Editor's Note

his issue of the Cold War International History Project Bulletin presents new evidence from the Russian, Eastern European, and Chinese archives on key Soviet "Flashpoints" from Europe to Asia. Documents prepared for or obtained at the November 1997 critical oral history conference "Poland 1980-82: Internal Crisis, International Dimensions," co-sponsored by the National Security Archive, the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP), and the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences are a focal point of this issue. Many of the documents and essays in this issueincluding the telegrams by CIA source Col. Ryzard Kukliński (obtained and introduced by Mark Kramer) and documents provided by Oldrich Tůma and János Tischler-were initially prepared for this conference. Others, such as the so-called "Anoshkin notebook" and the articles by Jordan Baev and Michael Kubina, were obtained during or after the conference. Given his pivotal role in the 1980/81 Polish crisis and the documents featured in this section, CWIHP asked former Polish Prime Minister General Wojciech Jaruzelski to give his initial reaction to the new materials. The contribution by former U.S. Ambassador to Poland Francis Meehan, eyewitness to the Polish events from the fall of 1980 to the December 1981 imposition of martial law, provides further context to the documents featured in this issue.

The section on "Poland in the Early Cold War"-with contributions by Andrzej Werblan, Andrzej Paczkowski and Krzysztof Persak-continues CWIHP's efforts to document Stalin's role in the formative period of the Cold War. As an initial step in its "Stalin Project," inaugurated in 1997/98 with workshops in Budapest (October 1997), Beijing (October 1997), and Moscow (March 1998), CWIHP has been seeking to document as comprehensively as possible Stalin's conversations with foreign leaders as well as his exchanges with Molotov and other foreign policy advisors. Future issues of the CWIHP Bulletin will feature additional materials.

In the section on the "Sino-American Opening," Chen Jian and David L. Wilson present new Chinese materials on the Sino-American rapprochement, just as more declassified American documents on the issue are becoming available.' In the coming months, CWIHP will increasingly focus on the international history of the late 1960s and early 1970s as documents from both sides of the Cold War become accessible. The section on the Korean War, featuring translated Russian documents and commentaries by Kathryn Weathersby and Milton Leitenberg on the allegations of U.S. bacteriological warfare during the conflict, carries on CWIHP's efforts to publish newly available East bloc evidence on that first major "hot war" of the Cold War. Beyond the biological warfare issue, these documents also shed new light on Sino-Soviet-Korean relations as well as the still murky

history of the "Beria Interregnum" in 1953. CWIHP welcomes a critical analysis of these new findings and encourages the release of additional materials from Russian, Chinese, Korean, and U.S. archives on the issue. Nikita Khrushchev's conversations with East German leader Walter Ulbricht and Polish leader Władysław Gomułka, translated and introduced by Hope Harrison and Douglas Selvage, provide us an opportunity to be a "flyon-the-wall" at key meetings during the 1958-1962 Berlin Crisis. The transcripts not only provide fascinating insights into Moscow's relationship with key allies in a moment of crisis, but also into Khrushchev's personality. Similarly, Raymond Garthoff's translations of Russian documents from the Volkogonov Collection at the Library of Congress continue the debate about the nuclear missile deployments (and Khrushchev's role in them) that sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Vojtech Mastny's presentation of Polish and Czech documents on the Warsaw Pact further develops another aspect of Cold War history-the military history of the "other side." Jointly with the National Security Archive and the Center for Security Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Techology Zürich, CWIHP has launched a larger documentation project on the history of the Warsaw Pact. Documents deriving from this project will appear in future CWIHP Bulletins and on the CWIHP website (cwihp.si.edu).

The documents featured in this Bulletin highlight a much larger corpus of documents which have been translated for CWIHP, most of which will be accessible through the CWIHP website. Since September 1998, the CWIHP website database ("Virtual Library") contains more document translations than we have published in print. Beyond documents, the CWIHP website now also provides updates on publications and events. Special website segments with information on archives, literature, and internet links are "under construction."

CWIHP activities and publications have always been a team effort, and this Bulletin is no exception. Too many people have contributed to this production to allow me to name them all, but I would like to express special thanks to Robert Litwak, Nancy Meyers, Karin Mueller, Hope Harrison, Ray Garthoff, Mark Kramer, Chen Jian, Malcolm Byrne, and Jim Hershberg.

Christian F. Ostermann

1 See William Burr, ed., The Kissinger Transcripts: Top Secret Talks with Beijing and Moscow (New York: The New Press, 1999). 2 See Kathryn Weathersby, "New Russian Documents on the Korean War," CWIHP Bulletin 6/7 (Winter 1995/96), pp. 30-84.