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(Moscow), 22 November 1962, p. 1.

See the account by the Hungarian charge d'affaires in Washington, D.C. in October 1962 (who later defected), Janos Radvanyi, Hungary and the Superpowers: The 1956 Revolution and Realpolitik (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1972), p. 137. China, too, was not informed in advance about either the placement or the withdrawal of the missiles in Cuba. This point was noted by Chinese leaders during the bitter SinoSoviet polemics in 1963. See, for example, the exchanges in "On the Statement of the Communist Party of the USA," Peking Review (Beijing), 15 March 1963, pp. 11-13; “Otkrytoe pis'mo Tsentral'nogo Komiteta Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza partiinym organizatsiyam i vsem kommunistam Sovetskogo Soyuza," Pravda (Moscow), 14 July 1963, p.1; and "Statement by the Spokesman of the Chinese Government: A Comment on the Soviet Government's Statement of August 21," Peking Review (Beijing), 6 September 1963, pp. 7-11. See also the article by M. Y. Prozumenschikov in this issue of the Bulletin.

5 "Razvitie voennogo iskusstva v usloviyakh vedeniya raketno-yadernoi voiny po Sovremennym predstavleniyam," Report No. 24762s (TOP SECRET) from Col.-General P. Ivashutin, chief of the Soviet General Staff's Main Intelligence Directorate, to Marshal M. V. Zakharov, head of the General Staff Military Academy, 28 August 1964, in Tsentral'nyi arkhiv Ministerstva oborony (TSAMO), Delo (D.) 158, esp. Listy (L.) 352-3, 411-2, 423, and 400. I am grateful to Matthew Evangelista for providing me with a copy of this document.

6

This point is stressed in the top-secret cables adduced in note 2 supra.

7

On the state of the Russian archives, see Mark Kramer, "Archival Research in Moscow: Progress and Pitfalls," Cold War International History Bulletin, No. 3 (Fall 1993), pp. 1, 14-37.

8 "Razvitie voennogo iskusstva v usloviyakh vedeniya raketno-yadernoi voiny po Sovremennym predstavleniyam," pp. 332-3.

9

"Obmen poslaniyami mezhdu N. S. Khrushchevym i F. Kastro v dni Karibskogo krizisa 1962 goda," Vestnik Ministerstva inostrannykh del SSSR (Moscow), No. 24 (31 December 1990), pp. 67-80, esp. pp. 71-73. This correspondence was first released in November 1990 by the Cuban, not Soviet, government. Fidel Castro was seeking to rebut a claim made in a portion of Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs that appeared in English for the first time in 1990. Khrushchev had recalled that Castro was urging him to launch a preemptive nuclear attack against the United States, whereas Castro insisted (correctly) that he had called for an all-out Soviet nuclear attack against the United States only if U.S. troops invaded Cuba. Soon after this correspondence was published in Spanish in the 23 November 1990 issue of the Havana daily Granma (and in English in the weekly edition of Granma), the Soviet government realized it had nothing to gain by keeping the Russian version secret any longer. Hence, the full correspondence was published in the Soviet Foreign Ministry's in-house journal, as cited here. [Ed. note: For Khrushchev's version, see Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes, trans. and ed. by Jerrold

L. Schecter with Vyacheslav V. Luchkov (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1990), pp. 170-83, esp. pp. 177, 183; for an English translation of the correspondence and an accompanying commentary in Granma, see Appendix 2 of James G. Blight, Bruce J. Allyn, and David A. Welch (with the assistance of David Lewis), Cuba on the Brink: Castro, the Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), pp. 474-91; the key letter, of Castro to Khrushchev on 26 October 1962, is on pp. 481-2.] 10 "Obmen poslaniyami mezhdu N. S. Khrushchevym i F. Kastro v dni Karibskogo krizisa 1962 goda," pp. 73-5. This point was reemphasized to Castro by Prime Minister Mikoyan during their conversations in November 1962. See "Zapis' besedy A. I. Mikoyana s prem`erministrom revolyutsionnogo pravitel'stva Kuby F. Kastro," 12 November 1962 (Top Secret) and “O besedakh A. I. Mikoyana s F. Kastro," 20 November 1962 (Top Secret), both published in Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn' (Moscow), Nos. 11-12 (November-December 1992), pp. 143-7 and 14750, respectively. See esp. p. 149.

