letter provides the names of two American officials, alleged masterminds of the plot, with their ranks and positions at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. If it is true, as Paul Henze asserts in this publication, that even the names are fictitious, it is odd that the Ethiopian authorities convened a socialist ambassadors' meeting in panic instead of easily verifying through elementary diplomatic inquiry and concluding that it had been a fabrication. The theory of a charade-a make-believe drama enacted on false information-will thus have to include the Ethiopians as well as Soviet authorities as actors if it is to be considered a plausible explanation.

In addition, a few other documents provide accounts of some early reservations the Soviet Union and its allies had about Mengistu's handling of certain issues. It should be noted that in earlier Western writings, some of these reservations were usually associated with a later period, after Gorbachev assumed power in Moscow in 1985. But as early as December 1977, a conversation between the East Germans and Ratanov points toward the need for Ethiopia to adopt a mixed economy along the lines of the Soviet NEP (New Economic Program) of the 1920s. The leadership's perception of the national bourgeoisie as an enemy of the revolution and the alienation and exclusion of this group as well as of the liberalminded functionaries of the state apparatus from the economy and national life is criticized as a dangerous trend with negative consequences. In another conversation the following February, a central player in the CPSU's Africa policy group, Boris Ponomarev, expressed his concern over extremes in the Ethiopian Revolution-the mass executions of prisoners and the government's Red Terror-directing the transmittal of these concerns to Mengistu using various channels.

Finally in this section, the issue of Moscow's relentless prodding of Mengistu to set up a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party to institutionalize the revolution as well as to transform the country into a reliable Soviet ally is a subject addressed by many authors and the focus of my own study. Primarily

5

because of Mengistu's resistance, and

to the disappointment of the Soviets, the party didn't come into existence until 1984. Two documents presented here refer to Soviet anxiety about repeated delays from the Ethiopian side in accepting the arrival of "a specially selected group of experienced CPSU comrades" to help in the party formation process. One of them notes that "Mengistu apparently has no concept of the cooperation with the advisers [and that] it is necessary to convince him that they could be a real help and relief.” Obviously, at this early stage in the revolution, the Soviets did not realize that Mengistu was intentionally preventing Moscow's infiltration into his power structure before completing a prolonged process of weeding out potential contenders and adversaries.

II. Ethio-Somali War

A substantial number of the documents presented here address the Soviet bloc's involvement in the conflict. Indeed, for Moscow, Barre's aggression against Ethiopia, which began in early 1977 under the guise of a Western Somali Liberation Movement and which escalated into full-scale intervention the following July, was both a welcome event and a potentially dangerous development. On one hand, it provided the Soviets with the opportunity to rapidly penetrate Ethiopia, the prized state of the Horn, while, on the other hand, it entailed a potentially painful risk of losing another state where Moscow had already built a presence: Somalia. The documents help in tracing Moscow's policy in the region which began in 1976 as a strategy of courting "Socialist Ethiopia" without disturbing its longstanding friendship with Somalia. By 1978 it had gone through a complete somersault with the Soviet ejection from Mogadishu and its entrenchment in Addis Ababa after a massive supply of arms which decided the outcome of the conflict in favor of Ethiopia. My comments, however, will only briefly focus on three particular issues.

One is on the 16 March 1977 Cuban-Yemen effort at creating a Marxist-Leninist confederation consisting of

Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Yemen. In his meeting with Honecker the following month, Castro provides a detailed report about the attitudes of the two leaders, Mengistu and Barre, toward the proposal. Mengistu is referred to in glowing terms while Barre is described as a chauvinist whose principal idea is nationalism, not socialism. The report vividly shows Castro trapped as a victim of his own ideology. Having erroneously assumed an absolute connection between perceived global trends-depicting socialism as the world's dynamic force-and the local situation in the Horn, he had expected a successful outcome to his efforts. His sharp disappointment in Barre's personality, on which the report dwells, should have been subordinated to the more crucial realization that national and ethnic rivalries peculiar to the region had doomed the confederation from the outset. Also in this document, the Cuban leader, perhaps for the first time, forcefully raised the impending dilemma facing the Soviet bloc in the Horn of Africa. He tells Honecker, "I see a great danger... if the socialist countries help Ethiopia, they will lose Siad Barre's friendship. If they don't, the Ethiopian revolution will founder." Faced with an either/or situation within six-eight months, Moscow bet on Ethiopia at the risk of irretrievably losing Somalia.

