair Volkogonov re-moved, then reinstated, as head of commissionas well as presidential adviser. (RFE/RL NewsBriefs 3:5 (24-28 Jan 1994), 6, citing Itar-Tass, 1/25/94 and Interfax, 1/28/94.)

In 11/12/93 classified cable, Russian officialsare quoted as saying State Department discour-aged them from releasing full data about Viet-nam-era US POWs because of possible harm toRusso-US ties; State Department denies report.(Steven Greenhouse, “New Doubts Cast OnP.O.W. Effort,” NYT, 2/18/94, A5.)

US-Russian commission holds 10th session, re-ports on results. (Valeriy Rudnev, “Joint SearchFOR MIA’s: Americans Obtain List of ‘KozelskConvoy’, We Get ‘Klaus Dossier,’” Izvestia, 6/4/94, and Moscow Itar-Tass, 6/3/94, FBIS-SOV-94-109 (6/7/94), 13-14.)

Article analyzes state of archival affairs in Rus-sia from August 1991 coup through early 1993.(Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, “The Russian Ar-chives During the Transition,” New and NewestHistory, Jan.-Feb. 1994, 63-83.)

Additional reports on archival research in Mos-cow, published in Germany. (Jan Foitzik, “ZurSituation in Mokauer Archiven” [“The Situationin the Moscow Archives”], and Elke Scherstjanoi,“Neue russische Zeitschriften” [“New RussianPeriodicals,”], in Arbeitsbereich DDR-Geschichte—Zentrum fuer EuropaeischeSozialforschung der Universitaet Mannheim,eds., Jahrbuch fuer Historische Kommunism-usforschung 1993 [Yearbook for Research onCommunism 1993] (Berlin, 1993); WladislawHedeler, “Russische Archivzeitschriften,Schriftenreihen und Findbuecher” [“Russian Ar-chival Journals, Series, and Finding Aids”], ZfG8 (Aug. 1994), 723-25; Stefan Creuzberger andRuud Veltmeijer, “Forschungsarbeit in MoskauerArchiven,” Osteuropa 3 (1993); WladislawHedeler, “Neue russische Archiv zeitschriften”[“New Russian Archive Periodicals”], ZfG 2(Feb. 1994), 158-9, and “Neue russische Archivzeitschriften und Schriftenreihen” [“New Rus-sian Archive Periodicals and Written Volumes”],ZfG 5 (May 1994), 440-1.

Archives head Pikhoia announces pact requiringMoscow to return to France over 20 tons ofdocuments seized at the end of World War II.

(“Moscow returns to Paris Six and One-HalfKilometers of Secret Archives,” Izvestia, 2/4/94.)

Interview with senior Russian archival official V.Kozlovyim. (E. Maksimova, “The Treasures ofRussia are Being Scattered all over the World,”Izvestia, 2/16/94.)

Despite legal complications, scientist-dissidentAndrei Sakharov’s archives near public opening.(M. Lebedeva, “The Sakharov Archives are Open-ing,” Izvestia, 5/21/94.)

Complaints voiced about preferential treatmentgiven some persons for access to materials inRussian Presidential Archives. (Ella Maksimova,“Merchants of Sensations from the PresidentialArchives,” Izvestia 131 (7/13/94); letters in re-sponse from D. Volkogonov and S. Cohen,Izvestia, 7/19/94, 8/17/94.)

Azerbaijan

Interview with Atakhan Musayev, head of theMain Archive Administration of the AzerbaijanRepublic Cabinet of Ministers. (AghaguluNiftaliyev, “Without Archives, There Is No His-tory,” Khalg Gazeti (Baku), 10/13/93, in FBISReport: Central Eurasia, 1/27/94.)

Belarus

Author assesses KGB’s role in Byelorussia in1990-91. (A. Starikevich, “Belarus: Back in theUSSR,” Izvestia, 2/24/94.)

Latvia

Police arrest former KGB chief (until 1956) AlfonsNoviks on charges of conducting mass tortures,executions, and deportations after World War II.(Reuters dispatch, 3/17/94, cited in RFE/RL NewsBriefs 3:12 (14-18 March 1994), 20.)

Lithuania

Politburo records from 5-6 March 1990 on discus-sion of “urgent measures” on Lithuania’s plans toleave USSR. (A. Chernovin, “How they OpposedLithuania’s Secession from the USSR,” Histori-cal Archives (Moscow) 1 (1992), 3-5.)

Documents disclose plans to capture high-rank-ing Lithuanian government officials during win-ter 1991 crisis in Vilnius. (N. Lashkevich, “TheManeuvers of Defense Minister Achalov at theVilnius TV Tower,” Izvestia, 10/21/93.)

Moldova

Newly released documents from Moldova Secu-rity Ministry, Russian state, and CPSU partyarchives illuminate repression in Moldova in 1930-

50. (V. Pasat, “Deportation from Moldova,”Svobodnaya Mysl’ 3 (1993), 52-61.)

Ukraine

Internal documents from CPSU archives, includ-ing memos of Central Committee of UkrainianCommunist Party, on Soviet leadership’s treat-ment of Crimean Tartars. (O.V. Volobuyev,“The Crimean-Tartar Issue According to CPSUDocuments (From the Late 1950s to the Mid-1980s),” Otechestvennaya Istoriia (Moscow),Jan.-Feb. 1994, 157-69.)

Bulgaria

Look at secret services examines reasons for“sketchy” accounts of past activities, charges ofinvolvement in attacks on Pope John Paul II,dissidents. (Kjell Engelbrekt, “Reinventing theBulgarian Secret Services,” RFE/RL ResearchReport 2:47 (11/26/93), 41-49.)

Bulgarian parliament on 12/1/93 votes to reopendebate on whether to declassify secret policefiles; Union of Democratic Forces legislator whoproposed action describes files as a time bombwhich should detonate “the sooner the better.”(BTA cited in RFE/RL News Briefs 2:49 (29 Nov-3 Dec 1993), 17.) Intelligence agency chiefs,Interior and Defense ministers oppose releasingfiles, say much documentation already destroyed.(RFE/RL News Briefs 2:49 (29 Nov-3 Dec 1993),20.) Parliament votes on 12/9/93 by 104-85 (16abstentions) to declassify state security files overopposition of Bulgarian Socialist Party. (RFE/RLNews Briefs 2:50 (6-10 Dec 1993), 20.) Detailedreview of politically-charged debate (“War of theFiles”) over fate of Bulgarian state security ar-chives. (Kjell Engelbrekt, “Bulgaria’s State Se-curity Archives: Toward a Compromise?” RFE/RL Research Report 3:5 (Feb. 1994), 21-27.)

Communist archives yield details of covert Bul-garian military and financial aid to revolutionary,guerrilla, and communist parties in Third Worldduring Cold War, researchers report. (RaymondBonner, “Arms for the Revolution: The BulgariaConnection,” NYT, 1/27/94, A3.)

Former Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic/Slovakia

Milos Barta, Ondrej Felcman, Josef Belda, andVojtech Mencl present essays on 1968 events onbasis of documents collected by the CSFR Gov-ernment Commission for the Analysis of theEvents of 1967-1970. Ceskoslovensko roku 1968:2.dil: pocatky normalizace (Prague: UstavMezinarodnich Vztahu, 1993).

Reassessment of Prague Spring after a quarter-century. (Milos Barta, “The 1968 Reform Move-

UPDATE


ment in Czechoslovakia Reconsidered,” Perspec-tives 1:93 (Institute of International Relations,Prague), 69-79.)