11

It should be noted, however, that a decision to send 901-A4 nuclear warheads and 407-N6 bombs to Cuba for the Frogs and Il-28s was not finalized until 8 September 1962, by which time Khrushchev may already have changed his mind about the command-and-control arrangements. See "Nachal'niku 12 glavnogo upravleniya Ministerstva oborony," 8 September 1962 (Top Secret), Memorandum from Defense Minister R. Malinovskii and Chief of the General Staff M. Zakharov, in TSAMO, "Dokumenty po meropriyatiyu 'Anadyr'," F. 16, Op. 3753. It is eminently possible that the nuclear-capable weapons would not have been equipped with nuclear warheads if they had been placed under Castro's command.

12 “Dogovor mezhdu pravitel'stvom Respubliki Kuby i pravitel'stvom Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik o voennom sotrudnichestve i vzaimnoi oborone," undated, Article 10.

13

See Nikita S. Khrushchev, Vospominaniya (Moscow: typescript, 1966-1970), Vol. IV, "Karibskii krizis," esp. p. 12. I am grateful to Khrushchev's son, Sergei, for providing me with a copy of the 3,600-page transcript of his father's memoirs. For an English translation of most of the account about the Cuban missile crisis, see Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes, trans. and ed. by Jerrold L. Schecter and Vyacheslav V. Luchkov (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1990), pp. 170-83.

14

Maj.-General (ret.) V. Makarevskii, "O prem'ere N. S. Khrushcheve, marshale G. K. Zhukove i generale I. A. Plieve," Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya (Moscow), Nos. 8-9 (August-September 1994), p. 197. Makarevskii served for many years under Pliev's command. Pliev's close friendship with Khrushchev and Malinovskii is overlooked in the jaundiced assessment offered by General Anatolii Gribkov in Operation ANADYR: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis (Chicago: Edition Q, 1994), pp. 25-6. 15 "Komanduyushchemu gruppoi sovetskikh voisk na o. Kuba," 8 September 1962 (Top Secret), in TSAMO, "Dokumenty po meropriyatiyu

'Anadyr'," GSU GSh, F. 16, Op. 3753; reproduced in Operation ANADYR, p. 183. For a discussion of this matter and relevant citations, see Mark Kramer, "Tactical Nuclear Weapons, Soviet Command Authority, and the Cuban Missile Crisis," Cold War International History Bulletin, No. 3 (Fall 1993), pp. 40-46, esp. 42-3, 46.

16 "Trostnik-tovarishchu Pavlovu," No. 4/389 (Top Secret) from R. Malinovskii (Direktor), 22 October 1962, reproduced in Operation ANADYR, p. 181. See also Sergei Pavlenko, "Bezymyannye motostrelki otpravlyalis' na Kubu 'stoyat' nasmert," Krasnaya zvezda (Moscow), 29 December 1994, p. 4. For further discussion and relevant citations, see Kramer, "Tactical Nuclear Weapons, Soviet Command Authority, and the Cuban Missile Crisis," pp. 45-6.

