1 September 1995

To the Editor:

I read with great interest "The Sudoplatov Controversy" in the CWIHP Bulletin (Issue 5, Spring 1995, pp. 155158). In its own time I also read Special Tasks with no less interest.

I believed earlier and now presume that the appearance of the recollections of such a high-ranking employee of the Stalinist NKVD is an outstanding event, no matter what they are like in terms of quality. In any case, such recollections better than anything else characterize the era, and the storyteller. We can only be sorry that the recollections, of, for example, Lavrentii Beria, do not exist.

Of course, I cannot read without a smile Pavel Sudoplatov's "assertion" that in the development of my career I am obliged "through KGB connections." This is a desperate (consistent with the time!) lunge, a relic of the past, at a time when it is already impossible, as was done in the Stalinist time, to register innocent people as German, English, and other "spies," and to make short work of them. Now this relapse of the past is nothing more than an expressive coloring on the portrait of Sudoplatov himself. And it is evidence of the fact that my article offended him very much.

In Special Tasks the episode connected with Yaacov Terletskii's mission to Niels Bohr. My critical article, published in the Bulletin (Issue 4, Fall 1994), touched only on that episode. Since I am not a specialist in Sudoplatov's professional element, but do have a definite conception of the Soviet atomic project and its history, in this letter, expressing myself, I will limit myself only to the mission to Niels Bohr.

I assert that nothing in Sudoplatov's version regarding this mission stands up to a comparison with the facts (reason for the trip, significance for the Soviet physicists of the information which was brought; the shadow which Sudoplatov casts on Niels Bohr, etc.), and it is a total hoax. Only the naked fact that the trip to visit Bohr really did take place remains certain. But even here Sudoplatov is not the one who discov

ered it: several years ago already Professor Igor Golovin mentioned this operation of Beria's department in the Soviet press.

I do not believe it possible here to dwell particularly on Sudoplatov's new fantasies, contained in his letter to the Bulletin and which repeat his Appendix Eight of the paperback edition of Special Tasks (p. 491).

In such a way as was already, for example, analyzed by me, it was shown that the reader should very, very critically regard Sudoplatov's "improvisations:" the principal defect of the "recollections" was evident even in a "limited space." Here the assistance and co-authorship in the drafting of Special Tasks of such brilliant journalists as Jerrold L. Schecter and Leona P. Schecter, and the fact that the flattering foreward to this book belongs to the pen of the famous historian Robert Conquest, are powerless.

Of course, the point of view of the Schecters is interesting, when they assert that "the battle in Moscow over Sudoplatov's memoirs continues. On one side are Russian scientists who fear the downgrading of their prestige and a threat to the medals they received for building the atomic bomb" (Special Tasks, Addendum, Paperback Edition). And in "The Sudoplatov Controversy," they even introduce a list of former intelligence operatives and historians who, evidently, do not know atomic technology professionally, but who applaud Sudoplatov. The truth, however, is that in the fact of the matter, the "battle in Moscow over Sudoplatov❞ ended long ago. People understood that only specialists, physicists-atomic scientists, are in a position to resolve whether or not Niels Bohr gave atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

It will be useful to pose still one question. Was the U.S. government decision to publish in the summer of 1945 Henry Smyth's well-known treatise "Atomic Energy for Military Purposes" really dictated by a wish to share atomic secrets with the Soviet Union? Especially since from the point of view of informativeness it exceeded by many times Bohr's responses to Terletskii's questions. Responding to this principal issue, it is easier to understand why the attempts to find nonexistent "flaws," from the point of view of the demands of secrecy, in Niels Bohr's responses, are continuing. And in precisely the same way, it will become clear why the efforts to defend the indefensible fantasies of Sudopatov are continuing.