Another issue warranting mention is a probable justification for the Kremlin's massive air- and sealift of military equipment (worth about one billion dollars), 12,000 Cuban combat troops, and about 1500 Soviet military advisers to Ethiopia in November-December 1977. This measure immediately followed Somalia's unilateral abrogation of the 1974 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the USSR. Why was such an overwhelming show of force necessary? Moscow's apparent objective in this spectacular move was to guarantee the swift and decisive end of the Ethio-Somali war with a quick and unconditional withdrawal of Somali forces from Ethiopian territory. Two documents, the joint memorandum of the CPSU Third Africa Department and the Political Department of the GDR Embassy in Moscow, and the So

viet Foreign Ministry/CPSU CC International Department report on the Somali-Ethiopian conflict, shed light on a probable motive: "to avoid a situation analogous to the one in the Middle East"-where Sadat was taking his own spectacular initiative in making an unprecedented visit to Jerusalem-from arising in the Horn.

According to the documents, the Soviet Union wanted to avert at all costs the internationalization of the conflict and the possible involvement of the UN Security Council which it believed would be in the interest of Western powers. Such an outcome, Moscow argued, would be possible if an armistice were reached without the withdrawal of Somali troops from occupied Ethiopian territory while Western powers simultaneously pushed for Security Council involvement. A takeover by the Security Council, moreover, would delay a resolution of the conflict in a similar fashion as in the Middle East, possibly increasing the danger for superpower confrontation as the West and other unfriendly states demanded Soviet exit from the region as a precondition and blame it for causing the conflict. The significance of this logic is better appreciated when recalling Sadat's dramatic announcement in early November that he would visit Israel. It was a move that crushed plans for multilateral talks on the Middle East at Geneva and suddenly removed the Soviets from a direct role in the Arab-Israeli peace talks. In the face of such a setback, Moscow apparently showed its determination to anchor just at the other end of the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia in a desperate attempt to balance, in some degree, the loss of influence in Egypt by consolidating a strong presence in the greater Middle East conflict zone.

The final issue of interest in this section addresses one of Mengistu's first reactions about the possible Soviet use of Ethiopian port facilities in the likely event of the Somalia's denying Moscow access to the port of Berbera. He addresses this issue with Ratanov in a conversation dated 29 July 1977. He, interestingly, doesn't provide a clear cut commitment to provide the USSR access to its ports. Instead he states an

understanding of the Soviet dilemma: rendering military assistance to Ethiopia at the risk of losing its opportunity in Somalia. He also articulates Ethiopia's revolutionary indebtedness and obligation to take Moscow's interest in the region into account. The document doesn't make clear whether he was responding to a Soviet request; but, particularly if he raised the issue on his own initiative, the fact he makes such an indirect commitment appears to have been subtle and timely maneuver to attract Moscow toward Ethiopia.

III. The Eritrean Secessionists

An interesting paradox in the Ethiopian revolution can be noted. With the exception of the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU) (an entity associated with the remnants of the Selassie era), the other four major organizations which struggled to topple Mengistu's regime all ironically professed allegiance to Marxism-Leninism, just like their principal adversary. While two of them, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and the All Ethiopian Workers' Movement (MEISON), all but perished during the violent confrontations of the late 1970s, the other two, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Tigrean People's Liberation Front (TPLF) ultimately succeeded in coordinating their efforts to renounce Marxism after the late 1980s, dislodge Mengistu from power in 1991, and establish two independent states— Eritrea and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia-by 1993-1994.