Soudobe Dejiny [Contemporary History] 1 (1993)contains several analyses of aspects of the 1968crisis, including contemporary documents, as wellas a report on the work of the government com-mission set up after the 1989 revolution to collectdocuments on the events: Jan Mechyr, “Na okrajlegendy roku 1968” [“Marginalia on the Legendof 1968”], pp. 11-23; Antonin Bencik, “LudvikSvoboda a srpen 1968” [“Ludvik Svoboda andAugust 1968”], pp. 24-43; J.V., “Fond republiky”[“The Fund of the Republic”], pp. 79-82; J.V.,“Posledni projev Frantiska Kriegla” [“FrantisekKriegel’s Last Speech”], pp. 83-86; FrantisekJanacek and Marie Michalkova, “Pribeh zvacihodopisu” [“The Story of the Letter of Invitation”],pp. 87-101; Josef Belda, “Komise vlady CSFRpro analyzu udalosti let 1967-1970” [“The Gov-ernment Commission for the Analysis of theEvents of 1967-1970”], pp. 129-33.

Soudobe Dejiny 2-3 (1994) contains several re-sponses to a previous issue’s article (Jan Mechyr,“Na okraj legendy roku 1968,” Soudobe dejiny 1/1993) highly critical of the Prague Spring: JosefBelda, Antonin Bencik, Vaclav Kural, “Mistotzv. legend legendy?” [“New ‘Legends’ to Re-place Old Ones?”], pp. 338-49; Lubomir Brokl,“Cim byl a cim zustal osmasedesaty?” [“WhatWas and Is 1968?”], pp. 350-56; Jiri Vancura, “Klegende 1968” [“On the Legend of 1968”], pp.357-58; author of original article responds tocritics: Jan Mechyr, “O necem jinem (?)” [“AMisunderstanding (?)”], pp. 359-64.

Russian archival head R. Pikhoia gave CzechPresident Havel a second batch of Soviet docu-ments pertaining to the 1968 invasion of Czecho-slovakia, including the transcript of an 8/13/68telephone conversation between Brezhnev andDubcek. (“Brezhnev warned Dubcek,” The Eu-ropean, 4/22/94, 2.)

Story of Pavel Minarizh, accused of spying un-dercover for the Czechoslovak secret policeagainst Radio Free Europe from April 1970-June1975 and involvement in plots to blow up theMunich station. (O. Dimitrieva, “He Laid theMine Under the ‘Free Europe,’” KomsomolskayaPravda (Moscow), 12/15/93.)

Analysis of secondary accounts and memoirs of1989 revolution. (Jana Svobodova, “Listopadovarevoluce v ceske literature a tisku” [“The Novem-ber Revolution in Czech Literature and in theCzech Press”], Soudobe Dejiny 1 (1993), 109-118; Oldrich Tuma, “Vzpominky na listopad”[“November in Memoirs”], Soudobe Dejiny 2-3(1994), 374-80.)

Czech Interior Minister Jan Ruml contemplatesopening files of former secret police, says draftlegislation ready since 1992. (RFE/RL News Briefs3:3 (27 Dec 1993-4 Jan 1994), 14.)

Prague court sentences two former police offi-cers to terms of 3 and 3.5 years for beatingstudents in 11/17/89 protest that sparked revolu-tion against communist rule. (RFE/RL News Briefs3:9 (21-25 Feb 1994), 19.

Slovakian Interior Minister complains about dif-ficulties obtaining archives of former Czechoslo-vakian secret police (StB). (“Ladislav Pittner’sDissatisfaction, or Who Has the Archives of theFormer StB?” Narodna Obroda (Bratislava), 3/18/94, in FBIS-EEU-94-055 (3/22/94), 16.)

Germany/Former East Germany

Report on concentration camp system in Soviet-occupied Germany, using Russian archival data,as part of joint project of Institute for History andBiography at Fern University at Hagen, Histori-cal Institute at University of Jena, and BuchenwaldMemorial. (Bodo Ritscher, “Zur Herausbildungund Organisation des Systems von Speziallagernds NKVD der UdSSR in der sowjetischenBesatzungszone Deutschland im Jahre 1945” [“Onthe Evolution and Organization of the System ofSpecial Camps of the NKVD of the USSR in theSoviet Occupied Zone of Germany in 1945”], DA6 (June 1994), 723-35.)

Report on pressure put on CDU LandesverbandesBerlin in 1948 by the Soviet Military Administra-tion. (Michael Richter, “Die Teilung des CDU-Landesverbandes Berlin 1948” [“The Split of theCDU Land Union of Berlin 1948”], DA 7 (July1994), 729-37.)

New evidence on church politics and state ofreligious affairs in postwar eastern Germany.(Clemens Vollnhals, “Zwischen Kooperation undKonfrontation. Zur Kirchenpolitik von KPD/SED und SMAD in der SowjetischenBesatzungzone 1945-1949” [“Between Coopera-tion and Confrontation: On the Church Policiesof the KPD/SED of the KPD/SED and the SovietMilitary Administration in the Soviet Zone ofOccupation in Germany 1945-1949”], DA 5 (May1994), 478-90.)

GDR archives indicate that German Peoples’Congress (1946-49) fed East Germans’ illusionof national unity while quietly advancing sepa-ratism, author reports. (Manfred Overesch, “DDR:des deutschen Mutterland?” [“GDR: the GermanMotherland?”], Die Zeit 20 (5/20/94).

Documentary record of early 1947 meeting inMoscow between SED delegation (Pieck,Grotewohl, Fechner, and Ulbricht) and Kremlin

leaders, including Stalin and Molotov. (BerndBonwetsch and Gennadij Bordiugov, “Stalin unddie SBZ. Ein Besuch der SED-Fuehrung in Mos-cow vom 30 January-7 February 1947” [“Stalinand the Soviet Zone. Visit by the SED Leadershipto Moscow from January 30 to February 7, 1947”],VfZ 2 (April 1994), 279-304.)

Report, based on Russian archives, on Sovietmilitary policies in occupied Germany/East Ger-many, 1947-52. (Gerhard Wettig, “NeueErkenntnisse aus sowjetischen Geheim-dokumenten uber den militarischen Aufbau derSBZ/DDR 1947-1952,” MilitargeschichtlicheMitteilungen 53 (1994), 199-219.)

Report on how change in East-West relations in1947 affected Soviet policy in Germany, particu-larly in dealings with German communists.(Gerhard Wettig, “Die KPD als Instrumentsowjetischer Deutschland-Politik. Festlegungen1949 und Implementierungen 1952,” DA 8 (Aug.1994), 816-29.) Same historian analyzes USSRviews on Germany’s division. (Wettig, “All-Ger-man Unity and East German Separation in SovietPolicy,” Jahrbuch für Kommunism-usforschung(Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1994), 120-139.)

SED archival documents disclose details of poli-cies on German POWs held by USSR, 1949-55.(Beate Ihme-Tuchel, “Die SED und die deutschenKriegsgefangenen in der Sowjetunion zwischen1949 und 1955” [“The SED and the GermanPrisoners of War in the Soviet Union between1949 and 1955”], DA 5 (May 1994), 490-503.)

Rise of student self-government at one of themost influential East German universities afterWorld War II. (Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, “Diestudentische Selbstverwaltung an der BerlinerUniversitaet nach 1945” [“Student Self-Govern-ment at the Berlin University after 1945”], DA 8(Aug. 1993), 915-27.)

