international cold war bulletin history...

COLD WARINTERNATIONAL

HISTORY PROJECTBULLETIN

Issue 4 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. Fall 1994

SOVIET NUCLEAR HISTORY

primarily with two topics: the struc-ture and development of Sovietnuclear forces, and Soviet thinkingabout nuclear war and the role ofnuclear weapons in war. Some ofthese works retain considerable value,but the range of issues they could

examine was necessarily lim-ited.1 They were based pri-marily on data published bythe U.S. government aboutSoviet nuclear weapons sys-tems and on the statements ofSoviet leaders about nuclear

weapons, as well as on Soviet publi-cations about foreign policy and mili-tary strategy, operational art, and tac-tics. It was not possible to analyzeSoviet policy in terms of the interplayof individuals, institutions, and cir-cumstances. The way in which weunderstood Soviet nuclear policy wastherefore very different from the wayin which we could think about Ameri-

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Soviet Cold War Military Strategy:Using Declassified History

by William Burr

“The history of the Soviet strategicprogram is at the same time a history ofU.S. perceptions.”1 So wrote a team ofhistorians and political scientists in a oncehighly classified Pentagon history of theCold War strategic arms race. The au-thors were describing an important prob-lem: so long as primary sources wereunavailable, academic and governmentanalysts interested in explaining Sovietmilitary policy had to resort to “infer-ences drawn by long chains of logic” tointerpret the scattered data available to

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Nuclear Weapons after Stalin’s Death:Moscow Enters the H-Bomb Age

by Yuri Smirnov and Vladislav Zubok

By the time Stalin died, on 5 March1953, the Soviet Union had become a nuclearpower whose army was preparing to re-ceive, in several months, its first atomicweapons.1 The task set by Stalin, to liqui-date the U.S. atomic monopoly and to de-velop the Soviets’ own nuclear arsenal, was“overfulfilled” on 12 August 1953, whenthe USSR successfully tested the world’sfirst transportable hydrogen bomb. Thework on this bomb had been in progresssince 1948, and Stalin failed by only fivemonths to live to see his triumph.2

continued on page 14

INSIDE:

SOVIET SCIENCE SOURCES 2MOSCOW’S BIGGEST BOMB 3STALIN ’S SECRET ORDER 5RESPONSE: KOREAN WAR ORIGINS 21KGB VS. CIA 22GERMANY & THE COLD WAR:

CWIHP CONFERENCE REPORT 34EAST GERMAN ARCHIVES 34MYSTERIES OF TIUL ’PANOV 34GDR ORAL HISTORY 35KHRUSHCHEV’S 1958 ULTIMATUM 35

SOVIET ESPIONAGE AND THE BOMB

ASSESSING SPY STORIES 50THE REPORT TO STALIN 50WHO USED WHOM? 51

DOCUMENTS: M ORE SOVIET TRANSLATIONS 60RUSSIAN ARCHIVES NEWS 86UPDATE 90

For historians of the Cold War, theSoviet nuclear weapons program is atopic of obvious importance. Thenuclear arms race was a central elementin the Cold War, and much of the histo-riography of American Cold War policyhas focused on nuclear weapons—onthe decisions to build them, andon their role in foreign policyand military strategy. ButAmerican policy is only one partof the history of the Cold War.Comparable studies of Sovietnuclear policy are needed for afull understanding of the U.S.-Sovietnuclear competition, which dominatedworld politics for more than 40 years.This note reviews briefly some of themain sources I used for my Stalin andthe Bomb: The Soviet Union and AtomicEnergy, 1939-1956 (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1994).

An extensive literature on Sovietnuclear policy was published in theWest during the Cold War. This dealt

BOHR, THE BOMB, AND SOVIET ATOMIC ESPIONAGE:Ex-KGB officer Pavel Sudoplatov sparked a controversy when healleged in his memoirs that Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohrpassed atomic secrets to Moscow. Now the original 1945 KGBreport on the espionage approach to Bohr, sent by secret police chiefLavrenti Beria to Joseph Stalin, has surfaced. What does it say, andwhat does it mean? See pages 50-59.

SOURCES FOR STALIN AND THE BOMB

by David Holloway

2 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN

Cold War Soviet Science:Manuscripts and Oral Histories

by Ronald Doel and Caroline Moseley

The end of the Cold War has stimulatednew interest in the history of science in theSoviet Union. While several Western histo-rians have produced important studies ofvarious aspects of Soviet science, until re-cently such works relied largely on pub-lished Soviet information; and while Sovietscholars had greater access to archival ma-terials, political pressures kept analyses oftwentieth-century Soviet science limited tointernal technical developments. Since theadvent of glasnost in the late 1980s, how-ever, contacts between Western and Easternscientists and historians has increased dra-matically, and scholars have begun the im-portant task of evaluating Soviet-era andEast European science within social, intel-lectual, and political contexts. This processhas been aided by two developments. Ar-chivists in the United States and the formerSoviet republics have begun collaborating

to assess archival sources for the physicaland biological sciences in the former SovietUnion; and greater freedom of travel andspeech has enabled historians to conduct anunprecedented number of oral history inter-views with leading scientists and their fami-lies in the former Soviet republics.

