especially active in 1967 in promoting consideration of the possibility of a press law. On this point, see Mark W. Hopkins, Mass Media in the Soviet Union (New York: Pegasus, 1970), p. 133. The proposal for a press law ran into difficulty, however, after the Soviet Committee on State Security (KGB) forcibly cracked down on a group of over 100 intellectuals and scholars in November 1967 for allegedly preparing a draft press law that would have abolished censorship. Soon thereafter, in April 1968, E. V. Yakovlev was removed as editor-in-chief of Zhurnalist and accused of "committing serious mistakes," "exercising unsatisfactory leadership," and "frequently publishing ideologically weak materials." For declassified materials about these events, see "TsK KPSS," 14 November 1967 (Secret), from Yu. V. Andropov, head of the KGB, plus the accompanying draft "Proekt zakona o rasprostranenii otyskanii i poluchenii informatsii," in Arkhiv Prezidenta Rossiislkoi Federatsii (APRF), F. 3, Op. 78, D. 8, Ll. 46-56; and "Postanovlenie Sekretariata TSK KPSS: O sereznykh nedostatkakh v rabote zhurnala ‘Zhurnalist'," St No. 50/5s (Top Secret), 26 April 1968, in RGANI, F. 4, Op. 19, D. 101, L. 11. The idea of a press law was thus largely stillborn. In the absence of such a law, Glavlit, the Committee on the Press, the KGB, and other bodies responsible for overseeing the press acted in accordance with guidelines set forth by the CPSU Politburo, the CPSU Secretariat, and the USSR Council of Ministers. Various problems that arose in 1967 and especially 1968 (in part because of ferment connected with the Prague Spring) led to the adoption in January 1969 of stringent, new guidelines laid out in a CPSU Secretariat directive: "Postanovlenie Sekretariata TsK KPSS: O povyshenii otvetsvennosti rukovoditelei organov, pechati, radio, televideniya, kinematografii, uchrezhdenii kul'tury i iskusstva za ideino-politicheskii uroven' publikuemykh materialov i repertuara,” St No. 64/1s (Top Secret), 7 January 1969, in RGANI, F. 4, Op. 19, D. 131, L1.2-6. For published materials bearing on control of the press during this period, see A. Z. Okorokov et al., ed., O partiinoi i sovetskoi pechati, radioveshchanii i televidenii: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Moscow: Mysl', 1972), esp. pp. 357-372.

29 Translator's Note: The phrase "CC department" is shorthand for the "CPSU CC Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries" (Otdel TsK KPSS po svyazyam s kommunisticheskimi i rabochimi partiyami sotsialisticheskikh stran), which

35

Translator's Note: Severinov was identified in the previous footnote. Konstantin (Constantin) Aleksandrovich Kucia was head of the foreign communications section of the Moldavian ministry of communications.

36 Translator's Note: The population of Soviet Moldavia at this time, according to official Soviet census data, consisted of roughly 16 percent Ukrainians, 10-11 percent Russians, 66 percent "Moldavians" (ethnic Romanians), and small percentages of other ethnic groups (officially referred to as "coinhabiting nationalities"). Russian was the most widely used language in the republic, especially in urban areas, but Ukrainian and so-called Moldavian were also permitted. The supposedly distinct language of "Moldavian" was purely a Soviet artifact. It was identical to Romanian except that it used the Cyrillic alphabet instead of the Latin.

37 Translator's Note: The comments here about the lack of progress in countering Romanian radio and television broadcasts are especially important in light of the concerns that Bodiul had been expressing since 1965-66 about "hostile" Romanian broadcasts.

38 Translator's Note: Kagul is a small city in the far southwest of Moldova along the Romanian border, roughly 200 kilometers south of Kishinev (Chişinău).

By David Wolff

T

The hottest conflicts of the Cold War took place in Asia and CWIHP has played an important role in revealing the internal dynamics of the Communist camp in that region. Whether Stalin's decision to give Kim Il Sung the green light for aggressive unification in Korea or the Chinese foot-dragging that weighed in against Soviet-American efforts to negotiate peace in Vietnam, the Sino-Soviet military relationship remains a core issue. The first volume in the CWIHP Book Series, Brothers in Arms gathered together essays by a team of international historians to evaluate the evidence declassified from Russian and Chinese archives since the late 1980s and to pinpoint the remaining lacunae in our knowledge of this crucial relationship. Two years later, a new publication adds both significant fresh documentation and analysis.