Archival documents illuminate early history ofGDR youth organizations. (Hermann Wentker,“Kirchenkampf in der DDR. Der Konflikt um dieJunge Gemeinde 1950-1953,” VfZ 1 (Jan. 1994),95-128; and Torsten Diedrich, “Dienst fuerDeutschland” [“Service for Germany”], DA 8(830-41.)

Assessment of early Swedish-GDR relations, us-ing Swedish and German archives, includingpapers of Swedish foreign minister (1945-62)Osten Unden. (Michael Scholz, “Osten Undenund die DDR. Schwedische Deutschlandpolitikin den fuenfziger Jahren” [“Osten Unden and theGDR: Sweden’s German Policy in the Fifties”],VfZ 3 (July 1993), 391-418.)

Using SED, Stasi records, historian recounts caseof ex-SED Central Committee member Paul

UPDATE


Merker, expelled from the party and arrested asan alleged Western spy in the 1950s; SED perse-cution of Merker laid in part to his sympathies forJewish causes. (“Der Geheimprozess” [“TheSecret Process”] (Die Zeit 41 (10/14/94), 7-8.)

More debate on 1952 Stalin Notes: ManfredKittel, “Genesis einer Legend. Die Discussionum die Stalin-Noten in der Bundesrepublik 1952-1958”) [“Genesis of a Legend: The Stalin Notesin the German Debate on Reunification, 1952-1958”), VfZ 3 (July 1993), 355-90; MichaelGehler, “Kurzvertrag fuer Oesterreich? Diewestliche Staatsvertrags-Diplomatie und dieStalin-Noten von 1952” [“Abbreviated Treatyfor Austria? West Allied Policy in Light of theStalin Notes of 1952”], VfZ 2 (April 1994), 243-79; Gerhard Wettig, “Die Deutschland—Notevom 10.Maerz auf der Basis diplomatischer Aktendes russischen Aussenministeriums” [“The Ger-many Note of 10 March 1952 on the Basis ofDiplomatic Files from the Russian Foreign Min-istry”], DA 7 (July 1993), 786-805; ElkeScherstjanoi, “Zur aktuellen Debatte um dieStalin-Note 1952” [“On the Actual Debate Re-garding the Stalin Note of 1952”], DA 2 (Feb.1994), 181-5; Gerhard Wettig, Elke Scherstjanoi,in “Neue Gesichtspunkte zur sowjetischen Maerz-Note von 1952?” [“New Points of View on theSoviet Note from March 1952?”], DA 4 (April1994), 416-21; Gerhard Wettig, “Stalin and Ger-man Reunification: Archival Evidence on SovietForeign Policy in Spring 1952,” Historical Jour-nal (Cambridge, Eng.) 37:2 (1994), 411-419;Wettig, “Die Deutschland-Note vom 10. Marz1952 nach sowjetischen Akten,” DieDeutschlandfrage von der staatlichen Teilungbis zum Tode Stalina, Studien zurDeutschlandfrage, Vol. 13 (Berlin: Duncker &Humblot, 1994), 83-111.

Reports on Beria’s Germany policy followingStalin’s death: Gerhard Wettig, “Zum Stand derForschung ueber Berijas Deutschland-Politik imFruehjahr 1953” [“On the State of Research onBeria’s Germany Policy in Early 1953”], DA 6(June 1993), 674-82 (and in Die Deutschlandfragevon der staatlichen Teilung bis zum Tode Stalina,Studien zur Deutschlandfrage, Vol. 13 (Berlin:Duncker & Humblot, 1994), 183-205); WilfriedeOtto, “Sowjetische Deutschlandpolitik 1952/53—Forschungs-und Wahrheitsprobleme” [“So-viet German Policy 1952/53—Research andTruth Problems”], DA 8 (Aug. 1993), 948-54;“Der Berija Plan und ein chiffriertes Telegramm.Hermann Axen ueber die deutschlandpolitischeProblematik im Jahre 1953. Auszuege aus einemGespraech mit Prof. Dr. Harald Neubert” [“TheBeria Plan and a Ciphered Telegram: HermannAxen on the Problem of Germany in 1953: Ex-cerpts from a Conversation with Prof. Dr. HaraldNeubert”], Neues Deutschland, 6/25/93.

SED archives inform reassessment of 1953 EastGerman refugee crisis, contrasting GDR, FRG,and U.S. perceptions. (Valur Ingimundarson,“Cold War Misperceptions: The Communist andWestern Responses to the East German RefugeeCrisis in 1953,” Journal of Contemporary History29:3 (July 1994), 463-81.)

State of research on June 1953 GDR uprising.(Ilse Spittmann, “Zum 40. Jahrestag des 17.Juni”[“On the 40th Anniversary of the 17th of June”],DA 6 (June 1993), 635-9.) On West Berlin’sreaction. (Manfred Rexin, “Der 16. un 17.Juni1953 in West-Berlin” [“The 16th and 17th of June1953 in West Berlin”], DA 8 (Aug. 1993), 985-94.) Revolt’s consequences for a Soviet financialenterprise. (Heidi Roth, “Die SAG-Betriebe undder 17.Juni 1953” [“The Soviet Joint Stock Com-pany Operations and the 17th of June 1953”], DA5 (May 1993), 531-6.) The uprising in Magdeburg,and details of the case of Ernst Jennrich, executedon 3/20/54. (Karl Wilhelm Fricke, “Todesstrafefuer Magdeburger ‘Provokateur’” [“Death Sen-tence for Magdeburg “Provocateur”], DA 5 (May1993), 527-31.) Memoirs of a man who joined theStasi out of high school rather than participatingin uprising. (Anonymous, “1953 fing alles an....”[“It all began in 1953...”], DA 7 (July 1993), 846-55.) Events during uprising in GDR district ofCottbus. (Andreas Peter, “Der Juni Aufstand imBezirk Cottbus” [“The June 1953 Uprising in theCottbus District”], DA 6 (June 1994), 585-94.)Details of case of Erna Dorn, only woman sen-tenced to death and executed for her part inuprising, as well as her previous activity as Ge-stapo agent. (Jens Ebert and Insa Eschenbach,“Raedelsfuehrerin’ und ‘SS-Kommandeuse’—Erna Dorn und der 17. Juni 1953.” [Ringleaderand SS-Commander: Erna Dorn and the 17th ofJune 1953], DA 6 (June 1994), 595-9; also Ebertand Eschenbach, eds., Die Kommandeuse. ErnaDorn zwischen Nationalsozialismus und KaltemKrieg [The Commander: Erna Dorn—BetweenNational Socialism and the Cold War] (Berlin:Dietz Verlag, 1994); on Western diplomacy andthe uprising, see Klaus Larres, “‘Neutralisierungoder Westintegration? Churchill, Adenauer, dieUSA und der 17. Juni 1953” [Neutralization orIntegration with the West? Churchill, Adenauer,the USA and the 17th of June 1953], DA 6 (June1994), 568-85.

Account of 1955 civil disobedience and stateresponse in the GDR. (Waldemar Kroenig andKlaus-Dieter Mueller, “Der GreifswalderStudentenstreik 1955” [“The 1955 GreifswaldStudent Strike”], DA 5 (May 1994), 517-25.)