Finally, let's turn to the eloquent acknowledgment of the former Soviet intelligence officer Col. Mikhail Liubimov (Top Secret 3 (1994), 27): "Reading Sudoplatov, one ought to remember that in intelligence activity (possibly like science) there is an inclination to twist facts, particularly because under the conditions of the totalitarian regime it was easy to do without fear of consequences. An intelligence officer or agent could meet and talk with Oppenheimer or with Fermi, who would not have had any idea to whom they were talking, and then later they could give them a code name and with dispatch submit the information to his superiors and cast their deed in bronze." A trusting man in the street could be misled by the report on the meeting between Terletskii and Bohr. But for Liubimov, who saw that "in every line (of the report) the traditional, old-fashioned character of the operation is revealed," it was as clear as two times two equals four that "Sudoplatov would portray the whole trip to Bohr as a colossal success, Beria would be pleased, and he will report everything to Joseph Vissarionovich (Stalin). And Kurchatov would not dare to articulate any doubts about the success of the operation, [for] like other scientists, he is subordinate to the system. And just try to squeal about the organs."

Yuri N. Smirnov (Moscow)

To the Editor:

In the letter from the well-known KGB functionary Pavel A. Sudoplatov, published in the American journal Cold War International History Project Bulletin (Issue 5, Fall 1995, pp. 156-158), a suggestion or, rather, direct charge, is made against my colleague of many years, Yuri Smirnov, all of whose scientific and literary efforts I have witnessed, that these efforts were in some way connected with the KGB. As is usual in such cases, in place of evidence the letter provides only murky references to a conversation between Sudoplatov and his former colleagues on this matter.

Fairly or unfairly, the reputation of the KGB, as well as that of similar agencies in other countries has always been very low. There has never been a better way to ruin a person in the eyes of public opinion and his close friends than to suggest that he has connections with these services.

An unparalleled expert in the life of Russian bureaucrats and behind the scenes dealings, the author Nikolai Leskov, described a similar intrigue in his story Administrative Grace. In this story, a police official wishing to compromise a provincial public figure organizes what we would now

call a "leak" at the suggestion of a highlyplaced church official. Simply put, having invited an opponent of the victim to visit him on some pretext, the police official slips him, as if by accident, a specially-prepared letter which refers to payments received from the police department by the individual to be compromised.

In this and similar situations, the “patriotic" attitude of these employees towards their agencies is touching. They of all people understand that the discovery of an individual's links to their services lead to compromising him in the public's eyes, and that this works. It is not clear whether they consider that such actions strengthen the negative image of their agencies. Perhaps, considering its own reputation to be beyond salvage, this is of no concern to them.

Knowing Yuri N. Smirnov to be a historian of science, who has objectively evaluated the contribution of our agents in obtaining "atomic secrets," who neither diminishes nor exaggerates this contribution, Sudoplatov and his colleagues, apparently, decided to "smear" Smirnov as a protective

measure.

As a colleague of Yuri Nikolaevich, who began to work with me 35 years ago and to this day is in constant professional and

social contact with me, I am in a better position than anyone else to say that Yuri Smirnov is a professional atomic scientist who received his training at Arzamas-16, who took part in the design and testing of the 50-megaton nuclear bomb, who completed his doctoral work under the direction of the well-known scientist D.A. FrankKamenetsky. During the period in which he worked at the Ministry of Atomic Energy, he was responsible for a major line of research into the peaceful use of nuclear explosions.

Such a list of accomplishments does not require any embellishments, and any professional would be pleased to call it his own. It was entirely natural that Yuri Nikolaevich, as a possessor of such a rich and varied set of experiences, would turn his sights to the history of science, and particularly the history of nuclear explosive technology. These efforts have borne fruit, as is witnessed by his string of publications. He is recognized among historians of modern science, and no attempts by Sudoplatov and his colleagues to blacken his reputation will stick.

Sincerely,

Victor Adamsky Arzamas-16

THE KOREAN WAR:

AN ASSESSMENT

OF THE HISTORICAL RECORD

On 24-25 July 1995, The Korea Society, Georgetown University, and the Korea-America Society sponsored a conference at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. on "The Korean War: An Assessment of the Historical Record." Papers were presented by leading scholars from Korea, China, Russia, and the United States.