17

In early 1994, General Anatolii Gribkov claimed that Pliev not only wanted to move several nuclear warheads out of storage on 26 October 1962, but had actually issued orders to that effect without authorization from Moscow. See Operation ANADYR, p. 63. Gribkov also elaborated on this assertion in a seminar organized by the Cold War International History Project and held at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on 5 April 1994. However, he produced no evidence to back up his assertion that warheads were actually moved out, and in a lengthy interview in Moscow on 29 September 1994 he said he could not be certain that Pliev had given such an order. Gribkov's initial claim had already been contradicted by the Soviet officer who was in charge of the "central nuclear base" (i.e., the storage site for all nuclear warheads) in Cuba during the crisis, Colonel Nikolai Beloborodov, who testified in late 1992 that "nuclear weapons could have been used only if the missile officers had received orders via their own chain-of-command from the General Staff, and only if we, the officers responsible for storing and operating warheads, had received our own special codes. At no point did I receive any signals to issue warheads for either the mediumrange missiles or the tactical weapons." See Lieut.-Colonel Anatolii Dokuchaev, “100-dnevnyi yadernyi kruiz," Krasnaya zvezda (Moscow), 6 November 1992, p. 2. Beloborodov reemphasized this point several times during an interview in Moscow on 28 September 1994: "No nuclear munitions of any type, whether for the mediumrange or the tactical weapons, were ever moved (byly dostavleny) out of storage during the crisis. Nor could they have been moved without my knowledge." Beloborodov's account was endorsed by General Leonid Garbuz, the deputy commander of Soviet forces in Cuba in 1962, in an interview that same day in Moscow. 18 The exact contents of Pliev's telegram on the 26th are unknown, but the numbering of telegrams that are available makes clear that he sent at least two that day, the second of which is the one in question. (The first of his telegrams on the 26th, which was declassified in October 1992, pertained only to air defense operations against possible U.S. air strikes.) The text of the Soviet leadership's response to Pliev's second cable is available (see next note), and, combined with retrospective comments by ex-Soviet officials, it suggests that Pliev referred to Castro's efforts and requested authority to move the warheads (though

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20

Marshal V. F. Tolubko, “Glavnaya raketnaya sila strany," Krasnaya zvezda (Moscow), 19 November 1963, p. 1.

21 See Khrushchev's comments on this point in Vospominaniya, Vol. IV, “Karibskii krizis,” p. 18. 22 Army-General Yu. P. Maksimov et al., eds., Raketnye voiska strategicheskogo naznacheniya: Voenno-istoricheskii trud (Moscow: Nauka, 1992), pp. 109-10. Detailed first-hand accounts by high-ranking Soviet air defense personnel who took part in the shootdown are available in "Voina ozhidalas's rassvetom," Krasnaya zvezda (Moscow), 13 May 1993, p. 2.

23 The rules of engagement are spelled out briefly

in the cable from Malinovskii to Pliev, as cited in Dokuchaev, “100-dnevnyi yadernyi kruiz,” p. 2. More elaborate rules are specified in documents now stored in the Russian General Staff archive; see "Dokumenty po meropriyatiyu ‘Anadyr',” in GSU GSh, F. 16, Op. 3753, D. 1, Korebka 3573. 24 Khrushchev, Vospominaniya, Vol. IV, "Karibskii krizis," pp. 17-8.

25

"Vystuplenie glavy Sovetskoi delegatsii Predsedatelya Soveta Ministrov SSSR N. S. Khrushcheva na Soveshchanii Politicheskogo Konsul'tativnogo Komiteta gosudarstv-uchastnikov Varshavskogo Dogovora 24 maya 1958 goda," Pravda (Moscow), 27 May 1958, p. 3. 26 Thomas Wolfe, Soviet Power in Europe, 19451970 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970), pp. 150-1, 487-9.

27 "Was ist der westdeutsche Militarismus?” Neues Deutschland (East Berlin), 26 January 1959, pp. 1-2. See also "Wortlaut der Rede Walter Ulbrichts auf dem XXI. Parteitag der KPdSU," Neues Deutschland (East Berlin), 30 January 1959, p. 1.

28 Der Bundesminister der Verteidigung, Militarische Planungen des Warschauer Paktes in Zentraleuropa: Eine Studie, February 1992, p. 5. [Ed. note: For an English translation of the report, see Mark Kramer, trans. and annot., "Warsaw Pact Military Planning in Central Europe: Revelations From the East German Archives," CWIHP Bulletin 2 (Fall 1992), pp. 1, 13-19.] 29 Militarisches Zwischenarchiv (Potsdam), VAStrausberg/29555/Box 155.