Scientists’ part in GDR brain-drain of ’50s re-counted. (John Connelly, “Zur ‘Republikflucht’von DDR-Wissenschaftlern in den fuenfzigerJahren” [“On the Flight of Scientists from theGDR in the 1950s”], ZfG 4 (April 1994), 331-52.)

SED efforts to obtain Yugoslav recognition ofGDR. (Beate Ihme-Tuchel, “Die Bemuehen derSED um die staatliche Anerkennung durchJugoslawien 1956/57” [“The Efforts of the SEDfor Yugoslavian State Recogition 1956/57”], ZfG8 (Aug. 1994), 695-702.)

Assessment of SED policies toward East Germanyouth during climax of Berlin crisis, includingUlbricht 8/22/61 speech to SED politburo. (UlrichMaehlert, “Walter Ulbricht ueber die Aufgabender FDJ im August 1961” [“Walter Ulbricht onthe Duties of the Free German Youth in August1961”], DA 8 (Aug. 1994), 890-93.)

Citing dispute at leading East Berlin university,authors recount relaxation of GDR internal stric-tures following Wall’s erection. (Ulrike Breschand Gert Noack, “‘Freiheit in Socializmus.’ EinStreitgespraech an der Humboldt-Universitaet zuBerlin 1963” [“‘Freedom in Socialism.’ A Dis-pute at the Berlin Humboldt University in 1963”],ZfG 7 (July 1993), 605-21.)

Reports on case of Herbert Wehner, leading WestGerman Social Democrat accused of being Stasiagent in FRG government. (Klaus Wiegrefe andCarsten Tessmer, “Deutschlandpolitik in derKrise. Herbert Wehners Besuch in der DDR1973” [German Policy in Crisis: Herbert Wehner’sVisit in the GDR, 1973”], DA 6 (June 1994), 600-627; “Die SED-Kapagne gegen Herbert Wehner”[“The SED’s Campaign against HerbertWehner”], DA 4 (April 1994), 345-54; HermannWeber, “Die Taeter-Opfer-Problematik” [“ThePerpetrator-Victim Problematic”], DA 8 (August1993), 955-61; “Ich bin ohne Nachsicht” [“I amwithout pity”], Der Spiegel, 1/24/94, 20-27;“Lange Nacht in der Lubjanka” [“Long Night inLubyanka”], Der Spiegel, 1/10/94, 58-64.)

Protocol of August 1976 Honecker-Brezhnevmeeting, from GDR archives. (Klaus Wiegrefe,“Honecker und Brezhnev auf der Krim. EineAufzeichnung ueber das Treffen von 19. August1976” [Honecker and Brezhnev in the Crimea. AProtocol of the Meeting of the 19th of August1976”], VfZ 4 (Oct. 1993), 589-621.)

Analysis of Honecker years. (Peter Bender, “DerLetzte deutsche Kommunist” [“The Last GermanCommunist”], Die Zeit 23 (6/10/94), 5.)

Analysis of GDR policies toward Conference onSecurity and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).(Hans Voss, “Die Konferenz fuer Sicherheit undZusammenarbeit in Europa und die DDR” [“TheConference on Security and Cooperation in Eu-rope and the GDR”], ZfG 12 (Dec. 1993), 1061-70.) For another look at the GDR and CSCE,based on SED archives, see Erhard Crome andJochen Franzke, “Die SED-Fuehrung und dieWiener KSZE-Konferenz 1986-1989” [“The SED

UPDATE


Leadership and the Vienna CSCE Process 1986-1989”], DA 8 (Aug. 1993), 905-914.

Notes found in GDR archive of 10-11 Nov. 1986socialist bloc conference in which Gorbachevprivately broke from Brezhnev doctrine, affirm-ing “independence of the party in each country,their right to make sovereign decisions, their ownresponsibility toward their own people,” and stat-ing that the USSR would not intervene to keepsocialist leaderships in power. (Reprinted withcommentary by Daniel Kuechenmeister and Gerd-Ruediger Stephan, ZfG 8 (Aug. 1994), 713-21.)

Analysis of Gorbachev’s policies on Germanunification, using transcripts and correspondencefrom SED archives to illuminate his contacts withHonecker. (Hannes Adomeit, “‘Midwife of His-tory’ or ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’? Gorbachev,German Unification and the Collapse of Empire”(forthcoming in Post-Soviet Affairs).)

German translation of two documents from CPSUCC archives dealing with Soviet relations withthe PDS, hand-over of SED archives toBundesarchiv, authored by Valentin Falin (10/18/90) and Nikolai Portugalov (3/13/91). (VeraAmmer, trans., “Streng geheim!” [“Top Secret!”],DA 2 (Feb. 1994), 222-4.)

Publications: Manfred Wilke, Peter Erler, HorstLaude, eds., “Nach Hitler kommen wir.”Dokumente zur Programmatik der MoskauerKPD-Fuehrung 1944/45 fuer Nachkriegs-deutschland [“After Hitler We Come”: Docu-ments on the Program of the Moscow KPD Lead-ership from 1944-45 for Germany after the War](Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1994); GerhardKeiderling, ed., “Gruppe Ulbricht” in BerlinApril bis Juni 1945. Von den Vorbereitungen imSommer 1944 bis zur Wiedergruendung der KPDim Juni 1945 [The “Ulbricht Group” in Berlinfrom April-June 1945: From the Early Prepara-tions in the Summer of 1944 until the Re-Found-ing of the KPD in 1945] (Berlin: Verlag ArnoSpitz GmbH. Berlin, 1993); Guenter Benser andHans-Joachim Krusch, eds., Dokumente zurGeschichte der kommunistischen Bewegung inDeutschland, Bd. 1: Protokolle des Secretariatsdes ZK der KPD Juli 1945 bis April 1946 [Docu-ments on the Communist Movement in Germany,Part 1: Protocols of the Central Committee of theGerman Communist Party from July 1945 toApril 1946] (Munich, 1993); Alexander Fischer,ed., Studien zur Geschichte der SBZ/DDR(Schriftenreihe der Gesellschaft fuer Deutschland-forschung 38) [Studies on the History of theSoviet Zone/GDR: Series of the Society for Re-search on Germany 38] (Berlin: Verlag Duncker& Humbolt, 1993); Norman M. Naimark, TheSoviet Occupation of Germany (Cambridge, MA.:Harvard University Press, forthcoming in 1995);Rolf Badstubner and Wilfried Loth, eds., Wilhelm