To obtain further information or to order the conference report or participant papers, contact:

The Korea Society

1350 Connecticut Ave., NW

Suite 204

Washington, D.C. 20036

Tel.: (202) 293-2174

Fax: (202) 293-2184

E-mail: USKOREA@AOL.COM

The following conference papers are avail

able for ordering:

1. Civil is Dumb Name for a War, by Dr. James Matray (18 pages)

2. Russian Foreign Ministry Documents on the Origins of the Korean War, by Dr. Kim Hakjoon (29 pages)

3. Korean War of 1950-1953: Thoughts About the Conflict's Causes and Actors, by Dr. Valeri Denissov (14 pages)

4. Why and How China Entered the Korean War: In Light of New Evidence, by Dr. Jian Chen (16 pages)

5. Politics in Peril: The Truman-MacArthur Controversy and the Korean War, by Prof. Roger Dingman (35 pages)

6. Assessing the Politics of the Korean War, by Dr. Evgueni Bajanov (23 pages)

7. A Triangle of Kim, Stalin, and Mao in the Korean War, by Dr. Kim Chull-baum (27 pages) 8. Notes on the Successive Strategies Employed During the Korean War, by Gen. Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley (12 pages)

9. The Korean War Paradigm, by Col. Harry G. Summers (17 pages)

10. China's Military Strategy During the Korean War, by Dr. Shu Guang Zhang (33 pages) 11. Military Objectives and Strategies of Two Koreas in the Korean War, by Dr. Chang-Il Ohn (18 pages)

12. The Soviet Role in Prolonging the Korean War, 1951-1953, by Dr. Kathryn Weathersby 13. Assessing the Conclusion and Outcome of the Korean War, by Dr. Natalia Bajanova (13 pages) 14. POWs, Soviet Intelligence and the MIA Question, by Mr. Paul Lashmar (14 pages)

15. The Politics of Conference: The Political Conference at Geneva, April 26-June 15, 1954, by Dr. J.Y. Ra (31 pages)

16. In Search of Essences: Labelling the Korean War, by Dr. William Stueck (22 pages)

There is a fee of $5.00 for the conference report and $2.50 per paper; checks can be made payable to the Korea Society.

9 October 1995

To the Editor:

I read the essay "Poland, 1956: Khrushchev, Gomulka and the Polish October," by L.W. Gluchowski, and the accompanying documents in CWIHP Bulletin 5 (Spring 1995), pp. 1, 38-49, with enormous interest, the reason for which will be evident in a moment.

Upon completion of the reading, however, I was thoroughly puzzled by what I saw as a major omission from the author's introductory essay. Though the material appears in the documents and in footnotes to them, there is no mention at all in the body of the essay concerning one of the most crucial aspects that determined the ultimate outcome of the confrontation between the Soviet and Polish communist party leaders in Warsaw. It concerns the movement of Soviet military forces toward Warsaw, the circumstances in which the Polish party leadership learned of the movements, and the threatened response of Polish military units. It appears as a single line in Document 3 (p. 43), is amplified in Gomulka's rendition of the events to the Chinese in Document 4 (p. 44), and in footnote 61, quoting Mikoyan's notes. The threatened response of Polish military units is not mentioned in the documents at all, or by the author.

Gluchowski also quotes two of the comments in Khrushchev's memoirs; the first"...the people of Warsaw had been prepared to defend themselves and resist Soviet troops entering the city..."-without asking what "Soviet troops," from where; and the second-"...our own armed strength far exceeded that of Poland, but we didn't want to resort to the use of our own troops"-without pointing out that it is belied by Khrushchev's outburst at the October 19 meeting (quoted on page 40): "That number won't pass here. We are ready for active intervention....I would like the comrades to voice their views on this matter: intervention or..."