Tatiana Zazerskaia makes use of previously unexamined materials from the Central Committee of the Comunist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU), the Soviet Foreign Ministry, the Comintern successor institutions and others to write the most comprehensive study to date of Soviet specialists in China and their contribution to the development of the Chinese military. Both in its extensive use of Russian archival sources and supplementary use of Chinese published document and memoir collections, Soviet Specialists represents a very significant step forward in our knowledge of this issue as previously covered in Sergei Goncharenko's and Deborah Kaple's contributions to the Brothers in Arms collection. Although the MIG wing that accompanied Mao back from Moscow might be seen as a symbolic gesture, Stalin's way of saving the Chairman's "face" after a bruising summit, the continuing high percentages (80%) of Soviet aid to China that were spent on military-related imports, advice and factories make clear the centrality of the military dimension.

Although until 1953 this was largely about the Korean war (making it difficult to separate aid to China from aid to Korea), thereafter it reflected the PRC's January 1955 decision to become self-reliant in high-technology, including nuclear matters. Zazerskaia's book is especially strong on the pivotal years of the post-Stalin interregnum, when the Chinese played the tensions in the Russian leadership to obtain state-of-the-art technology. Li Fuchun's 15 January 1956 request to Khrushchev for Soviet aid in nuclear physics is our earliest detailed documentation from Soviet archives on the fraternal development of nuclear technology. It seems likely that it was the product of a meeting of over 200 Chinese scientists held in Beijing in December 1955. Interestingly (and probably not coincidentally), this was the first anniversary of the PRC Central Secretariat meeting at which Chinese Politburo members "jubilantly" played with a Geiger counter and a uranium sample, top scientists

inducted powerful comrades into the hall of atomic secrets, and the Chairman himself raised a glass of fiery maotai to announce "that China would immediately devote major efforts to developing atomic energy research."

Zazerskaia's monograph also argues persuasively against the ideological view that Soviet aid was "given" to China. She presents considerable evidence of the economic calculations behind each Soviet act of "generosity." For example, the $300 million credit authorized by Stalin during Mao's visit to Moscow was applied retroactively to the goods and weapons used by the Chinese Communists in the 1940s to win their civil war and everything was calculated at "world market prices," a distinct disadvantage for the Chinese. The lists of strategic commodities to be extracted from the PRC in return for deliveries of military goods leave little room to wonder why Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders considered the relationship neocolonial in nature. The discussion of the infamous withdrawal of Soviet experts from China by Khrushchev adds documentary detail to our previous knowledge of this key moment. It is less clear why the USSR stepped up aid to China's missile program at the same time that nuclear cooperation was being terminated. Possibly, this was meant as a consolation of sorts. Or maybe the Soviets still thought they could still learn something useful from Chinese returnees previously employed in US laboratories.

Per instructions of the CC CCP, I am reporting to You regarding the expected completion of the first five-year plan and the preliminarily formulation of the basic tasks and indicators (pokazatel') for the projects of the second and third five-year economic development plans of the People's Republic of China.

We are requesting that the CC CPSU study our preliminary projections.

After the final elaboration of the draft of the PRC's second five-year economic development plan this April, we will present our plan to the CC CPSU and will request that the CC CPSU look over and comment on this plan.

We are also requesting that the CC CPSU examine our requests and provide appropriate aid on the matters presented in the attached report.

With communist greetings,

Li Fuchun

15 January 1956

[The memorandum is followed by four attachments. The first is a list of installations being built with Soviet aid. The second is a list of top secret (sovershenno sekretno) installations. The third is a memo on the coal industry and the fourth follows in full.]

Top Secret

Attachment No. 4

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ATOMIC ENERGY INDUSTRY

In order to quickly and efficiently organize and develop an atomic energy industry in the People's Republic of China, in order to further develop nuclear physics research, and also in order to apply atomic energy broadly in the economy, we are asking the CC CPSU to discuss the possibility of helping China to organize an atomic energy industry and elaborate a long-term development plan for the production of nuclear energy and to provide us with the following aid in this area:

1. We ask [you] to discuss the possibility of helping China in the construction of one or two modern atomic industry installations, providing us with comprehensive aid in preparing plans, supplying equipment, construction-assembly and provision of raw material [i.e., nuclear fuel, trans.]. 2. Assuming that the atomic industry installations mentioned above will be considered, we ask [you] to discuss whether it is possible in 1956 to send a group of Soviet specialistsadvisors in nuclear technology to lead and aid China in the elaboration of a comprehensive plan for the development of an atomic energy industry.