30 "Dohoda CSSR-ZSSR o vzajemnych dodavkach vyzbroje a voj. techniky v rr. 19631965," in VHA Praha, F. Sekretariat MNO, 19601962, OS/GS, 26/2.

31 "Dogovor mezhdu pravitel'stvami SSSR i ChSSR o merakh povysheniya boegotovnosti raketnykh voisk," 15 December 1965, in VHA Praha, F. Sekretariat MNO, 1960-1962, OS/GS, 2/16.

32 See the reports on "Hungary: USSR Nuclear Weapons Formerly Stored in Country," translated in U.S. Joint Publications Research Service,

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35

See, e.g., Col.-General I. Glebov, "Razvitie operativnogo iskusstva," Krasnaya zvezda (Moscow), 2 April 1964, pp. 2-3; and Col.-General S. M. Shtemenko, "Sukhoputnye voiska v sovremennoi voine i ikh boevaya podgotovka," Krasnaya zvezda (Moscow), 3 January 1963, pp. 2-3. See also Marshal V. D. Sokolovskii et al., Voennaya strategiya, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1963), pp. 373-4. This theme is also evident in "Razvitie voennogo iskusstva v usloviyakh vedeniya raketno-yadernoi voiny po Sovremennym predstavleniyam," passim.

36

See, e.g., Col.-General N. Lomov, “Vliyanie Sovetskoi voennoi doktriny na razvitie voennogo iskusstva," Kommunist vooruzhenykh sil (Moscow), No. 21 (November 1965), pp. 16-24.

37 Cited in "Rech' tovarishcha L. I. Brezhneva," Pravda (Moscow), 25 September 1965, p. 2 (emphasis added).

38

"Stenografische Niederschrift der Konferenz der kommunistischen und Arbeiterparteien die Staaten des Warschauer Vertrages," January 1965 (Top Secret), in Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv (SAPMDB), Zentrales Parteiarchiv (ZPA) der SED, J IV, 2/202/130.

39 "O zasedanii Politicheskogo konsul'tativnogo komiteta gosudarstv-uchastnikov Varshavskogo Dogovora o druzhbe, sotrudnichestve i vzaimnoi pomoshchi," Krasnaya zvezda (Moscow), 21 January 1965, p. 1. See also Colonel V. F. Samoilenko, Osnova boevogo soyuza: Internatsionalizm kak faktor oboronnoi moshchi sotsialisticheskogo sodruzhestva (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1981), p. 259.

40

See, e.g., Marshal R. Ya. Malinovskii, "Moguchii strazh bezopasnosti narodov," Krasnaya zvezda (Moscow), 13 May 1965, p. 3; Marshal A. A. Grechko, “Nadezhnyi shchit mira i bezopasnosti narodov," Kommunist vooruzhenykh sil (Moscow), No. 9 (May 1965), p. 13; and Marshal A. A. Grechko, “Boevoi soyuz bratskikh narodov," Pravda (Moscow), 13 May 1965, p. 1.

41 "Informacna sprava o vysledkach cvicenia 'Oktobrova Burka'," 16-22 October 1965 (Top Secret), in VHA Praha, F. Hlavna Politicka Sprava (HPS), 1965, HPS 1/2.

42

"Konferenz der kommunistischen und Arbeiterparteien die Staaten des Warschauer Vertrages: Stenografische Niederschrift," February 1966 (Top Secret), in SAPMDB, ZPA, IV 27/ 208/85.

43 "Oplot mira i sotsializma," Krasnaya zvezda (Moscow), 14 May 1966, p. 5.

44 "La Roumanie n'a formule aucune demande en ce qui concerne le Pacte de Varsovie: Mise au Point du ministere des Affaires etrangeres a Bucarest," L'Humanite (Paris), 19 May 1966, p.

3.

45

"Stenografische Niederschrift des Treffens fuhrender Reprasentanten der Bruderstaaten des Warschauer Vertrages," July 1966 (Top Secret), in SAPMDB, ZPA, IV 2/202/431.