For more than two decades, the Centerfor History of Physics of the American Insti-tute of Physics (AIP), now located in CollegePark, Maryland, has sponsored oral historyinterviews with scientists in most branchesof the physical sciences, including physics,astrophysics, and geophysics; these inter-views are housed within its Niels Bohr Li-brary. Its staff has also gathered informationon the papers of scientists and scientificinstitutions throughout the world. In addi-tion, the AIP houses several small collec-tions of manuscript and printed materials onthe history of Soviet science. These sourcesare described in greater detail below.

I. Archival Sources. Beginning in thelate 1980s, the Center for History of Physicshas employed some highly qualified research-ers, including the Russian historian Alexei

Kozhevnikov, to assess archival holdingsfor scientists and scientific institutionsthroughout the former Soviet Union andEast European nations. Information aboutknown archival collections is found in adatabase operated by the Center, the Interna-tional Catalog of Sources for the History ofPhysics and Allied Sciences (ICOS). Cur-rently the ICOS database contains records of45 collections which have been preserved in10 different repositories in the former SovietUnion. One of these repositories, the Ar-chives of the St. Petersburg branch of theRussian Academy of Sciences, is a particu-larly rich source of physics-related collec-tions. Its holdings include the papers ofEvgenij Gross, Abram Ioffe, WladimirKistiakowsky, Yuri Krutkov, and others.

II. Oral History Sources. For severaldecades, the Center for History of Physicshas sponsored oral history interviews withphysicists, astrophysicists, meteorologists,geophysicists, and members of related disci-plines. Over 600 interviews are available atthe Center; transcripts are available for many


STALIN AND THE BOMBcontinued from page 1

can or British policy, for example. Twobooks, by Arnold Kramish and GeorgeModelski, were published in 1959 settingout what was known about the Soviet atomicproject, and about the people and institu-tions involved.2 These books provided use-ful information on the early stages of Sovietnuclear research, but were inevitably thinon nuclear weapons development.

The gap between what we knew aboutU.S. and British policy on the one hand, andSoviet policy on the other, widened in the1960s and 1970s as more works on Westernpolicy—including detailed official histo-ries of the British and American projects—were published on the basis of archivalresearch.3 No parallel publications appearedin the Soviet Union; the most informativeSoviet work of this period was Igor Golovin’sbiography of Igor Kurchatov, who was sci-entific director of the Soviet nuclear projectfrom its inception in 1943 to his death in1960.4 Golovin, who was Kurchatov’sdeputy in the 1950s, based his book oninterviews with people who had workedwith Kurchatov and known him well (theopening pages of the book, for example,

were written by Kurchatov’s brother-in-law,Kirill Sinel’nikov). His book is far moreinformative than other Soviet publications ofthe period, but it does not compare with thework of Richard Hewlett and MargaretGowing and their colleagues. Some usefulworks on nuclear science and the atomicindustry appeared in the Soviet Union atabout the same time.5 In 1976, HerbertYork’s classic The Advisors: Oppenheimer,Teller, and the Superbomb was published,throwing important light on Soviet thermo-nuclear weapons development.6 Apart fromthe books by Kramish, Modelski, and York,two papers I wrote on early Soviet nuclearhistory during a year’s fellowship in theInternational Security Studies Program ofthe Wilson Center in 1978-79 were, as far asI know, the only studies to appear in Englishon that history.7

Since 1980, and especially in the lastfour or five years, a great deal of new mate-rial has become available on the history ofthe Soviet project. New books have beenpublished in Russia and the West; the Sovietand Russian press has carried many articlesby, and interviews with, participants in theproject; some key documents have been pub-lished; and some relevant archives—though

not yet the most important ones—have be-come accessible to researchers.8 There is asyet no comprehensive history of the Sovietproject in Russian; recent work has beendevoted to clarifying particular aspects ofSoviet nuclear history. Nevertheless, thishas now become a fruitful area for research,and significant studies may be expected inthe coming years.

What sources are now available for thestudy of Soviet nuclear history? The answerdepends on what aspect one wants to study.In my book I examine three main issues: thedevelopment of Soviet nuclear weapons andtheir delivery vehicles; the relationship be-tween scientists and the political leadership;and the impact of nuclear weapons on Sovietforeign and military policies. These issuesare often treated separately in studies ofWestern policies, but I chose to weave themtogether for two reasons, one practical andone substantive. The practical reason is thatsources for the Soviet project are still, inspite of greater openness, very much morefragmentary than those for the American orBritish projects. I hoped that viewing theproject from different angles would make upfor some of the deficiencies in the sources.The substantive reason is that, as I hope the

COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN 3

are two collections of memoirs about him;some of these are not very interesting, butothers are highly informative about aspectsof the project.16 There is an excellent studyof Kurchatov and his research before he wasappointed scientific director of the project.17

Many of the memoirs portray Kurchatov as ahero, but there is enough material to makepossible a more nuanced picture of the man.