It seems very likely, even obvious, that Khrushchev gave the order for the move

In 1980 or thereabouts, I was given a description of the same climactic meeting L.W. Gluchowski responds: between the Soviet and Polish leaderships by a former Polish party and government official who had before 1956 been close to the Polish First Secretary, Central Committee Chairman and Prime Minister, Boleslaw Bierut. That rendition adds information beyond that which appears in Gomulka's description to the Chinese party in Document 4. I recorded the comments at the time. The note which a Polish official handed to Gomulka during the meeting with the Soviets and which informed him of the Soviet troop movements resulted from information reported to Warsaw by Polish military officers ("colonels"). In addition, Polish Air Force General Frey-Bielecki requested permission to bomb the Soviet columns as they converged on Warsaw. Some Polish Air Force units apparently threatened such action whether they received authority to do so or not. (As I recall, Frey-Bielecki agreed to make the request when some of his officers informed him of those threats, telling him what they intended to do. With that, he decided to approach the political leadership.) The Polish internal security forces were also preparing some sort of resistance. Gomulka was the source of Khrushchev's assessment that "the people of Warsaw had been prepared to defend themselves." Gomulka apparently told him, in effect, "Leave us alone and everything will be OK; if not, there will be a popular uprising." And the Russians thought that the Poles would fight; in the words of the Polish official, "All the Czech traditions are different."

One might add one more point. Gluchowski never comments on the proposals for union, although Khrushchev refers to

I would like to thank Mr. Leitenberg for his thoughtful comments on my documentary essay, "Poland 1956: Khrushchev, Gomulka, and the Polish October,"" in the Spring 1995 issue of the CWIHP Bulletin. With regard to Mr. Leitenberg's comment that he was "thoroughly puzzled” by “a major omission from" my "introductory essay" concerning "one of the most crucial aspects that determined the ultimate outcome of the confrontation," notably "the movement of Soviet military forces towards Warsaw...[and] the circumstances in which the Polish party leadership learned of the movements," I shall be brief. Any discussion about the military aspects of the SovietPolish confrontation of October 1956 is bound to be controversial at this early stage of archival research in Poland. In any case, I decided to let this set of documents speak for themselves, and no less than six endnotes include extensive discussions of military matters during the crisis. Even Mr. Leitenberg acknowledges that "the material appears in the documents and in the footnotes to them." Furthermore, in the body of my essay, I noted: "Three days in October [18 to 20] 1956 resolved four outstanding and interrelated conflicts of the deStalinization period in Poland." The second conflict I outlined reads as follows: "the Soviet threat to intervene militarily in the affairs of the Polish Party ended with a compromise agreement on the part of the CPSU leadership and the PUWP leadership." It is clear that I agree with Mr. Leitenberg: "one of the most crucial aspects" of the confrontation in Warsaw had to

do with the threat of Soviet military intervention.

My first departure with Mr. Leitenberg comes when he elevates "the circumstances in which the Polish party leadership learned of the movements" to some kind of special moment in the negotiations. We still don't have enough Soviet evidence to draw Mr. Leitenberg's conclusions. This is particularly true when we consider his comment: "It seems very likely, even obvious, that Khrushchev gave the order for the movement of Soviet forces based in Poland in his meeting with Marshals Konev and Rokossowski in the Soviet embassy on October 19, also referred to in his memoirs." In this case, an omission on my part may have resulted in the confusion, and I am grateful to Mr. Leitenberg for bringing it to my

attention.

In my attempt to edit out a number of long historiographical comments about the documents from the essay I submitted to the Bulletin, I deleted a remark about the reliability of Khrushchev's memoirs on the Polish crisis, which was originally included with Molotov's characterization of Rokossowski in the Felix Chuev interview (contained in One Hundred and Forty Conversations with Molotov) cited in endnote 28. I should have left in place the following observation:

This is another example of how Khrushchev's memoirs are accurate in so far as the general atmosphere of the discussions are concerned, and at the same time confusing because he again tends to take what were obviously a series of discussions and compress them into one important conversation. Surely, as Document 1 clearly shows, Rokossowski could not have gone with Khrushchev to the Soviet embassy on 19 October [1956], although Khrushchev's emphasis on Rokossowski as a main source of information for what was happening in Poland at the time tells us a lot about what everyone in Poland took for public knowledge: Rokossowski was Moscow's man in Warsaw. The Polish Minister of Defense was at the Politburo meeting, held immediately after First Secretary Ochab

put the 8th Plenum on hold, to further discuss the Polish position towards Khrushchev, while the Soviets went to their own embassy. Rokossowski attended all the meetings of the Polish Politburo during this tense period. The Stenographic report of the 8th Plenum also notes that Rokossowski attended all sittings of the 8th Plenum from 19-21 October 1956. It would be difficult to imagine Rokossowski not attending meetings of the only legal bodies that could force him from the leadership. Khrushchev probably decided to let the Poles begin the 8th Plenum for a number of reasons, including the necessity of providing Gomulka with the legal status he needed to negotiate on behalf of the Polish side at the Belvedere talks. More important, Rokossowski was a full member of the PUWP Politburo and Central Committee. Gomulka had to treat Rokossowski as part of the Polish negotiation team, at least officially, and no one on either side would have suggested, at least in public, otherwise.