To what extent these various (previously?) revolutionary organizations had forged parallel relations with Moscow and other socialist countries remains an interesting question to explore. The EPRP claims to have established contacts with the CPSU as early as 1972.6 MEISON had purportedly developed links through associations with European Communist parties in the 1970s. Until the Ethiopian revolution, 7 the EPLF had been openly assisted by countries like Cuba, possibly offering indirect ties to Moscow. The TPLF, as an organization founded after Ethiopia joined the Soviet orbit, probably didn't

have any relations with the USSR, but it went on record as advocating Albanian-style socialism, thus relations with Albania or China are not altogether inconceivable. The few documents presented here shed some light on Soviet and East German links with the EPLF and its much smaller rival organization in Eritrea-the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF)-in the context of the two socialist countries' efforts at facilitating mediation with the Mengistu regime. In particular, in 1978 the East Germans had arranged two direct highlevel talks between Mengistu's representative, Berhanu Bayeh, and EPLF leader Issaias Afeworki, the results of which were promptly communicated by Honecker to Brezhnev.

What is clear from these documents is the fact that the EPLF had apparently maintained well-established contacts with the SED and Issaias talked directly with Honecker as a leader of a revolutionary party. This level of contact may well not have been to Mengistu's liking. On the other hand, Moscow apparently exhibited sensitivity to the views in Addis Ababa in that the ELF and its leader Ahmed Mohammed Nasser were less closely linked with Moscow through the USSR's Solidarity Committee. Moreover, in one of the documents, Ulianovskii rejects an East German proposal that Issaias meet with him in Moscow so that the CPSU could exert pressure on the EPLF to compromise with Mengistu. Nevertheless, it is clear that both Berlin and Moscow had apparently coordinated a concerted effort at finding a political solution to the Eritrean problem by pressuring both the government of Mengistu as well as the rebel movements toward constructive dialogue. The results, however, had not been encouraging.

In conclusion, the documents presented here are indeed important contributions to the study of the politics of the Horn during 1977-1978 in the context of the Cold War. Their value is not so much in the amount of “new” information they present, although there is some. Rather, they are priceless in providing unique first-hand insight into the perceptions and attitudes of the major

actors involved in the decisions that shaped political outcomes.

Interestingly, the documents from the Russian archives appear to have been carefully selected to elide significant "blank spots" even on the issues and period covered. By contrast, the former East German materials, though limited in number, seem more insightful in the concentrated details they provide on one issue in particular: the Ethio-Eritrean high-level mediation.

Nevertheless, within the two-year period covered in these documents there are significant issues that find scant coverage. From the Soviet side these include materials pertaining to Moscow's intelligence assessment and possible involvement during the Ethiopian power struggle; relations with organizations other than the PMAC; military reports from General Petrov and others in the Ogaden; and early military planning involvement in Eritrea. From the East German side, materials related to its assistance in restructuring the Ethiopian security services would be of high interest. Beyond 1978, Soviet and other socialist countries' involvement in the Ethiopian vanguard party formation process would, of course, be of critical importance.

MOSCOW, MENGISTU, AND

THE HORN: DIFFICULT CHOICES FOR THE KREMLIN

by Paul B. Henze

The Russian and East German documents reproduced here constitute a useful contribution to the history of the Horn of Africa during the critical events of 1977-78. They provide insights into the Soviet relationship with the authoritarian leaders of Ethiopia and Somalia at that time, Chairman Mengistu Haile Mariam and President Mohammed Siad Barre, as well as into the motivations of these men and some of their associates.

Both Mengistu and Siad Barre were stubborn and ambitious leaders who confronted the Kremlin with difficult choices, which it tried to avoid for as long as possible. Siad comes across as a more blatant liar than Mengistu, who appears to have been more genuinely devoted to "socialism." While Siad seems totally mendacious and devious in his manipulation of the Soviets, Mengistu is shown with his back to the wall. He was determined to win Soviet support by vigorously professSoviet support by vigorously professing his loyalty to "socialism" and making clear his readiness to serve Soviet aims throughout the Horn and in the world at large. The documents occasionally reveal Soviet concern that Mengistu and his Derg associates were moving too fast, and these concerns were sometimes expressed to him. But as the Horn crisis developed, they became more concerned about preserving Mengistu's power than Siad's. The reason, undoubtedly, is that Ethiopia was a much more important country than Somalia. The Soviets originally established themselves in Somalia because they were unable to do so in Ethiopia.