46

"Komplexny material: Cvicenie 'VLTAVA"," in VHA Praha, F. HPS, 1966, HPS 30/2; and "Vyhodnotenie cvicenia 'VLTAVA'." VHA Praha, F. Sekretariat MNO, 1966, OS/GS, 4/2.

47

Maksimov et al., eds., Raketnye voiska strategicheskogo naznacheniya, pp. 125-126.

48

See, e.g., ibid., pp. 125-6. See also "Razvitie voennogo iskusstva v usloviyakh vedeniya raketno-yadernoi voiny po sovremennym predstavleniyam," pp. 325-34.

49

See ibid., pp. 330-36 and passim.

Mark Kramer, a researcher based at the Davis Center for Russian Studies (formerly the Russian Research Center) at Harvard University, is a frequent contributor to the CWIHP Bulletin. The above article was originally presented as a paper at a conference on the Cuban Missile Crisis in Moscow in September 1994. It supersedes an earlier version which appeared in CWIHP Bulletin 5 (Spring 1995), pp. 59, 110, 112115, 160, and, due to technical production errors, contained errors in the placing and numbering of footnotes. The Bulletin reprints the article, with apologies to readers and the author (and slight revisions by the latter), in this is

sue.

New Evidence on 1953, 1956 Crises:

CONFERENCES IN BUDAPEST, POTSDAM SPOTLIGHT COLD WAR FLASHPOINTS

In the autumn of 1996, the Cold War International History Project and the National Security Archive, along with European partner institutions, co-sponsored and jointly organized two major international scholarly conferences at which scholars presented and debated new evidence from both Eastern and Western archives and sources concerning two major Cold War episodes in Europe: the 1953 East German Uprising (and the post-Stalin succession struggle in Moscow), and the 1956 Polish and Hungarian crises.

The conference, "Hungary and the World, 1956: The New Archival Evidence," took place in Budapest on 26

THE SOVIET UNION AND THE HUNGARIAN CRISIS OF 1956: THE DOCUMENTARY ANTHOLOGY

A group of Russian and Hungarian scholars and archivists has cooperated to prepare for publication a Russian-language antholof archival documents-many of them ogy never previously published-on Soviet policy and the events in Hungary in 1956. The Soviet Union and the Hungarian Crisis of 1956: The Documentary Collection is scheduled for publication in 1997. Among the Russian academic and archival institutions collaborating to produce the volume are the Institute for Slavonic and Balkan Studies (Russian Academy of Sciences) and the Institute of History (Russian Academy of Sciences); the Archive of Foreign Policy, Russian Federation; the Archive of the President, Russian Federation; and the Center for the Storage of Contemporary Documentation. Co-editors include: V.Y. Afiani, B. Zhelizki, T. Islamov, S. Melchin, I. Morozov, V. Sereda, A. Stykalin, I. Vash, I. Vida, E. Dorken, T. Haidu. Financial support for the publication was provded by the National Security Archive and the Cold War International History Project and East European Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center. For ordering and publication information, please contact the editors.

29 September 1996, and was hosted by 29 September 1996, and was hosted by the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The international symposium on "The Crisis Year 1953 and The Cold War in Europe" convened in Potsdam, Germany, on 10-12 November 1996, and was hosted by the Center for Contemporary History Research (Zentrum fur Zeithistorische Forschung).

Both conferences grew out of the "Cold War Flashpoints" Project of the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research institute and declassified documents repository based at George Washington University. Previous activities of the Project, undertaken by the Archive in close cooperation with CWIHP and Czech and Polish partners, included the holding of a major international conference in Prague in April 1994 on new evidence on the 1968 Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and a scholarly workshop in Warsaw in August 1995 on new sources on the 1980-81 Polish Crisis, as well as meetings with scholars in Bucharest and Sofia in October 1996 on possibilities for collaborative research in Romanian and Bulgarian archives on Cold War topics.