Military aspects of the 1956 crisis, with which I have been grappling since 1986, have been among the most difficult issues to date to discuss with any degree of confidence. Documentary evidence, until recently, has been limited, while humanist sociology, brushed with rumors, hearsay, and unsubstantiated gossip, grows with every memoir. With some exceptions, the latter part of the little story from the long Belvedere meeting recited to Mr. Leitenberg by his Polish source has a ring of truth. I can imagine, during the most heated moments, Khrushchev and Gomulka exchanging veiled threats, using language that spawned images of heroic Polish resistance and Soviet military glory. Khrushchev and Gomulka were not the quiet diplomatic types. But it would be a leap to suggest that "one of the most crucial aspects" determining the "ultimate outcome of the confrontation" was the "circumstances in which the Polish party leadership learned of the [Soviet military] movements," at least with the limited selection of documents I included in my essay.

However, I will let Mr. Leitenberg and

the readers of the Bulletin decide for themselves the merits of my case when I present it in full, in a second documentary essay I have begun to put together, this time with Edward Nalepa of the Military Historical Institute in Warsaw, before I was made aware of Mr. Leitenberg's letter, for an upcoming issue of the Bulletin. Our documents include a series of reports prepared by Polish military counter-espionage (Informacja) officers throughout the period of the crisis.

In my first essay I wanted to focus on the political aspects of the crisis, particularly the bottom line positions staked out by the two key personalities in this struggle: Khrushchev and Gomulka. Reflecting the tendency at these high level meetings to focus on personalities, both sides argued over the symbolic significance of Marshal Rokossowski's continued presence in People's Poland. Almost all other outstanding issues that divided the Soviets and the Poles were left for further negotiations. I am currently preparing a list of the documents that cover this vast subject. The documents I selected for translation or cited in the footnotes of my first Bulletin essay make up the most up to date collection on the Polish version of what happened at the Belvedere Palace on 19-20 October 1956. The Czech document recording a 24 October 1956 meeting at the Kremlin, which outlines the Soviet version of events- -a document introduced and translated by Mark Kramer and published in the same issue of the Bulletin (pp.1, 50-56)-helps to complete the documentary part of the whole puzzle, but more Soviet documents are still required to draw less tentative conclusions.

My thesis, not in dispute insofar as Mr. Leitenberg's letter is concerned, is that the Polish crisis of October 1956 ended in a political settlement. Khrushchev made the final compromise which ended the standoff: Rokossowski's future was left to the PUWP CC; and they later voted to oust him from the Politburo. Both sides compromised and claimed victory, although Gomulka came out of the stormy negotiations especially in a strong position. Khrushchev, on the other hand, managed, as I argue, "to put the Polish question to rest for almost 25 years." The Soviet compromise should not go unnoticed.

Indeed, all this was accomplished at a time of great international tension, ideological confusion, social unrest in the country

where the negotiations were taking place, and led by two leaders who still had to operate within some kind of collective leadership framework. Other than "active intervention," as Khrushchev called it, could the Soviet leader (or Gomulka for that matter) have guaranteed anything other than the threat of military intervention during the talks at the Belvedere Palace, without a prolonged and exhaustive period of face-toface negotiation? We already know, for example, that Khrushchev only knew what others had told him about Gomulka or the situation in Poland, and that he was already suspicious of half the Polish Politburo, whom he met in March 1956. In fact, Khrushchev positively despised Roman Zambrowski, the leading Gomulka supporter in the PUWP Politburo at the time. Mikoyan's warning to Gomulka that he would "be pulled to the top by the Jews and then again they will drop him" was directed at Zambrowski, who again became the target of Soviet scorn during informal Soviet-Polish meetings over the future of Soviet-Polish relations after October 1956.