A great deal has been written about theLeningrad school of physics from whichKurchatov and other key figures in the nuclearproject came: Abram Ioffe, the founder ofthis school;18 N.N. Semenov, who createdthe Institute of Chemical Physics from whichthe first members of the weapons group weredrawn;19 Iu. B. Khariton, who headed thework on weapons design and developmentfrom 1943 on;20 Ia. B. Zel’dovich, who headedthe theoretical work on weapons design;21

I.K. Kikoin, who was responsible for thegaseous diffusion method of isotope separa-tion;22 L.A. Artsimovich, who took charge ofelectromagnetic isotope separation;23 G.N.Flerov, who discovered spontaneous fission;24

and A.P. Aleksandrov, who occupied severalimportant positions in the project.25

Similar materials are available for otherscientists in the project. Vladimir Vernadskii,

a mineralogist with broad scientific inter-ests, was a key figure in the early history ofthe project, and his papers, especially hiscorrespondence and diaries, constitute a cru-cial source for its pre-Hiroshima phase.26

Several of Vernadskii’s students and col-leagues played important roles in the project,among them Vitalii Khlopin, who headedresearch on the separation of plutonium fromirradiated uranium, and DmitriiShcherbakov, who took part in the develop-ment of uranium mining. The materials onthese men also throw important light on theproject.27

In the development of the atomic bombKurchatov relied heavily on physicists hehad worked with in Leningrad. In 1948,however, he brought Moscow physicists,among them Igor Tamm and AndreiSakharov, into the project to work on ther-monuclear weapons. Sakharov’s memoirsare an important source for this history, andso too are the memoirs of those who workedwith him.28 Gennady Gorelik (formerly withInstitute of the History of Science and Tech-nology, now with the Dibner Institute atMIT) has been interviewing those whoworked with Sakharov, and his book onSakharov promises to be a major contribu-

book shows, the issues are interrelated.The quality of the sources on different

aspects of Soviet nuclear history variesgreatly. There is no good technical or ad-ministrative history of the Soviet project.(Indeed it is only recently that a technicalhistory of the wartime work at Los Alamoshas been published.9) Some specializedtechnical accounts—of the first experimen-tal reactor,10 of work on the first atomicbomb,11 and of the first plutonium produc-tion reactor12—have been or are about to bepublished. But a detailed technical historycannot be written on the basis of existingmaterial. The outlines of the technical his-tory have to be pieced together from a vari-ety of incomplete sources, and the same istrue of the administrative history of theproject.13 Andrei Sakharov’s memoirs, forexample, have to be used, along with thememoirs of people who worked with him, tosketch out the history of Soviet thermo-nuclear weapons development.14

The richest group of sources is the ma-terial on the scientists who took part in theproject. There is a three-volume set ofKurchatov’s collected works, which includessome memoranda he wrote for the govern-ment during and after World War II.15 There

Moscow’s Biggest Bomb:The 50-Megaton Test of October 1961

by Viktor Adamsky and Yuri Smirnov

On 30 October 1961, Soviet Minister ofMedium Machine Building Efim Slavskyand Marshal of the Soviet Union KirillMoskalenko sent a telegram to the Kremlin:

To: N.S. Khrushchev, The Kremlin,Moscow: The test at Novaya Zemlyawas a success. The security of the testpersonnel and of nearby inhabitants hasbeen assured. Those participating in thetests have fulfilled the task of our Moth-erland. We are returning for the Con-gress.1

In Moscow, the 22nd Congress of theCPSU had already been in session for twoweeks. It began its work in the newly-builtKremlin Palace of Congresses, which hadjust opened its doors for the first time. OnOctober 30, the Congress delegates unani-mously reached the sensational decision that

“Maintaining the sarcophagus with J.V.Stalin’s coffin is no longer desirable.”2 Onthe same day, Slavsky and Moskalenko re-ported on the test of a Soviet thermonuclearbomb of unprecedented power.

That morning, at 11:32 AM (Moscowtime), there was a 50-megaton (MT) explo-sion over Novaya Zemlya island in northernRussia above the Arctic Circle at an altitudeof 4,000 meters. The atmospheric distur-bance generated by the explosion orbited theearth three times. The flash of light was sobright that it was visible at a distance of1,000 kilometers, despite cloudy skies. Agigantic, swirling mushroom cloud rose ashigh as 64 kilometers.

The bomb exploded after having fallenslowly from a height of 10,500 meters, sus-pended by a large parachute. By that timethe crew of the TU-95 “Bear” bomber, com-manded by Major Andrei Durnovtsev, werealready in the safe zone some 45 km from thetarget. The commander was returning toearth as a lieutenant colonel and Hero of theSoviet Union.

Efim Slavsky and Kirill Moskalenko,

as deputies to the Congress, had arrived byplane on the day of the test to observe theexplosion. They were aboard an Il-14 “crate”at a distance of several hundred kilometersfrom ground zero, when a fantastic sceneappeared before them; one participant in thetest saw a bright flash through dark gogglesand felt the effects of a thermal pulse even ata distance of 270 km. In districts hundredsof kilometers from ground zero, woodenhouses were destroyed, and stone ones losttheir roofs, windows and doors; and radiocommunications were interrupted for almostone hour. At the time of the blast, the bomb’sdesigners and test supervisors, headed byMajor General Nikolai Pavlov, the Chair-man of the State Commission, were at theairfield near Olenya station on the KolaPeninsula. For 40 minutes they had no firminformation on the test, or the fate of thebomber and the Tu-16 “Badger” airbornelaboratory accompanying it. Only whenradio contact with Novaya Zemlya was rees-tablished were they able to request informa-tion on the altitude of the cloud. It was clear



tion to Soviet nuclear history.29

Other important memoirs include thoseby V.A. Tsukerman and his wife Z.M.Azarkh, which deal with life and work atArzamas-16, the Soviet equivalent of LosAlamos;30 M.G. Pervukhin’s account of theorigins of the wartime project;31 those ofN.A. Dollezhal’, chief designer of the firstplutonium production reactors;32 and of E.P.Slavskii, one of the early managers, andlater Minister of Medium Machinebuilding.33

Most of these sources are subject to theusual defects of memoirs: inaccuracies andvagueness as to dates, selective recall, andinflation of the memoirist’s role. They are,in addition, subject to the special problemsof Soviet sources. The first of these iscensorship and self-censorship. Beria is notmentioned once, for example, in the impor-tant volume of memoirs on Kurchatov pub-lished in 1988, even though Beria was inoverall charge of the nuclear project and hisrelationship with Kurchatov is central tounderstanding how the project was run.