Pieck-Aufzeichnungen zur Deutschlandpolitik1945-1953 [Wilhelm Pieck—Notes on GermanPolicy 1945-1953] (Berlin: Akademie VerlagGmbH, 1994); Hans-Adolf Jacobsen andMieczylaw Tomala, eds., Bonn-Warschau 1945-1991. Die deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen.Analyse und Dokumentation [Bonn-Warsaw1945-1991: German-Polish Relations: Analysesand Documentation] (Cologne: Verlag Wissen-schaft, 1992); A.M. Filitov, The German Ques-tion: From Division to Unity (Moscow: Interna-tional Relations, 1993); Thomas Baumann, DasVerhaeltnis der KPD und der amerikanischenBesatzungsmacht in Deutschland 1945-1949 [TheRelationship between the German CommunistParty and the American Occupation Forces inGermany 1945-1949] (Mannheim: UniversitaetMannheim, 1994); Bruno Thoss, Volksarmeeschaffen—ohne Geschrei!! Studien zu denAnfaengen einer “verdeckten Aufruestung in derSBZ/DDR 1945-1952 [Provide a People’s Army—without Clamor!! Studies on the Beginnings of aconcealed Rearmament in the Soviet OccupationZone of the GDR from 1945-1952] (Munich:Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994); Joerg Fisch,Reparationen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg [Repa-rations after the Second World War] (Munich:Verlag C.H. Beck, 1992); Rainer Karlsch, Alleinbezahlt? Die Reparationsleistungen der SBZ/DDR 1945-1953 [Paid Alone? The Payment ofReparations in the Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR1945-1953] (Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 1993);Bert Becker, Die DDR und Grossbritannien 1945/1949 bis 1973. Politische, wirtschaftliche undkulturelle Kontakte im Zeichen der Nichtaner-kennungspolitik [The GDR and Great Britainfrom 1945/49 to 1973: Political, Economic, andCultural Contacts as a Symbol of the Non-recog-nition Policy] (Bochum: Universitaetsverlag,1991); Wilfried Loth, Stalins ungeliebtes Kind:Warum Moskau die DDR nicht wollte [Stalin’sunloved Child: Why Moscow Didn’t Want theGDR] (Berlin: Rowohlt-Berlin Verlag GmbH,1994); Elke Scherstjanoi, ed., “Provisorium fuerlaengstens ein Jahr.” Protokoll des KolloquiumsDie Gruendung der DDR [“Provisionary for aYear at the Longest.” The Protocol of the Collo-quium on the Founding of the GDR] (Berlin:Akademie Verlag, 1993); Michael Franzke, ed.,Die ideologische Offensive. Ernst Bloch, SEDund Universitaet [The Ideological Offensive:Ernst Bloch, the SED, and the University](Leipzig: Leipziger Universitaetsverlag o.J.,1993); Juergen Kocka and Martin Sabrow, eds.,Die DDR als Geschichte (Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1994); Hartmut Kaelbe, Juergen Kocka,Hartmut Zwahr, eds, Sozialgeschichte der DDR[Social History of the GDR] (Stuttgart, 1994);Dietmar Keller, Hans Modrow, Herbert Wolf,eds., ANsichten zur Geschichte der DDR [Viewson the History of the GDR], Band 1 (Bonn/Berlin:Verlag Matthias Kirchner, 1993); Armin Mitterand Stefan Wolle, Untergang auf Raten.

Unbekannte Kapitel der DDR-Geschichte [De-cline in Installments: Unknown Chapters of EastGerman History] (Munich: C. BertelsmannVerlag, 1993); Manfred Hagen, DDR—Juni ’53:Die erste Volkserhebung im Stalinismus [GDR—June ’53: The First People’s Uprising in Stalinism](Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1992); Roger Engel-mann and Paul Erker, Annaeherung undAbgrenzung: Aspekte deutsch-deutscherBeziehungen 1956-1969 [Advances and Separa-tion: Aspects of German-German Relations from1956-1969] (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1994); KarlSchirdewan, Aufstand Gegen Ulbricht [Revolu-tion Against Ulbricht] (Berlin: AufbauTaschenbuch Verlag, 1994); Jochen Staadt, Diegeheime Westpolitik der SED 1960-1970 [TheSecret SED Policies Toward the West 1960-1970] (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993); Timo-thy Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name: Germanyand the Divided Continent (New York: RandomHouse, 1993); A. James McAdams, GermanyDivided: From the Wall to Reunification(Princeton University Press, 1993); MarkusMeckel and Martin Gutzeit, eds., Opposition inder DDR. Zehn Jahre kirchliche Friedensarbeit—kommentierte Quellentexte [Opposition in theGDR: Ten Years of the Church Peace Move-ment—Source Texts with Comments] (Cologne:Bund Verlag, 1994); Daniel Kuechenmeister,eds., Honecker-Gorbatschow. Vieraugen-gespraeche [Honecker-Gorbachev: Four Face-to-Face Talks] (Berlin, 1993); ManfredGoertemaker, Unifying Germany 1989-1990(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994); LeopoldSpira, Kommunismus adieu. Eine ideologischeBiographie [Goodbye Communism: An ideo-logical Biography] (Wien/Zurich: Europaverlag,1992); Andreas Herbst, Winfried Ranke, andJuergen Winkler, So funkioniert die DDR. BandI: Lexikon der Institutionen und Organisationen;Band II: Lexikon der Personen [So Functionedthe GDR: Volume I: Lexicon of Institutions andOrganizations; Volume II: Lexicon of Persons](Reinbek: Rohwohlt Verlag, 1994); EberhardSchneider, Die politische Funkionselite der DDR.Eine empirische Studie zur DDR-Nomenklatura[The Political Elites of the GDR: An EmpricalStudy of the SED Nomenclature] (Wiesbaden:Westdeutscher Verlag, 1994).

Stasi/espionage developments/publications

Author recounts kidnapping of over 400 WestGermans from 1949-64 by Stasi’s secret “SectionVIII.” (Joachim Nawrocki, “Die Macht derArbeiterklasse reicht ueber alle Grenzen” [“ThePower of the Working Class Reaches over allBorders”], Die Zeit 32 (8/12/94), 16.)

Report on characteristics of Stasi informers, drawnfrom secret 1962 survey. (Jens Gieseke, “DieHauptamtlichen 1962. Zur Personalstruktur desMinisteriums fuer Staatsicherheit” [“The Main

UPDATE


Officials 1962: On the Personal Structure of theMinistry of State Security,” DA 9 (Sept. 1994),940-53.)

Federal Office of Criminal Investigation reportdiscloses evidence of 24 secret meetings be-tween Stasi, Red Army Faction in 1978-84; 69-page, Aug. 1992 report prepared in connectionwith prosecution of ex-Stasi agents. (Die Welt, 9/12/92, in FBIS-WEU-92-179 (9/15/92), 16.)

Berlin Administrative Court issues mixed deci-sion in suit by Brandenburg Minister PresidentStolpe seeking to bar head of government agencyinvestigating Stasi from “making public valuejudgments” about persons suspected of past Stasities. (Frankfurter Allgemeine, 6/4/93, 4, in FBIS-WEU-93-113 (6/15/93), 40-41.)

Chancellor Helmut Kohl says he favors destruc-tion of Stasi files. (AFP dispatch, 11/15/93.)

Joachim Gauck, head of commission on Stasiarchives, discusses arrangements for making filesavailable. (Der Spiegel 52 (12/27/93).)

Massive Stasi files yield rich historical record,pose vexing political questions. (Kjell Engelbrekt,“The Stasi Revisited,” RFE/RL Research Report2:46 (11/19/93), 19-24.)

Investigators in Stasi files buried by an “ava-lanche” of discoveries of treason, minister inparliamentary inquiry says; more than 2,000leads being followed, many prosecutions ex-pected; extent of spying estimated. (“A Sus-pected People,” Der Spiegel (Hamburg) 23, 6/7/93, 32-34, in FBIS-WEU-93-113 (6/15/93), 41-43.) Based on Stasi files, chief federal prosecu-tor expected to initiate mass proceedings againstso-far unexposed GDR spies in FRG. (DPA, 7/2/93, in FBIS-WEU-93-130 (7/9/93), 34.)

Rainer Mueller, FRG ambassador to Gabon, isarrested on charges of spying for the Stasi since1974. (Bild, cited in DDP/ADN, 1/6/94, in FBIS-WEU-94-005 (1/7/94), 14.)