To those knowledgeable of the details of Ethiopian history during this period, enthusiastic Soviet references to the "decisive action" Mengistu took on 3 February 1977 are noteworthy. In spite of repeated protestations of peaceful desires, these references show that Soviets had no reservations about approving violence as a means of settling differences. Though there are no ex

plicit references to this action in these documents, Soviet Ambassador Anatolii P. Ratanov was reliably reported at the time to have been the first to congratulate Mengistu after the spectacular bloodbath in the Derg when several challengers of Mengistu, most notably Head of State Teferi Bante, were shot. As a result, Mengistu emerged into the open as the dominant figure as Chairman of the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), i.e. the Derg.

The documents provide useful information on the activities of Cuba as junior partner to the Soviets in Ethiopia during this period. A long near-verbatim report from the archives of the former German Democratic Republic of a meeting between Fidel Castro and Erich Honecker on Castro's return from Africa in early April 1977 gives us vivid detail that confirms what has long been generally known of Castro's unsuccessful effort to mediate the developing Horn crisis in mid-March 1977. A subsequent briefing by Soviet Ambassador Ratanov of Cuban Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa provides a remarkably frank, and not entirely positive, appraisal of Ethiopia's military and political predicament and performance as of mid-summer 1977.

The Soviet Union was remarkably uncreative in its efforts to deal with the situation provoked by Siad Barre's attack on Ethiopia. Siad felt his way cautiously at first, operating behind a facade of what he claimed were only guerrilla operations. But by July 1977, Somalia was openly invading Ethiopia with regular military forces. Never1 theless, Somali officials adhered to the pretense well into 1978 that the operation was entirely the initiative of guerrillas. Even though Soviet officials in both Somalia and Ethiopia had to be well aware of what was happening, Moscow-on the surface at least-persisted on the course adopted early in the year: trying to bring the Somalis and Ethiopians together to compose their differences. Long reports by Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Leonid Ilychev of almost four weeks of meetings with a Somali delegation in Moscow from late July through the third week of August chronicle an elaborate

charade of negotiations. Unfortunately the documents available to us here do not include parallel reports of dealings with the Ethiopian delegation that was in Moscow during the same period, but it appears that the Somalis and the Ethiopians never even engaged in preliminary face-to-face talks. The reason why is easy to see in written statements each delegation gave the Soviets of its country's position, for neither left any room for compromise or even discussion with the other.

While the independence of erstwhile French colony of Djibouti caused immediate worry, both Ethiopia and Somalia behaved with caution. Ratanov did not react to an offer by Mengistu to support intervention in Djibouti. Ethiopia lacked the strength to intervene alone.

The biggest problem looming in the background of the discussions reported in these documents is Eritrea. It was already the most intractable problem of all for Moscow in its relations with Mengistu. Ethiopian military performance in meeting the Somali invasion was inhibited by the predicament which Mengistu had got himself into in Eritrea. The Soviets were not impressed with the performance of Mengistu's army in Eritrea. An East German document from December 1977 reveals what appears to be Ambassador Ratanov's irritation at Mengistu's intransigence on Eritrea as well as the hope that somehow a basis for negotiation with the rebel movement there might be developed. This became a major Soviet aim during the next decade and led to repeated East German efforts (and some Italian Communist attempts) to bring Eritrean and Ethiopian Marxists together.

In response to Mengistu's urgent pleading, the Soviets agreed during July 1977 to send in urgently needed transport equipment to enable the Ethiopians to utilize some of the tanks and guns the Soviets had already provided as a result of agreements reached during Mengistu's December 1976 and May 1977 visits to Moscow, but the Kremlin was still apparently hoping to limit its commitment. Politburo minutes of 4 and 11 August 1977 confirm decisions

to provide Ethiopia support to defend itself against Somalia, but details have not been declassified. This, nevertheless, appears to be the point at which, de facto, Moscow finally made an irrevocable decision to opt for Ethiopia over Somalia.