The second problem is that the Sovietproject was highly compartmentalized, sothat very few people had a comprehensiveview of what was going on; this is onereason why the writings of Iulii Khariton,who headed weapons design and develop-ment at Arzamas-16 from 1946 to 1992, areso important. This compartmentalizationhas shaped how participants in the projecthave written about it. Golovin’s biographyof Kurchatov, for example, makes much ofKurchatov’s scientific intuition. The recentpublication of some of Kurchatov’s reportson the intelligence he received about theManhattan Project makes it clear that hisintuition about what should be done wasbased on a detailed knowledge of what theAmericans were doing.

The scientists’ memoirs are neverthe-less a crucial source for the history of theproject. They convey something of themoral and political atmosphere in which thescientists and engineers worked; they reveala good deal about relations between partici-pants in the project; and they also illuminatesome of the scientific and technical issuesinvolved. They can be checked against oneanother, and sometimes checked againstcontemporary documents. This is espe-cially so for the period up to 1941, when agood deal was published in scientific andpopular science journals; but it is true tosome extent for the later period as well.

Apart from Vernadskii’s papers, the lettersof Peter Kapitsa are perhaps the most impor-tant contemporary source. Although he wasdirectly involved in the project only for somemonths at the end of 1945, Kapitsa’s lettersare critical for viewing the Russian physicscommunity, the politics of science, and theearly post-Hiroshima decisions.34

An interesting angle on the Soviet projectis provided by the German scientists whotook part in it. Several of these wrote mem-oirs, of which the most interesting is byNikolaus Riehl;35 others who wrote memoirsare Max Steenbeck, Heinz Barwich, andManfred Von Ardenne.36 When Germanscientists left the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s, some came to the West and weredebriefed by U.S. intelligence. Some ofthose debriefings have been declassified andoffer interesting insights about aspects of theSoviet project.37 Andreas Heinemann-Grüderhas interviewed some of the German scien-tists who worked on the project and incorpo-rated those interviews into his research.38

Norman Naimark’s forthcoming book on theSoviet occupation of eastern Germany willalso add fresh evidence on the use made bythe Soviet Union of German science andtechnology, and especially on the Sovieturanium mines in East Germany.39

Some memoirs contain documents fromprivate archives—reports, minutes of meet-ings, and letters—but only now are relevantofficial archives beginning to open up. Somearchives have become accessible to research-ers; others have released individual docu-ments or sets of documents. The relevantRussian archives that are open to research-ers, at least in part, are the Foreign PolicyArchive of the Russian Foreign Ministry; theRussian Center for the Storage and Study ofContemporary History Documents, and theStorage Center for Contemporary Documen-tation (both of which contain records of theCPSU Central Committee); and the StateArchive of the Russian Federation. Sincenuclear weapons policy was highly central-ized under Stalin, the most important collec-tions of documents are not open to research-ers, even though selected documents fromthese collections have been made public orgiven to individual scholars. I obtained somedocuments from private and official archivesin this way, through the good offices ofRussian colleagues.

The most important single group of docu-ments to have been declassified deals with

atomic espionage. The KGB made a set ofabout 300 pages of documents available tothe Institute for the History of Science andTechnology of the Russian Academy of Sci-ences. The Institute prepared most of thesedocuments for publication in its journalVoprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki(Questions on the History of Science andTechnology), 1992, no. 3, pp. 107-34, butthe issue was withdrawn from publication inthe fall of 1992 at the insistence of theRussian Ministry of Atomic Power, on thegrounds that information in two of the docu-ments might contravene the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.40 (One of these docu-ments was a report, based on informationfrom Klaus Fuchs, providing a detailed de-scription of the design of the plutoniumbomb tested at Alamogordo on 16 July 1945;Kurchatov and Khariton took this report asthe basis for the design of the first Sovietbomb.) Although the issue was withdrawnfrom circulation, copies did become avail-able to researchers, and some of the docu-ments have been published in an appendix toPavel Sudoplatov’s memoirs.41 These docu-ments, especially the memoranda byKurchatov commenting on the value of theintelligence, make it possible to chart theprogress of the Soviet project during thewar, and to see how information from Brit-ain and the United States influenced thedirection of Soviet work.