Ex-SPD senior official Karl Wienand suspectedof working for both Stasi and KGB in what couldbe “greatest case of treason” in FRG history,newspaper reports; Wienand denies all charges.(Bela Anda and Kai Diekmann, “Was He theSuper Spy?” Bild (Hamburg), 1/15/94, 1-2, inFBIS-WEU-94-011 (1/18/94), 21-22.)

Suspicion of GDR spies in Federal IntelligenceService (BND), fed by evidence in Stasi files,raising tensions. (Focus (Munich), 1/31/94, 36-38, in FBIS-WEU-94-037 (2/24/94), 25-26.)

SDP chair Rudolf Scharping says he will requestand publish all Stasi records about himself to

rebut CDU charges he advocated recognizingGDR citizenship in talks with GDR officials in1980s. (Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Munich), 2/8/94,4, in FBIS-WEU-94-027 (2/9/94), 31.)

Ex-Free Democratic Party official JohannaOlbrich sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for spy-ing on FDP for GDR from 1969-85. (DDP/ADN,2/25/94, in FBIS-WEU-94-041 (3/2/94), 29.)

Former Berlin SPD deputy Bodo Thomas andwife charged with spying for Stasi. (DDP/ADN,in FBIS-WEU-94-041 (3/2/94), 29.)

Ex-Stasi chief Mielke denies knowledge of 1983bombing of French cultural institute in Berlin,despite evidence in Stasi files that spy agency wasinformed. (Berliner Zeitung, 26-27 March 1994,in FBIS-WEU-94-060 (3/29/94), 13.)

Possible Stasi role in Dec. 1988 bombing of PanAm 103 probed. (“A Web With Many Spiders,”Der Spiegel, 4/18/94, 92-97, in FBIS-WEU-94-075 (4/19/94), 8-12.)

Interview with Klaus-Dietmar Henke, head, Edu-cation and Research Department subordinated tothe federal commissioner for the Archives of theState Security Service of the former GDR. (KjellEngelbrekt, “Germany’s Experience with the StasiArchives,” RFE/RL Research Report 3:18 (5/6/94), 11-13.) Commentary by Henke. (Frank-furter Allgemeine Zeitung, 12/1/93.)

Clues in Stasi archives helped lead U.S. authori-ties to arrest CIA agent Aldrich H. Ames oncharges of spying for Soviet intelligence, sourcessaid. (Walter Pincus, R. Jeffrey Smith and PierreThomas, “East German Files Helped in AmesArrest,” WP, 3/6/94, A1, A6.)

Publications: Karl Wilhelm Fricke, MfS Intern:Macht, Strukturen, Aufloesung der DDR-Staatssicherheit [Inside the Stasi: The Power,Structures, and Dissolution of the GDR’s StateSecurity Ministry] (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaftund Politik, 1991); David Gill and UlrichSchroeter, Das Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit:Anatomie des Mielke-Imperiums [The Ministryof State Security: An Anatomy of Mielke’s Em-pire] (Hamburg: Rohwolt, 1991); Rita Selitrennyand Thilo Weichert, Das unheimliche Erbe: DieSpionage abteilung der Stasi [The EspionageDepartment of the Stasi] (Leipzig: Forum Verlag,1991); Andreas Kabus, Auftrag Windrose: Dermilitarische Geheimdienst der DDR [OperationWindrose: The Military Secret Service of theGDR] (Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben, 1994); TinaKrone, Irena Kukutz, and Henry Leide, WennWir Unsere Akten Lesen: Handbuch zum Umgangmit den STASI-Akten [When Reading Our Files:A Handbook for the Study of Stasi Files] (Berlin:Basisdruck Verlag, 1993); Ferdinand Koch, DDR

contra BRD. Wie Deutsche gegen Deutschespionierten [The GDR against the FRG: HowGermans spied against Germans] (Munich: ScherzVerlag, 1994); Michael Beleites, Untergrund.Ein Konflikt mit der Stasi in der Uran-Provinz[Underground: A Conflict with the Stasi in theUran Province] (Berlin: BasisDruck Verlag,1993).

Archives Developments:

Deutschland Archiv and Arbeitsbereich DDR-Geschichte, Center for European Social Research,Mannheim University, to publish “Aktuelles ausder DDR-Forschung,” to inform scholars andresearch institutions of historical research on theformer GDR. For information, to receive a news-letter, and to “register” research projects, contact:Herr Ulrich Maehlert, Arbeitsbereich DDR-Geschichte, Mannheimer Zentrum fuerEuropaische Sozialforschung der UniversitaetMannheim, 68131 Mannheim, Germany (tel.:(0621) 292-8472; fax: (0621) 292-8435; e-mail:[email protected]. Alsosee DA 7 (July 1994), 671-2.

Survey of conditions for research in various formerGDR archives, and comments on situation forresearch in Moscow. (Hermann Weber, “DieAktuelle Situation in den Archiven fuer dieErforschung der DDR-Geschichte” [“The ActualSituation of the Archives for Research on EastGerman History”], DA 7 (July 1994), 690-99.)

Cyril Buffet, Guide des Archives d’Allemagne del’Est [Guide to the East German Archives] (Ber-lin: Centre Franco-Allemand de Recherches enSciences Sociales, Schiffbauerdamm 19, 10117Berlin).

U.S. hand-over to German control of Berlin Docu-mentation Center containing captured Nazi ar-chives stirs controversy. (Gerald Posner, “Letterfrom Berlin: Secrets of the Files,” The New Yorker70:4 (3/14/94), 39-47.)

Ex-GDR officials form “Society for Legal andHumanitarian Support” to aid those allegedlypersecuted because of past SED activity. (Frank-furter Allgemeine, 5/24/93, 5, in FBIS-WEU-93-110 (6/10/93), 21-22.)

Hungary

On 22-23 Oct 1993, gatherings are held across thecountry to the mark the 37th anniversary of the1956 revolt; justice minister calls for trial ofcommunists guilty of repression. (RFE/RL NewsBriefs 2:44 (25-29 Oct 1993), 9-10.) JusticeMinistry official tells press conference on 22 Nov1993 that more than 1,000 people were killedduring 1956 revolution between 10/23/56 and 12/28/56 when special units fired into unarmed pro-

UPDATE


testers. (RFE/RL News Briefs 2:48 (22-26 Nov1993), 13.) Mass grave discovered on BudapestExpo site containing 50 skeletons, mostly ofyoung people; officials date it to between WorldWar II and 1956. (Hungarian Radio, 1/13/94,cited in RFE/RL News Briefs 3:4 (10-21 Jan1994), 18.) In first arrests ever connected tocrushing of 1956 revolution, Budapest AttorneyGeneral’s office announces arrest of “a numberof persons” in massacre of eight persons in un-armed crowd in Eger on 12/12/56. (RFE/RL NewsBriefs 3:7 (7-11 Feb 1994), 17-18.) Hungarianmilitia members accused of firing into unarmedcrowd in city of Salgotarjan on 12/8/56, killing46, deny guilt before Budapest District Courthearing. (MTI, cited in RFE/RL News Briefs 3:28(5-8 July 1994), 13.)

Government declassifies significant proportionof Council of Ministers’ documents from 1944-60 period; some documents to remain secret onforeign policy, national security, or privacygrounds. (MTI (Budapest), 5/26/94, in FBIS-EEU-94-103-A (5/27/94), 13.)