3. We ask [you] to accept three groups of Chinese scientific and technical workers for shortterm study in the Soviet Union in 1956:

a. to accept various technical workers corresponding to needs generated by the tasks in point one [above] for study in the Soviet Union of various technical areas of the atomic energy industry. We ask the appropriate Soviet organization to help us to designate concretely the number of people and their specialities; b. to accept fifty or more Chinese scientific-technical workers for studies in the Soviet Union regarding the use of radioactive isotopes (including their use for industry, agriculture, defense, biology, medicine, etc.)

c. to accept a team of scientific-technical specialists sent by China for study and participation in project development (proektnaia rabota) for a powerful focused accelerator (fokusirovannyi uskoritel). We also ask permission to send from China one or two specialists to the Moscow scientific-research institute for the physics of warm nuclei (teplovye iadra) in order to take part in scientific research. 1. We ask the Soviet government to help

our country:

to create a central laboratory for radioactive isotopes in the physics institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; to create two laboratories [each] (po dve laboratorii) for radioactive isotopes within the Ministry of Heavy Industry and the Ministry of Health; to create one laboratory [each] for radioactive isotopes in the first and second Ministries of Machine-Building and in the Ministry of Agriculture; We ask the Soviet Union to provide multi-faceted aid in planning the above-mentioned eight laboratories, their provision with equipment and necessary instruments as well as the appropriate radioactive isotopes and scientific-technical materials. [i.e., documentation]. We also ask that specialists be sent to guide the research in these laboratories.

T

he Mershon Center (Ohio University) hosted at

conference on the "End of the Cold War" on 15-17 October 1999. This conference was made possible by a generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Participants addressed important decisions and events leading to the end of the Cold War that transpired between 1988-1992. Special attention was devoted to arms control negotiations and regional conflicts in the recognition that arms control agreements and Soviet disengagement from Afghanistan were concrete turning points in the Cold War's end. The conference brought together important policy-makers from the Gorbachev and Bush administrations (in particular the heads of Soviet and American arms control delegations and senior advisors on regional conflicts) as well as interested scholars'. The National Security Archive prepared a briefing book of newly-released documents germane to the discussion.

The October conference was a follow-on to the conference the Mershon Center organized in Moscow in June which focused on domestic opposition to Gorbachev's foreign policy. This conference in turn, built on an earlier conference held at Brown University, co-sponsored by the Watson Institute and the Mershon Center in May 1998. That meeting had featured senior policy-makers from the Reagan administration and the Gorbachev administration who played central roles in the 1983-1988 period.

The conference in Columbus began with a discussion of the relationship between military security and foreign policy strategy. Introductory comments by Raymond Garthoff (The Brookings Institution) were followed by testimonies by Vitaly Kataev (former secretary of Gorbachev's Big Five), and Robert Blackwell (former U.S. National Intelligence Officer for the Soviet Union). The discussion outlined the leading role arms control was seen to play in negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. Both American and Russian participants agreed that arms control was considered a central arena in which to pursue East-West détente, and, at the same time, as an issue that mobilized large and powerful vested interests on both sides, making progress in this arena difficult. The discussion turned rather quickly to the broader questions of confidencebuilding measures in Europe and the CSBM talks in Stockholm. Ambassador Lynn Hansen (former Head of the U.S. delegation to the CSBM talks) and Ambassador Oleg Grinevsky (former Head of the USSR's CSBM delegation) reported in some detail both their initial suspicions about the purpose of the endeavor and described the evolution in

their thinking as they came to see prospects for meaningful agreements.

Much of the early discussion in the meeting concentrated on the motives behind Soviet and American interest in arms control and confidence-building measures. Several Russian participants addressed in the detail the argument that Moscow was anxious to travel down these avenues in order to lower the budgetary burden or redirect resources. They argued that economic motives were, in fact, secondary, and that in important cases disarmament cost more than the continued acquisition of arms. The participants then spent considerable time analyzing the domestic political maneuvering inside the Kremlin and White House as heads of the delegations worked to build consensus, or at least prevailing political support, in favor of agreeing to positions that the other side would accept. Particularly interesting in this regard was the crucial role attributed to Gorbachev in overcoming objections from the Soviet military and his decision to have senior Soviet military leaders, like Marshal Akhromeev, make key proposals to the West themselves, both as a signal to the West and, more importantly, as a signal to domestic Soviet audiences.

Most of the first afternoon of the conference was occupied with discussing the importance of regional conflicts in general and the Gulf War in particular. Ambassador Dennis Ross opened the discussion by reporting that there had been an important evolution in American thinking about regional conflicts. In the Reagan period, Ross reported, the prevailing American notion was to make it clear to Moscow that the Soviet Union's involvement in regional conflicts would have real costs. With the changes Gorbachev was calling for, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the development of a positive working relationship between U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Edward Shevardnadze, Ross recalled, thinking about regional conflicts in Washington began to change, at least among the group closest to Baker. In essence, the change was to use regional conflicts as the leading edge to test what was possible in the emerging new period. Regional conflicts were not burdened with the same bureaucratic constraints as arms control and had been at the forefront of issues leading to the demise of the previous era of détente. According to Ross, Baker making progress on making regional conflicts a key area in which to see whether the Soviet "new thinking" would translate into concrete achievements, a role traditionally played by arms control.

Although no single regional conflict became a makeor-break turning point, the Gulf War came very close to this. Ross related in detail the U.S.-Soviet negotiations