Several KGB officials who were in-volved in one way or another in atomicintelligence have written articles or mem-oirs, or given interviews to the press. Amongthese are A.S. Feklisov, who was KlausFuchs’s control officer in Britain after WorldWar II; A.A. Iatskov, who was involved inatomic espionage in New York during thewar; and Pavel Sudoplatov, who headed aspecial “Department S” which collated in-telligence information in 1945-46.42

Like all sources, these have to be as-sessed with care.43 This is especially true ofSudoplatov’s book. Some of the claimsmade by Sudoplatov—especially that physi-cists J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi,Leo Szilard, and Niels Bohr knowinglypassed secret atomic information to the So-viet Union—are dubious, and have beensubjected to serious criticism.44 Other as-pects of his account—for example, about thestatus of the atomic project during the war—are quite misleading.45 The reliability ofSudoplatov’s memoirs is, moreover, further


STALIN’S SECRET ORDER: BUILD THE BOMB “ON A RUSSIAN SCALE”

Ed. note: Stalin and the Soviet political leadership required some convincing, both from events and from Soviet scientists, before throwing their full weight behindan atomic weapons program. This evolution is illustrated by two previously secret Russian archival documents which have recently become available, and whichare excerpted below. The first document is a 29 September 1944 letter from physicist Igor V. Kurchatov, the scientific director of the Soviet nuclear project, to secretpolice chief Lavrenti Beria, whom Stalin had given principal responsibility for the atomic effort. Prodded by his own scientists and by intelligence reports of thesecret Anglo-American atomic enterprise, Stalin had initiated a small-scale Soviet nuclear weapons program in late 1942-early 1943. But the level of supportpolitical leaders had given the project failed to satisfy Kurchatov, who pleaded with Beria for additional backing:

In our letters to you, Comrade M.G. Pervukhin [Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and a key atomic administrator] and I reported onthe status of work on the uranium problem and of the colossal development of this work abroad. ... around this issue there has been created abroad a concentrationof scientific and engineering-technical power on a scale never been seen in the history of world science, and which has already achieved the most priceless results.

In our country, despite major improvement in work on uranium in 1943-44, the situation remains completely unsatisfactory....

Though I know that you are extremely busy, in view of the historic meaning of the uranium problem I all the same decided to disturb You and to ask You toorder an effort which would correspond to the potential and significance of our Great State in world culture.

[From I.N. Golovin, “Kurchatov - uchenyi, gosudarstvennyi deiatel’, chelovek” [“Kurchatov—Scholar, Government official, Man”], in Materialy iubeleinoi sessiiuchenogo soveta tsentra 12 ianvaria 1993 g. [Materials of the Jubilee Session of the Academic Council of the Center, 12 January 1993] (Moscow: Russian ScientificCenter “Kurchatov Institute,” 1993), pp. 24-25]

The success of the Manhattan Project, so dramatically demonstrated at Hiroshima in August 1945, compelled Stalin to reorganize, accelerate, and expand theUSSR’s atomic effort. But some difficulties persisted, including complaints by some scientists, most prominently the renowned physicist Pyotr Kapitsa, that thepolitical leaders overseeing the project—especially secret police chief Lavrenti Beria—did not properly understand either the science or the scientists involved.The second document reproduced here shows that by late January 1946, Stalin was ready to move even more decisively to boost the secret atomic effort, and tosatisfy the scientists’ wants and needs. Printed below are excerpts from Kurchatov’s handwritten notes from a conversation with Stalin, accompanied by Beria andForeign Minister V.M. Molotov, at the Kremlin on the evening of 25 January 1946. The notes, in Kurchatov’s archives, were published recently in an article bythe physicist Yuri N. Smirnov, a veteran and historian of the Soviet nuclear weapons program. The timing of the conversation is particularly important in a ColdWar context, for only a month earlier the Kremlin had agreed to the request of U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, during a conference of Soviet, British, andAmerican foreign ministers in Moscow, to create a U.N. Atomic Energy Commission with the goal of establishing international control over all atomic energy andweapons. The document suggests that Stalin, like many U.S. leaders, had little faith in the negotiations, which in fact quickly stalemated and ended in failure laterthat year as both Washington and Moscow continued to work on nuclear weapons programs under national control. (The USSR exploded its first atomic bombin August 1949, breaking the four-year American monopoly.)

January 25, 1946

The conversation continued for approximately one hour, from 7:30 to 8:30 in the evening. Comrade Stalin, Comrade Molotov, and Comrade Beria attended.

Basic impressions of the conversation. The great love of Comrade Stalin for Russia and for V.I. Lenin, about whom he spoke in terms of his great hope for thedevelopment of science in our country. [...]

Viewing the future development of the work Comrade Stalin said that it is not worth spending time and effort on small-scale work, rather, it is necessary to conductthe work broadly, on a Russian scale, and that in this regard the broadest, utmost assistance will be provided.

Comrade Stalin said that it is not necessary to seek out the cheapest paths, ... that it is not necessary to carry out the work quickly and in vulgar fundamental forms.

Regarding the scholars, Comrade Stalin was preoccupied by thoughts of how to, as if, make it easier, help them in their material-living situation. And in prizes forgreat deeds, for example, on the solution to our problem. He said that our scholars are very modest, and they never notice that they live badly—that is bad in itself,and he said that although our state also had suffered much, we can always make it possible for several thousand persons to live well, and several thousand peoplebetter than very well, with their own dachas, so that they can relax, and with their own cars.

In work, Comrade Stalin said, it is necessary to move decisively, with the investment of a decisive quantity of resources, but in the basic directions.

It is also necessary to use Germany to the utmost; there, there are people, and equipment, and experience, and factories. Comrade Stalin asked about the work ofGerman scholars and the benefits which they brought to us.

[. . .]

A question was asked about [physicists A.F.] Ioffe, [A.I.] Alikhanov, [P.L.] Kapitsa, and [S.I.] Vavilov, and the utility of Kapitsa’s work.

Misgivings were expressed regarding who they work for and what their activity is directed toward—for the benefit of the Motherland or not.