Poland

English translations and original facsimiles ofSoviet documents on Katyn massacre providedby Russian president Yeltsin to Polish presidentWalesa in Oct. 1992, plus introduction, annota-tion, and bibliography. KATYN: Documents ofGenocide, ed. by Wojciech Materski, intro. byJanusz K. Zawodny (Warsaw: Institute of Politi-cal Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, 1993).

Archives of USSR Academy of Sciences’ Insti-tute of Slavic Studies show political pressure onscholars in 1948-52 to revise Soviet historiogra-phy on Poland to conform with Stalinist foreignpolicy. (Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier, “StalinizingPolish Historiography: What Soviet ArchivesDisclose,” East European Politics and Societies7:1 (Winter 1993), 109-134.)

Using Polish, Russian, and GDR archives, histo-rian traces Gomulka’s views on German issues.(Markus Krzoska, “Wladyslaw Gomulka undDeutschland,” Zeitschrift fuer Ostforschung [Jour-nal for East Research] 2 (1994), 174-213.)

Right-wing student groups demand release ofsecret police files on murder of opposition activ-ist Stanislaw Pyjas in 1977 after prosecutioncloses investigation of slaying, citing obstructionby ministry. (PAP, cited in RFE/RL News Briefs3:10 (28 Feb-4 Mar 1994), 11.)

Newly-declassified Soviet documents on 1980-81 Polish crisis (Suslov Commission documents)are published, including Politburo minutes andBrezhnev-Jaruzelski telephone transcript.(“Documents from the Suslov Commission:

Events in Poland in 1981,” New and NewestHistory, Jan.-Feb. 1994, 84-105.) Gen. Jaruzelski,in interviews, comments on 1981 events, SuslovCommission documents. (Rzeczpospolita (War-saw), 25-26 Sept 1993, 6-7 Nov 1993, and 5-6Mar 1994, in FBIS-EEU-94-045 (3/8/94), 26-33;V. Shutkevich, “I Wouldn’t Have Given the Or-der to Fire on Parliament,” KomsomolskayaPravda (Moscow), 12/14/93.) GDR archivalevidence on East Berlin policy on 1980-81 Polishevents published by team from Free University,Berlin. (Manfred Wilke, Reinhardt Gutsche,Michael Kubina, “Die SED-Fuehrung und dieUnterdrueckung der polnischen Oppositions-bewegung 1980/81” [“The SED Leadership andthe Repression of the Polish Opposition Move-ment 1980-81”], German Studies Review 71:1(Feb. 1994), 105-52.)

Parliamentary (Sejm) Constitutional Responsi-bility Commission votes on April 6 against charg-ing ex-President Jaruzelski and ex-Internal Af-fairs Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak for ordering thedestruction of Politburo minutes from 1982-89;Jaruzelski admits ordering their destruction inDecember 1989 because they were allegedly “un-reliable” as historical documents. (RFE/RL NewsBriefs 3:15 (5-8 April 1994), 15.)

Controversy over Yeltsin’s claim in new bookthat he gave KGB reports on Solidarity to Walesaduring August 1993 visit to Warsaw. (WarsawThird Program Radio Network, 2100 GMT, 5/25/94, in FBIS-EEU-94-102 (5/26/94), 16-17.)Walesa representatives deny he concealed anymaterials, blames “misunderstanding.” (WarsawTVP Television First Program Network, 1730GMT, 5/29/94, in FBIS-EEU-94-104 (5/31/94),37; Warsaw PAP, 6/8/94, in FBIS-EEU-94-111-A (6/9/94), 11.) For passage in question, seeBoris Yeltsin, The Struggle for Russia, trans.Catherine A. Fitzpatrick (New York: TimesBooks, 1994), 139.

Books: Wojiech Jaruzelski, Mein Leben fuerPolen. Erinnerungen [My Love for Poland: Mem-oirs] (Munich: Piper Verlag, 1993).

Romania

New head of Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI)says “each citizen should be granted access to hisor her Securitate file” and that Securitate filesshould not be kept in SRI archives any more.(Adevarul (Bucharest), 10/15/93, in FBIS-EEU-93-201 (10/20/93), 30-31.)

People’s Republic of China

New evidence from East-bloc archives vindi-cates traditional view of PRC threats to U.S.interests, rather than mutual “misperception,” ascausing hostility between two nations in 1949

and afterward, scholar argues. (John W. Garver,“Polemics, Paradigns, Responsibility, and theOrigins of the U.S.-PRC Confrontation in the1950s,” The Journal of America-East Asian Re-lations 3:1 (Spring 1994), 1-34.)

U.S. and Chinese scholars use newly-availableevidence to compare Beijing’s and Moscow’sperceptions of 1954-55 Offshore Islands crisis.(He Di and Gordon Chang, “The Absence of Warin the U.S. China Confrontation over Quemoy-Matsu in 1954-1955: Contingency, Luck, Deter-rence?” American Historical Review 98:5 (Dec.1993), 1500-24.)

New evidence indicates far higher death toll thanpreviously believed in Mao’s Great Leap For-ward (1958-60) and Cultural Revolution (1966-76). (Daniel Southerland, “Repression’s HigherToll,” WP, 7/17/94, and “A Nightmare LeavesScars, Questions,” WP, 7/18/94.)

Chinese Historians 6:1 (Spring 1993) containstwo articles relevant to cold war historians: ZhangXi, “Peng Dehuai and China’s Entry into theKorean War,” pp. 1-29; and Shi Zhe, trans. byChen Jian, “With Mao and Stalin: The Reminis-cences of Mao’s Interpreter: Part II: Liu Shaoqi inMoscow,” pp. 67-90. Contact Chinese Histori-ans c/o Prof. Chen Jian, Dept. of History, SUNY-Geneseo, Geneseo, NY 14454, USA.

Society for Study of Chinese History of thePeople’s Republic of China founded to “adhere tothe party’s basic line and systematically study thehistory” of the PRC “under the leadership of theCommunist Party of China and under the guid-ance of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thoughtand Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s theory on build-ing socialism with Chinese characteristics.”(Guangming Ribao (Beijing), 12/11/92, in JPRS-CAR-93-011 (2/11/93), 9.)

The following free publications are availablefrom the Center for Pacific Asia Studies;Stockholm University; S-106 91; Stockholm,Sweden; tel.: +46 8-16 28 97; fax: +46 8-16 8810: Michael Schoenhals, CCP Central Docu-ments from the Cultural Revolution: Index to anIncomplete Data Base (Center for Pacific AsiaStudies at Stockholm University, Working Paper32, August 1993); “W. Woody” (ed. and trans. byMichael Schoenhals), The Cultural Revolution inInner Mongolia: Extracts from an UnpublishedHistory (Center for Pacific Asia Studies atStockholm University, Occasional Paper 20, De-cember 1993)

Prof. Schoenhals also informs:* An edited English-language translation ofthe unpublished memoirs of former CCPPolitburo ghost-writer Wang Li—who par-ticipated in drafting the Chinese “polemics”

UPDATE


against the CPSU in the early 1960s—willbe published with an introduction in a forth-coming issue of the journal Chinese Lawand Government, published by M.E. SharpeInc., Armonk, NY.* China’s Central Archive has published alarge seven-volume 5,200-page author in-dex to its holdings of documents from theChinese Communist revolution (1921-1949)under the title Zhongyang Dang’anguanGuancang Geming Lishi Ziliao ZuozhePianming Suoyin (Beijing: ZhongyangWenxian Chubanshe, 1990). Copies for salein selected state-run bookshops in Beijing.