Future meetings are also scheduled. In June 1997, the "Flashpoints" Project plans to hold an oral history conference in Poland on the 1980-81 crisis, gathering key participants, scholars, and sources from Poland, Russia, the United States, and elsewhere, and the Project is also working with various scholars, archives, and scholarly institutions and projects toward the holding of a series of meetings to present new evidence on the End of the Cold War, including the 1989 revolutions in Europe, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the transfor

mation in U.S.-Soviet relations.

The Budapest and Potsdam conferences, like others in the "Flashpoints" series, offered a venue for dozens of American, Russian, Central-East European, and other scholars to present new evidence from Western and Eastern archives, and in some cases for former participants in the events to recall their experiences. Key topics covered at Budapest included the Polish upheavals, which immediately preceded the Hungary invasion; Soviet policy toward

MORE ON THE MALIN NOTES

The publication in this issue of the CWIHP Bulletin of the full translation of the Malin Notes on the 1956 Polish and Hungarian Crises marks their first complete appearance in English. However, versions of them were published in 1996 in Russian and Hungarian by the Russian scholar Vyacheslav Sereda and the Hungarian scholar Janos M. Rainer: in a two-part series presented by Vyacheslav Sereda in Nos. 2 and 3 (1996) of the Russian journal Istoricheski Arkhiv [Historical Archives], and in a book entitled Dontes a Kremlben, 1956: A szovjet partelnokseg vitai Magyarorszagrol [Crisis in the Kremlin, 1956: The Debates of the Soviet Party Presidium on Hungary] (Budapest: 1956-os Intezet, 1996), published by the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. In addition, two important analyses of the notes have appeared in English: Janos M. Rainer's two-part series, "The Road to Budapest, 1956: New Documentation of the Kremlin's Decision To Intervene," in The Hungarian Quarterly 37:142 (Summer 1996), 24-41, and 37:143 (Autumn 1996), 16-31; and Mark Kramer, “New Light Shed on 1956 Soviet Decision to Invade Hungary," Transition 2:23 (15 November 1996), 35-40.

both crises; the impact of the invasion on Eastern Europe; the Western response; China's shifting position on the crises; and Radio Free Europe's controversial role. A number of participants in the uprising itself spoke either as panelists or as members of the audience, and several witnesses to the revolution led a "walking tour of revolutionary Budapest" to scenes of the street battles 40 years earlier.

Among the most noteworthy findings of the Hungary Conference were presentations and analyses of notes from Soviet Presidium meetings in fall 1956 taken by V.N. Malin, head of the CPSU General Department. These notes constitute the only known contemporaneous record of the key sessions of late October and early November at which Kremlin leaders went back and forth over whether to pull out from Hungary or reintroduce new troops. A comprehensive analysis of the significance of the Malin Notes and other recent evidence on Soviet policy toward the 1956 Poland and Hungary crises, along with a translation and annotation of the Malin Notes themselves, has been prepared for the Bulletin by Mark

Kramer of Harvard University; it appears immediately following this article.

In Potsdam, sessions examined the origins and consequences of the June 1953 East German uprising; the "Beria Affair" and post-Stalin succession struggle in Moscow; Soviet policy toward Germany before and after June 17; Stalin's death and East Central Europe; and the West's position and actions in 1953. Both conferences ended with roundtables on the long-term significance of the abortive revolts of 1953 and 1956, particularly for the 1989 collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and for contemporary Germany and Hungary.

Both conferences generated considerable public as well as scholarly attention. As might be expected, local interest in the Budapest gathering, coming on the eve of the revolution's 40th anniversary, was intense. The main hall niversary, was intense. The main hall of the elegant Academy of Sciences building on the banks of the Danube was filled on the conference's opening day, and Hungarian media coverage throughout was extensive. Overseas interest was evidenced by three articles