It was suggested that measures which would be necessary in order to speed up work, everything that is necessary, should be written down. What other scholars wouldit make sense to bring into the effort?

[. . .]

[From Personal notes of I.V. Kurchatov, Archive of the Russian Scientific Center “Kurchatov Institute,” Fond 2, Opis 1/c, Document 16/4, printed in Yuri Smirnov,“Stalin and the Atomic Bomb,” Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekniki [Questions on the History of Science and Technology] 2 (1994), pp. 125-130.]


clouded by the impossibility of distinguish-ing Sudoplatov’s recollections from whathas been added by his co-authors.

The controversy about Sudoplatov’sbook has produced one benefit: the releaseof the memorandum (prepared bySudoplatov) from Beria to Stalin about thevisit of the Soviet physicist Iakov Terletskiito Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in November1945 (see the translation on pages 50-51, 57-59). It is good to have this memorandumpublished, but the way in which it has be-come public illustrates some of the problemsthat researchers face in working on the his-tory of the Soviet nuclear program. It can bequite misleading to have individual docu-ments plucked out of the archives, without asense for the context in which they werefiled. In this case we are fortunate thatTerletskii left a detailed account of his visitto Bohr, and that Aage Bohr, Niels Bohr’sson, who was present at the meetings be-tween Bohr and Terletskii, is alive and ableto give his account of what transpired.46

Even so, Beria’s memorandum needs care-ful interpretation. Some of Bohr’s answersto Terletskii’s questions are garbled, whichmakes one wonder how the memorandumwas put together.47 In question 10, for ex-ample, Bohr refers to a half-life of 7,000years, which is close to the half-life of pluto-nium-240 from all processes, not for sponta-neous fission (which is what he was askedabout). Answer 22 does not seem to makemuch sense, as several physicists, includingAage Bohr, himself a Nobel Laureate, havepointed out. Finally, conclusions should notbe drawn from the document without com-paring it with the Smyth Report, the officialaccount of the Manhattan Project which hadbeen published by the U.S. government inAugust 1945.48 It is clear that Bohr, in hisanswers to Terletskii, did not go beyondwhat had already been revealed by the SmythReport.

Russian historians of science are nowworking intensively on the history of theSoviet nuclear project. They have alreadywritten a great deal about the history ofSoviet physics, and about the communitiesfrom which the leading figures in the nuclearproject came. Since the late 1980s they haveturned their attention increasingly to thesocial and political context of Soviet sci-ence, and more recently have begun to in-vestigate the history of the Soviet nuclearproject, conducting serious interviews with

participants in the project and seeking tospeed up the declassification of documents.The quality of this work is high. The journalVoprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki isthe main vehicle for the new studies ofSoviet nuclear history; the work of ViktorFrenkel’ and Gennady Gorelik has alreadybeen noted; and mention should also bemade of the work of Yuri Smirnov andVladislav Zubok.

The sources on the project itself, and onthe relationships between scientists, manag-ers, and political leaders, are far from satis-factory, but they are better and more numer-ous than Soviet sources on the impact ofnuclear weapons on Soviet foreign and mili-tary policy. Here the situation for the histo-rian is different; while very little had beenpublished before the breakup of the SovietUnion on the nuclear project itself, there wasalready a significant literature on Sovietforeign policy in the Cold War. This litera-ture, based almost exclusively on Westernarchives, as well as on published Sovietsources, left many questions unresolved,however, and historians hoped—and con-tinue to hope—that the opening of Russianarchives would transform the situation.

nuclear aspect of the Berlin blockade crisisof 1948-49.

Memoirs are less helpful on foreignpolicy than on science. Gromyko’s mem-oirs are disappointing and must be treatedwith caution.50 N.V. Novikov’s memoirs aremuch more useful, especially on the imme-diate postwar period.51 The Molotov inter-views are interesting, especially for convey-ing a sense of the mentality of the Stalinistleadership; and on some specific issues, likethe date on which Kurchatov was shownintelligence information, Molotov’s memoryis sound.52 The memoirs of Ivan Kovalev,Stalin’s emissary to Mao Zedong, containinteresting material not only on Sino-Sovietrelations but also on the role of nuclearweapons in Stalin’s foreign policy.53 Chi-nese sources have become very importantfor the study of Stalin’s foreign policy, espe-cially for Soviet policy in the Korean War,and Sergei Goncharov, John W. Lewis, andXue Litai have made good use of thesesources in their study of the war’s origins.54

After Stalin’s death in March 1953, andespecially after Beria’s arrest a few monthslater, decision-making on nuclear weaponswas decentralized. Stalin and Beria had heldnuclear weapons decisions very closely, andhad allowed very little discussion of nuclearweapons issues in the press or even in thegovernment or the military. In 1954, how-ever, the Soviet press began to carry articlesabout nuclear weapons and their effect onwar and foreign policy.55 The CPSU Polit-buro (or Presidium as it was then called) nowbecame involved in the discussion of nuclearweapons issues, and so too did the CentralCommittee. The July 1953 Central Com-mittee Plenum also touched on the manage-ment of the nuclear project. The meetingwas convened to condemn Beria, but hisdirection of the nuclear project did not re-ceive serious criticism. He was charged,however, with having authorized the August1953 hydrogen-bomb test without the ap-proval of Georgii Malenkov, the premier.The implication of this criticism is that Beriawas treating the nuclear weapons complexas his own personal fiefdom.56

Unfortunately, not all the stenographicreports of Central Committee plenary ses-sions have been made available. I did nothave access, for example, to the full report ofthe January 1955 CPSU CC Plenum, at whichGeorgii Malenkov was condemned for hisremark that global nuclear war could lead to

Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth

Declassified CPSU CC Politburo protocols, work-ing group materials, and other formerly secret So-viet documents concerning the April 1986 accidentat the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are included inAlla A. Yorishinskaya’s Chernobyl: The ForbiddenTruth. The University of Nebraska Press plans tobring out an English-language edition of the book,originally published in Moscow as Chernobyl: TopSecret (“Drugie Berega,” 1992), in late 1995.Contact:University of Nebraska Press, 312 N. 14thSt., Lincoln, NE 68588-0484; tel. 1-800-755-1105.