With regard to the second assertion by Mr. Leitenberg; namely my refusal to discuss "the threatened response of Polish military units" to the Soviet troop movements, which "is not mentioned in the documents at all, or by the author," I will add this for the moment. The Soviet control of the Polish Army, acknowledged in the body of my essay, extensively discussed in my footnotes, and covered by Document 5 (Khrushchev's letter to Gomulka on 22 October 1956), as well as the Soviet threat to intervene militarily in the affairs of the Polish party, cannot be separated. If any communist in Poland at the time can make a claim to have threatened to go to battle against Soviet tanks and troops, who also marched with some Polish military units towards Warsaw, it was the commanders of the security troops under the command of the Polish interior ministry, and perhaps some individual Polish Army officers who turned to them. But all these matters need further clarification. Edward Nalepa and I will try to sort through the myth and draw some more appropriate conclusions in the essay we will present in a future Bulletin.

We will also try to put into context Mr. Leitenberg's presentation of the observations shared to him during a talk in 1980 with "a former Polish party and government

official who had before 1956 been close to the Polish First Secretary...Bierut." At this stage, I will only emphasize that this too is a problem. How Polish communists, sharply divided before October 1956, immediately after the crisis, appropriated and transformed the October events and then continued to reinvent the "Polish October" after each successive period of conflict during the Cold War, is worthy of note.

I take full responsibility for a number of misprints that appear in the published text. Mr. Leitenberg's final critical remark to me, "Gluchowski never comments on the [Soviet] proposal for union," is one of the most serious errors. Three separate letters with corrections were sent to the Bulletin, but it appears the last one did not make it into the final text. The sentence from which Mr. Leitenberg cites (p. 40), where Gomulka is outlining to the Polish Politburo Khrushchev's comments, should read as follows: "They are upset with us because the Politburo Commission proposed a new list of members to the Politburo without a number of comrades who are supporters of a PolishSoviet alliance [not union-sojuszu polskoradzieckiego]; namely, comrades Rokossowski, [Zenon] Nowak, Mazur, Jozwiak." The next two sentences should read: "I explained to them that we don't have such tendencies. We do not want to break the friendly relations [not alliance-zrywac przyjazni ze Zwiazkiem Radzieckim] with the Soviet Union."

Incidentally, Khrushchev's comment to Gomulka about Poland's leading supporters of a Soviet-Polish alliance is closely related to Khrushchev's previous comment, cited by Gomulka in Russian: "The treacherous activity of Comrade Ochab has become evident, this number won't pass here." It was not obvious to me when I prepared the first essay, although I now hope to make my case shortly elsewhere, but it appears that Khrushchev's anger, directed as it was towards Ochab, probably stemmed from Ochab's September 1956 meeting with the Chinese, as mentioned in Document 5, and subsequent negotiations between Warsaw and Beijing. Soviet-Chinese talks over Poland appear to have led Beijing to demand. from Moscow a more collective approach to the way the Kremlin dealt with the Warsaw Treaty Organization states. In a telegram to Gomulka from the Polish ambassador to China, dated 27 October 1956, Stanislaw

Kiryluk wrote:

...at two in the morning I was invited to meet with the CPCh [Communist Party of China] leadership. Talks with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun lasted for three hours ... [The Chinese leaders stated:] "Between 19-23 October a CPCh delegation... in Moscow convinced Khrushchev about the rightness of the political changes in Poland... Matters of independent Polish activities cannot be questioned despite the reservations of the CPSU Politburo, which has become accustomed to methods and forms of behavior that must be eliminated from relations within the socialist camp." Mao used, in this context, the phrase "great power chauvinism." [See Archive of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Collection of telegrams from Beijing in 1956, Telegram no. 17599, 27 October 1956]

It appears the Chinese may also need to be given some credit for the success of the "Polish October."

Centre for Russian and East European Studies. University of Toronto 25 November 1995