Publications: Deborah A. Kaple, Dreams of aRed Factory: The Legacy of High Stalinism inChina (Oxford University Press, 1994); QiangZhai, The Dragon, the Lion, and the Eagle:Chinese-British-American Relations, 1949-1958(Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1994);Shu Guang Zhang, Deterrence and StrategicCulture: Chinese-American Confrontations,1949-1958 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1992); Li Zhisui, The Private Life of ChairmanMao, trans. by Tai Hung-Chao, fwd. by AndrewJ. Nathan, ed. asst. Anne F. Thurston (New York:Random House, 1994).

North Korea/Korean War

Newly-released Russian documents illuminateSoviet role in origins and course of Korean war;English translations of 11 documents, includingcorrespondence between Stalin and Kim Il Sung,plus scholarly analysis and annotation by author.(Kathryn Weathersby, “The Soviet Role in theEarly Phase of the Korean War: New Documen-tary Evidence,” The Journal of American-EastAsian Relations 2:4 (Winter 1993), 425-58.)

History offers clues to Kim Il Sung’s handling ofnuclear crisis. (Michael Shapiro, “Annals ofAuthoritarianism: Kim’s Ransom,” The NewYorker 69:48 (1/31/94), 32-41.)

ROK President Kim Young-sam receives Rus-sian archival documents from President Yeltsinduring visit to Moscow. (Moscow Mayak RadioNetwork, 6/2/94, in FBIS-SOV-94-106 (6/2/94),4-5; Yonhap (Seoul), 6/2/94, in FBIS-SOV-94-106 (6/2/94), 5-6.) ROK Foreign Ministry vowsto translate Russian documents by June 25 and“open them to the public.” (Yonghap , 6/10/94, inFBIS-EAS-94-112 (6/10/94), 32.) ROK ForeignMinistry says Russian documents include over600 pages of over 200 items, including messagesamong DPRK, PRC, and USSR leaders fromJan. 1949-Oct. 1950, Soviet warplans datingfrom May 1950, and materials showing that Kimrequested Soviet support for the war in Jan. 1950and Stalin agreed a month later. (Yonhap , 6/11/94, in FBIS-EAS-94-116 (6/16/94), 32.) Analy-

sis of materials. (Kim Hak-joon, “Russian Ar-chives on Origins of Korean War,” Korea Focuson Current Topics 2:5 (Sept.-Oct. 1994), 22-31,from Shin Dong-A Monthly, Sept. 1994.)

North Korea Institute of International Affairs saysJapan was “directly involved” in the war againstKorea in the 1950s, including germ warfare.(Pyongyang KCNA in English, 0403 GMT 6/24/94, in FBIS-EAS-94-122 (6/24/94), 18.)

North Korean commentary accuses US of launch-ing Korean War in June 1950. (“Provokers’ Con-fession, Witnesses’ Testimony,” Pyongyang Ko-rean Central Broadcasting Network, 6/26/94, inFBIS-EAS-94-123 (6/27/94).)

Soviet leaders learned as early as 1985 that NorthKorea was attempting to develop nuclear weap-ons, causing Moscow to withdraw most advisers,according to Vladimir Kumachev, adviser to di-rector of Russia’s Institute of National Securityand Strategic Research. (AFP, 2/14/94, in RFE/RL News Briefs 3:8 (14-18 Feb 1994), 2.)

KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov secretly reportedto Soviet leaders in 1990 that North Korea hadsuccessfully developed a nuclear device but hadnot tested it “in order to conceal from the worldpublic and international monitoring organiza-tions.” (Izvestia, 6/24/94, 4, in FBIS-SOV-94-122 (6/24/94), 11-12; also Yonhap , 6/24/94,citing Sankei Shimbun quoting Izvestia, in FBIS-EAS-94-122 (6/24/94), 31.)

Il Yung Chung, Korea and Russia: Toward the21st Century (Seoul: Sejong Institute, 1992), in-cludes two articles by Russian scholars usingarchival evidence to assess USSR policies onNorth, South Korea: Eugene Bazhanov, “SovietPolicy towards South Korea Under Gorbachev,”61-109, and Natalia Bazhanov, “North Korea andSeoul-Moscow Relations,” 315-52.

Publications: Sergei N. Goncharov, John W.Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin,Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1993).

Cuba

Book by Cuban general examines CIA activitiesagainst Cuba from 1959 revolution to Bay of Pigsin April 1961: Gen. Fabian Escalante, Cuba: LaGuerra Secreta de la CIA [Cuba: The CIA’sSecret War]. (Prensa Latina (Havana), 3/10/94,in FBIS-LAT-94-047-A (3/10/94), 13.)

Secret, abortive U.S.-Cuban dialogue in mid-’70sto normalize ties described. (Peter Kornbluh andJames G. Blight, “Dialogue with Castro: A Hid-den History,” The New York Review of Books41:16 (10/6/94), 45-9.)

YELTSIN DIRECTIVEcontinued from page 89

Rosarkhiv; Korotkov, A. V.—Director of the Archiveof the President of the Russian Federation;Krayushkin, A. A.—Chief of a Directorate of theFederal Service of Counterintelligence of Russia;Lebedev, I. V.—Chief of the Historical Documenta-tion Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairsof Russia; Raushenbakh, B. V.—Head of the Fac-ulty of Theoretical Mechanics at the Moscow Physi-cal-Technical Institute, and Member of the RussianAcademy of Sciences; Sevost’yanov, G. N.—DeputyAcademic Secretary for the Division of History,Russian Academy of Sciences; Semin, Yu. N.—Chief of the Historical-Archival and Military-Me-morial Center of the General Staff of the ArmedForces of the Russian Federation; and Surkov, A.P.—Assistant to the Director of the Administrationof the President of the Russian Federation.

COLD WARINTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT

The Cold War International History Projectwas established at the Woodrow Wilson Interna-tional Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.,in 1991 with the help of the John D. and CatherineT. MacArthur Foundation. The project supportsthe full and prompt release of historical materi-als by governments on all sides of the Cold War,and seeks to disseminate new information andperspectives on Cold War history emerging frompreviously inaccessible sources on “the otherside”–the former Communist bloc–through pub-lications, fellowships, and scholarly meetingsand conferences. The project is overseen by anadvisory committee chaired by Prof. WilliamTaubman (Amherst C.) and consisting of MichaelBeschloss; Dr. James Billington (Librarian ofCongress); Prof. Warren I. Cohen (U. of Mary-land/Baltimore); Prof. John Lewis Gaddis (OhioU./Athens); Dr. Samuel F. Wells, Jr. (DeputyDirector, Wilson Center); and Prof. SharonWolchik (George Washington U.). Within theWilson Center, CWIHP is under the Division ofInternational Studies, headed by Dr. Robert S.Litwak, and is directed by Dr. James G.Hershberg. Readers are invited to submit ar-ticles, letters, and Update items to the Bulletin.Publication of articles does not constituteCWIHP’s endorsement of authors’ views. Cop-ies available free on request.

Cold War International History Project BulletinIssue 4 (Fall 1994)Woodrow Wilson Center1000 Jefferson Drive, S.W.Washington, D.C. 20560Tel.: (202) 357-2967; Fax.: (202) 357-4439

Editor: James G. HershbergAssociate Editors: P.J. Simmons, Bonnie Terrell,Stephen ConnorsResearchers: Daniel Rozas, Amanda Bichsel,Benjamin Aldrich-Moodie, Lena Milman, MarkDoctoroff, Michelle King

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