The opening of the archives has helped,but declassification is moving slowly. For-eign policy-making under Stalin was highlycentralized—especially in relation to nuclearweapons—and the relevant archives (in par-ticular the Presidential Archive) have not yetbeen opened to foreign researchers. Never-theless, those archives which have becomeaccessible have yielded interesting materi-als, and important documents have been re-leased (albeit fitfully) from the PresidentialArchive. Thus we have better sources nowfor the study of such nuclear-related issues asthe Soviet entry into the war with Japan andthe Soviet role in the Korean War.49 Thereare still huge gaps, however. Nothing has yetbecome available, for example, to clarify the


the end of civilization; I had to rely onsecondary sources that quoted excerpts fromthe speeches. Nevertheless the greater open-ness of the immediate post-Stalin years isvery clearly reflected in the archives. It isthe last four years of Stalin’s life that remainthe most opaque and difficult period ofSoviet foreign policy.

The same pattern holds for the study ofmilitary policy. New materials are nowavailable on the development of nuclearweapon delivery vehicles, and also on theimpact of nuclear weapons on post-Stalinmilitary thought.57 But the great militarybuildup of 1949-53 has not yet been illumi-nated either by archival materials or bystudies by Russian military historians. Thisperiod requires new sources and research.

For the first time, researchers on thesetopics in recent years have been able tointerview senior Soviet participants in therelevant events. Clearly, interviews are anotoriously difficult source, becausepeople’s memories are so often unreliable.Yet I found them enormously helpful—more so, in fact, than is evident from thenotes in the book, because people I talked tohelped me to evaluate what I had read,pointed me to new materials and questions,and gave me documents. Still, it was notalways possible to cross-check what I wastold with documentary sources, so I had tobe careful in the use I made of interviews. Ishould note also that cooperation with Rus-sian colleagues working in the same areawas extremely helpful: they shared materi-als, ideas, and advice very generously.

In spite of the difficulties, Soviet nuclearhistory has now become an exciting area forresearch. It is intrinsically interesting be-cause the issues it raises are of great impor-tance, and because the people involved wereremarkable. It is important for the history ofthe Cold War, and for the way in which wethink about the impact of nuclear weaponson international relations.

A couple of years before completingmy book I asked myself whether I shouldwait until new material appeared beforefinishing. I decided not to do so, mainlybecause I thought I had a more or less clearpicture of what I wanted to say, and alsobecause I thought a general map of theterrain might be useful to others working inthis area. The history of the Soviet nuclearprogram is not likely to be exhausted by oneaccount, any more than one book provides

everything one needs to know about U.S.nuclear history. Nevertheless, I was pleas-antly surprised by the evidence that hasbecome available about the development ofthe weapons themselves, about the commu-nity of scientists who built the weapons,about the role of espionage, about the man-agement of the project, and about the effectof the bomb on the military and foreignpolicies of Stalin and the post-Stalin leaders.The story is an important one, not merely forunderstanding the arms race and the ColdWar, but also for understanding Soviet soci-ety and the survival in that society of thetraditions of the Russian intelligentsia, per-sonified by such men as Vladimir Vernadskii,Peter Kapitsa, and Andrei Sakharov.

1. Among the most valuable are Raymond L. Garthoff,Soviet Strategy in the Nuclear Age (London: AtlanticBooks, 1958); Herbert Dinerstein, War and the SovietUnion (New York: Praeger, 1959); Thomas W. Wolfe,Soviet Strategy at the Crossroads (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, 1964). Data on Soviet nuclearweapons and the Soviet nuclear complex have been putout by the Natural Resources Defense Council. See, inparticular, Thomas B. Cochran et al., Soviet NuclearWeapons: Nuclear Weapons Databook, vol. IV (NewYork: Ballinger, 1989); and Thomas B. Cochran andRobert Standish Norris, Russian/Soviet Nuclear War-head Production, NWD 93-1 (New York: Natural Re-sources Defense Council, 8 September 1993).2. Arnold Kramish, Atomic Energy in the Soviet Union(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959); GeorgeModelski, Atomic Energy in the Communist Bloc(Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 1959).3. Richard Hewlett and Oscar Anderson, Jr., The NewWorld: A History of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commis-sion, Vol. 1, 1939-1946, and Richard Hewlett andFrancis Duncan, Atomic Shield: A History of the U.S.Atomic Energy Commission, Vol. 2, 1947-1952 (Berke-ley: University of California Press, 1990). These twovolumes were originally published in 1962 and 1969 byPennsylvania State University Press. Margaret Gowing,Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939-1945 (London:Macmillan, 1964); Margaret Gowing (assisted by LornaArnold), Independence and Deterrence: Britain andAtomic Energy, 1945-1952, Vol. 1: Policy Making, Vol.2: Policy Execution (London: Macmillan, 1974).4. I.N. Golovin, I.V. Kurchatov (Moscow: Atomizdat,1967). Two subsequent editions were published, withadditional material. The third edition appeared in 1973.English translations were also published.5. For example, Sovetskaia atomnaia nauka i tekhnika[Soviet atomic science and technology] (Moscow:Atomizdat, 1967); V.V. Igonin, Atom v SSSR [Atom inUSSR] (Saratov: izd. Saratovskogo universiteta, 1975).6. Herbert York, The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller,and the Superbomb (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman,1976).7. “Entering the Nuclear Arms Race: The SovietDecision to Build the Atomic Bomb, 1939-45,” Wash-ington DC: Wilson Center, International Security Stud-ies Program, Working Paper No. 9, 1979 (and also inSocial Studies of Science 11 (May 1981), 159-97);“Soviet Thermonuclear Development,” International