Whether or not Ambassador Ratanov agreed with Moscow's continued insistence on further efforts to bring the Somalis and Ethiopians together in negotiations at "the expert level," he followed Moscow's orders and repeated this position as late as 23 August 1977 in a meeting with Cuban Ambassador to Ethiopia Perez Novoa. The Soviets were even more hesitant on the question of manpower, for the main purpose of this meeting with the Cuban envoy was to chastise him for permitting Cuban Gen. Ochoa to promise Mengistu that more Cuban technicians would be coming: "The decision to send Cuban personnel to Ethiopia does not depend on Havana, but on Moscow." Ratanov expressed the Soviet fear that a largescale introduction of Cubans into Ethiopia could provoke the Eritreans or Sopia could provoke the Eritreans or Somalis to call in troops from supportive Arab countries such as Egypt.

Taken as a whole, these Russian documents seem to have been made available to give a picture of a well-intentioned and relatively benign Soviet Union confronted with a situation it neither anticipated nor desired. The Soviets are shown to be surprised by the crisis, reluctant to choose between Ethiopia and Somalia, and trying to delay hard decisions as long as possible. This does not fit with the general atmosphere of Third World activism characteristic of the Soviet Union at this time. While there seems to be no reason to question the authenticity of the documents themselves, there are obviously large gaps in this documentation. We find nothing about differing views. among Soviet officials or various elements in the Soviet bureaucracy, nor about different interpretations of developments between the Soviet establishments in Mogadishu2 and Addis Ababa. We see no reflection of options and courses of action that must have been discussed in the Soviet embassies in the Horn and in Moscow as the crisis in

tensified. We get no comparative evaluations of officials with whom the Soviets were dealing in Mogadishu and Addis Ababa.

The documents also lack any direct reference to intelligence. It is hard to believe that Soviet officials did not receive extensive KGB and GRU reporting from agents in both Somalia and Ethiopia. There is, in fact, good reason to believe that the Soviets were re-insuring themselves during this period by maintaining contacts with political groups opposed to Mengistu in Ethiopia as well as opponents of Siad Barre in Somalia. They, the East Germans, the Cubans, and perhaps other socialist countries must also have had contacts among Eritrean factions. We do find tantalizing references to opposition to the Derg and to the strain under which Mengistu found himself as a result. At times the Soviets seem to be more apprehensive of Mengistu's staying power than U.S. officials were at the time.

The final portion of Ratanov's 18 March 1977 meeting with Berhanu Bayeh sheds indirect light on attitudes among the Ethiopian public. Major Berhanu asks to have the Soviets arrange for a scholarship for his younger brother to study in Moscow and explains that the young man has been unable to complete his work at a prestigious Addis Ababa secondary school because, as the relative of a Derg member, he became the object of harassment by other students. Even at this relatively early stage of the Derg's history, its popularity with the student population seems to have been quite low.

Nevertheless, most of the basic questions about Soviet policies and calculations during 1977 which I identified as still needing clarification in my discussion of this period in a 1991 study3 remain open so far as these documents go. The Russian documents stop, for the most part, at the point when hard Soviet decisions about action and implementation began to be made: at the end of September 1977. For example, they shed no light on how these

decisions were arrived at and carried out, or how risks were assessed. The massive airlift and sealift of Cuban troops and equipment that startled the

world from November 1977 onward, or the decision to send General V. Petrov to Ethiopia to oversee operations against the Somali forces, get scant mention, as does Mengistu's "closed" or secret trip to Moscow in October 1977 at which the imminent SovietCuban military effort was undoubtedly the chief topic of conversation. [Ed. note: Both are mentioned in passing in the 3 April 1978 Soviet Foreign Ministry background report on Soviet-Ethiopian relations printed below; a generally-worded Soviet report to the East German leadership on Mengistu's trip is also included.] Likewise these documents are devoid of reference to the decision to shore up Ethiopian forces by transferring South Yemeni armored units to Ethiopia in late summer 1977 to blunt the Somali advance.