OSTERMANN WINS GERMAN STUDIES AWARD FOR ARTICLE ON 1953 EAST GERMAN UPRISING

The Cold War International History Project is pleased to note that Christian F. Ostermann, a doctoral candidate at Hamburg University currently based at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. (and CWIHP's new Associate Director), has received an award from the German Studies Association for best article published in German Studies Review in History and the Social Sciences for the period 1994-1996. Drawing on newly-opened East German sources as well as declassified U.S. government documents obtained by the author through the Freedom of Information Act, the article-"Keeping the Pot Simmering': The United States and the East German Uprising of 1953," which appeared in German Studies Review, vol. XIX, no. 1, February 1996, pp. 61-89—was originally published, in slightly different form, in December 1994 as Working Paper No. 11 of the Cold War International History Project; the author had presented an earlier draft at CWIHP's conference on "New Evidence on the Cold War in Germany" at the University of Essen in June 1994. The award is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst). The award citation notes that Ostermann's article "contributes signifantly to our understanding of a crucial moment in the Cold War. On the basis of thorough research in recently opened archival sources of the former German Democratic Republic and the United States, Ostermann subjects conventional ideological interpretations to sustained and critical scrutiny. His analysis of complicated episodes, for example, the American food program, sheds light on the development of Cold War policies as a whole. Ostermann's clear prose, deliberate form of expression, and balanced judgments on highly controversial issues are qualities that make this an article of outstanding scholarly merit.”

and an editorial in The New York Times, as well as pieces in The Washington Post and numerous European publications. Timothy Garton Ash, who delivered the concluding remarks for the conference, wrote up his reflections in the 14 November 1996 edition of The New York Review of Books.

The Potsdam Conference, for its part, resulted in an Associated Press report, carried in many major newspapers, on newly declassified U.S. documents obtained by the National Security Archive on the Eisenhower Administration's reactions to the events, including a 29 June 1953 report approved by the National Security Council (NSC 158) which, among other actions, declared that one official policy objective was to "Encourage elimination of key puppet officials."

CWIHP is pleased to note the efforts of major contributors to the success of both conferences: Christian F. Ostermann, a scholar based at the National Security Archive and the new Associate Director of CWIHP; the Director of the 1956 Institute, Dr. Gyorgy Litvan, and its Research Director, Csaba Bekes; at the ZZF in Potsdam, Director Prof. Dr. Christoph Klessman, and Anke Wappler; at the National Security Archive, Malcolm Byrne, Pete Voth, and Vlad Zubok; and at the Wilson Center, Jim Hershberg and Michele CarusChristian. Many scholars assisted in obtaining key documents and in other ways for the conferences. Principal financial supporters for both meetings included the Open Society Institute; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and the Smith Richardson Foundation. Additional support for the Budapest meeting came from the Committee for Research on Contemporary History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Europa Institute, Institute of History, Central European University, and Open Society Archives, all in Budapest; and the Stalin Era Research and Archives Project, University of Toronto; additional backers of the Potsdam symposium included the Stiftung Volkswagenwerk (Hannover) and the Bradenburg Center for Political Education (Potsdam).

Since one key purpose of the “Cold

National Security Archive, 1996).

These briefing books, in turn, accelerated the process toward the ultimate preparation and publication by the conference organizers of edited volumes of papers and documents emerging from both the Potsdam and Budapest meetings. In addition, the Cold War International History Project, which has pre

War Flashpoints" Project is to gather new archival materials from all sides of the events, the conference organizers prepared "briefing books" of recently declassified U.S., Russian, and European documents for both conferences: Christian F. Ostermann, ed., The PostStalin Succession Struggle and the 17 June 1953 Uprising in East Germany: The Hidden History-Declassified viously published East-bloc documents Documents from U.S., Russian, and Other European Archives (Washington, D.C.: CWIHP/National Security Archive); and Csaba Bekes, Malcolm Byrne, and Christian F. Ostermann, ed. and comp., The Hidden History of Hungary 1956: A Compendium of Declassified Documents (Washington, D.C.:

TOGLIATTI ON NAGY,

30 OCTOBER 1956: MISSING CABLE FOUND

In the midst of the deliberations on 31 October 1956 leading to a decision to invade Hungary to crush the revolution and the government led by Imre Nagy, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee (CPSU CC) Presidium approved a secret message to Italian Communist Party Secretary Palmiro Togliatti. Clearly responding to an earlier communication, the Soviet leadership expressed agreement with Togliatti that events in Hungary was heading in a “reactionary" direction and that Imre Nagy was "occupying a two-faced position" and "falling more and more under the influence of the reactionary forces. This cable, a revealing indication of the hardening stand being taken inside the Soviet leadership at this critical juncture, was declassified by Russian authorities in 1992 in conjunction with President Yeltsin's visit to Hungary and presentation of a collection of documents on the 1956 events; an English translation of the message to Togliatti appeared in the CWIHP Bulletin 5 (Spring 1995), p. 33.

However, only recently has the earlier communication from the Italian CP leader to the Soviets giving the negative assessment of Nagy emerged; although scholars had been unable to locate it in the archives of the Italian Communist Party, a copy of Togliatti's message, dated 30 October 1956, was located in the Archive

on all of the major "Flashpoint" crises, plans to publish selected materials from both the Potsdam and Budapest gatherings in forthcoming Bulletins, Working Papers, and in electronic form.

For more information on the Budapest or Potsdam meetings, contact Malcolm Byrne or Christian F.

of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF) in Moscow. It was first published in the Italian newspaper La Stampa on 11 September 1996, and presented by Prof. Federigo Argentieri (Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale Studi sull'Europa Centro-Orientale, Rome) to the conference on "Hungary and the World, 1956" in Budapest, 26-29 September 1996, organized by the National Security Archive, the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and the Cold War International History Project.

Togliatti's cable, translated from the Italian original by Doc and Claudia Rossi, appears below:

Hungarian events have created a heavy situation inside the Italian labor movement, and in our Party, too.

The gap between [Secretary General of the Italian Socialist Party Pietro] Nenni and ourselves that seemed to be closing after our initiatives is now rudely and suddenly acute. Nenni's position on Polish

events coincides with that of the Social Democrats. In our Party, one can see two polarized and inappropriate positions. On one extreme there are those who declare that the responsibility for what happened in Hungary is due to the abandoning of Stalinist methodology. At the other extreme are those groups who are accusing the Party leadership of not taking a position in favour of the insurrection in Budapest and who claim that the insurrection was justly motivated and should

Ostermann at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., tel.: (202) 994-7000, fax: (202) 994-7005, or by e-mail: nsarchive@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu; on the Budapest Conference, information can also be obtained from Csaba Bekes at the 1956 Institute in Budapest: (36-1) 322-5228; e-mail: h11339bek@ella.hu. More information on the programs and papers for the Budapest and Potsdam meetings is also available via the National Security Archive/CWIHP home page on the World Wide Web at http:// www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive

-Malcolm Byrne, Jim Hershberg, and Christian F. Ostermann

have been fully supported. These groups firmly insist that the entire leadership of our Party be replaced, and they believe [Italian trade union leader Giuseppe] Di Vittorio should become the new Party leader. They are based on a declaration of Di Vittorio that did not correspond to the Party line and was not approved by us. We are going to fight against these two opposing positions and the Party will not give up the battle.

Although I assure you that Hungarian events have developed in a way that render our clarifying action in the Party very difficult, it also makes it difficult to obtain consensus in favour of the leadership. When we defined the revolt as counterrevolutionary, we had to face the fact that our position was different from that of the Hungarian Party and of the Hungarian Government, and now it is the same Hungarian Government that is celebrating the insurrection. I think this is wrong. My opinion is that the Hungarian Government—whether Imre Nagy remains its leader or not is going irreversibly in a reactionary direction. I would like to know if you are of the same opinion or if you are more optimistic. I would like to add that among the leaders of our Party there are worries that Polish and Hungaran events could damage the unity of the leadership of your Party Presidium, as was defined by the 20th [CPSU] Congress.

We are all thinking if this occurs, the consequences could be very serious for the entire movement.

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