The most curious aspect of this batch of documents concern three that deal with "Operation Torch"-an alleged American plot to assassinate Mengistu and attack Ethiopia from Sudan and Kenya. Ethiopian leaders presented what they described as documentation of the plot to Soviet-bloc diplomats in early September 1977, and claimed that it was planned to be launched on 1 October 1977. The text of the description of the plot, supposedly conceived and directed out of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, reads like a fourth-rate pulp thriller. Nothing in it, including the names of the American officers who were supposedly directing it, bears any relation to known or plausible facts. Perhaps the oddest feature of "Operation Torch" is its lack of direct connection with Somalia or with Eritrean rebels.

If the Soviets actually took this "report" seriously, why did they not challenge all the countries supposedly cooperating in mounting it-Kenya, Sudan, and the United States? It bears all the marks of a disinformation operation of the kind that the Soviets (often through Bulgaria or Czechoslovakia) frequently undertook during this period. Whatever specific purpose it was designed to serve is unclear. One possibility is that it may have been intended to heighten the paranoia of Mengistu and his Derg colleagues and

make them more amenable to Soviet manipulation. In its crudity, it is insulting to the intelligence of the Ethiopians. They did not take it seriously enough to bring it to the attention of the United States toward which they were showing some warmth at this very period in hopes of getting previously ordered military equipment and spare parts released. It is hard to believe that a seasoned and experienced officer such as Ratanov was not engaging in a charade in reporting this grotesque scheme and discussions of it with senior Ethiopian officials to Moscow.4

Limited as they are in what they reveal of the debates and actions of Soviet officials in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Moscow in 1977-78, these Sovietbloc documents are worth more detailed examination and analysis, a task which I hope to undertake at greater length and also encourage others to do. More such documents may eventually become available, as well as a potentially rich collection of Ethiopian materials from this period that has been assembled in Addis Ababa for use in the trial of former Derg officials (the future status of these documents is unclear, but it is to be hoped that they will be made available to scholars). Access to these materials, as well as additional U.S.government documents still awaiting declassification and still-inaccessible Cuban and other sources, may enable a far better understanding of the Horn of Africa Crisis of 1977-78.

EAST GERMANY AND THE HORN CRISIS: DOCUMENTS ON SED AFRIKAPOLITIK

By Christian F. Ostermann

The documents from the archives of the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED)-the Stiftung "Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der SED" im Bundesarchiv, Berlin-included in the selection of Russian and East German materials on the Horn of Africa crisis in 1977-78 demonstrate the usefulness of multiarchival research for an understanding of Soviet and Cuban policy. Given the difficulties with access to the Soviet and Cuban archives, the formerly top-secret documents from the East German Communist party archives, among them high-level discussions between CPSU, SED and Cuban party operatives, help to understand Moscow's and Havana's interests and actions, in ways that usefully supplement and go beyond what is currently available from those countries, in this regional flareup that become a superpower crisis.

The documents also provide new insights into the East German role in the Cold War in Africa. By the mid1970s, Africa had become an increasingly important arena for GDR foreign policy. Prior to the "wave of recognition" following the Basic Treaty between East and West Germany in 1972, East Berlin's primary interest in Africa was to enhance its international standing and prestige. The decolonization process seemed to offer plenty of opportunities for the regime of SED first secretary Walter Ulbricht to undermine and circumvent the "Hallstein doctrine," Bonn's post-1955 policy to consider the establishment of diplomatic relation with the GDR by any third country to be an "unfriendly act" towards the Federal Republic. Grounded in the belief that the West German government was the only government truly representative of the German nation, the "Hallstein doctrine" effectively managed to deny the GDR international legitimacy outside the Soviet bloc.

East German efforts to subvert the Hallstein doctrine in Africa by gaining