Security 4 (Winter 1979/80), 192-7.8. Relevant books published in the West include StevenJ. Zaloga, Target: America (Novato, Calif.: PresidioPress, 1992); and Andreas Heinemann-Grüder, DieSowjetische Atombombe (Berlin: Berghof Stiftung fürKonfliktforschung, 1990).9. Lillian Hoddeson et al., Critical Assembly: A Tech-nical History of Los Alamos during the OppenheimerYears, 1943-1945 (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1993).10. I.F. Zhezherun, Stroitel’stvo i pusk pervogo vSovetskom Soiuze atomnogo reaktora [The construc-tion and inauguration of the first atomic reactor in theSoviet Union] (Moscow: Atomizdat, 1978). A declas-sified report from 1947 on this reactor is in volume 3 ofKurchatov’s selected works.11. In a forthcoming book by V.I. Zhuchikhin.12. A.K. Kruglov, “Pervyi promyshlennyi uran-grafitovyi reaktor A dlia narabotki plutoniia,” part of aseries of articles on the history of atomic science andindustry in Biulleten’ Tstentra obshchestvennoiinformatsii po atomnoi energii [The Bulletin of theCenter for public information on atomic energy] 8(1993).13. Institute newspapers (for example, Kurchatovets,the newspaper of the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow)and local newspapers (like the Arzamas-16 GorodskoiKur’ier ) carry interesting historical information that isoften not available elsewhere.14. Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs (New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1990); V.I. Ritus, “Esli ne ia, to kto?” [“If not I,then who?”] Priroda [Nature] 8 (1990); Iu.A. Romanov,“Otets sovetskoi vodorodnoi bomby” [“Father of thehydrogen bomb”], Priroda 8 (1990).15. I.V. Kurchatov, Izbrannye trudy [Selected Works]three volumes, ed. by A.P. Aleksandrov (Moscow:Nauka, 1983).16. Vospominaniia ob akademike I.V. Kurchatove[Reminiscinces of the Academician I.V. Kurchatov](Moscow: Nauka, 1983); Vospominaniia ob IgoreVasil’eviche Kurchatove [Reminiscinces of IgorVasil’evich Kurachatov] (Moscow: Nauka, 1988).17. A.P. Grinberg and V.Ia. Frenkel’, Igor’ Vasil’evichKurchatov v Fiziko-tekhnicheskom Institute [IgorVasil’evich Kurachtov in the Institute of Physics andTechnology] (Leningrad: Nauka, 1984).18. On Ioffe’s school see Paul Josephson, Physics andPolitics in Revolutionary Russia (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1991); M.S. Sominskii, AbramFedorovich Ioffe (Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1964);and many publications by the Russian historian ofscience, Viktor Frenkel’, for example two very interest-ing articles on his father, the theoretical physicist IakovFrenkel’, who worked at Ioffe’s institute: V.Ia. Frenkel’,“Zhar pod peplom,” Zvezda 9 and 10 (1991).19. N.N. Semenov, Nauka i Obshchestvo [Science andSociety], 2nd ed. (Moscow: Nauka, 1981);Vospominaniia ob akademike Nikolae NikolaevicheSemenove [Reminiscinces of academic NikolaiNikolaevich Semenov] (Moscow: Nauka, 1993).20. Iu. B. Khariton, Voprosy sovremennoieksperimental’noi i teoreticheskoi fiziki [Questions ofmodern experimental and theoretical physics](Leningrad: Nauka, 1984); Iu.B. Khariton and Iu.N.Smirnov, “O nekotorykh mifakh i legendakh vokrougsovetskikh atomnogo i vodorodnogo proektov” [“Oncertain myths and legends surrounding Soviet atomicand hydrogen projects”], in Materialy iubileoinoi sessiiuchenogo soveta tsentra 12 ianvaria 1993g. [Materialsof the anniversary session of the Soviet science center,12 January 1993] (Moscow: Rossiiskii nauchnyi tsentr


Kurchatovskii institut, 1993). (Most of this was pub-lished in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May1993, under the title “The Khariton Version.”) Iu.Khariton, “Iadernoe oruzhie SSSR: prishlo iz Amerkikiili sozdano samostoiatel’no?” [“Nuclear weapons ofthe USSR: did they come from America or were theycreated independently?”], Izvestiia, 8 December 1992.21. Ia.B. Zel’dovich, Izbrannye trudy [Selected Works],2 vols. (Moscow: Nauka, 1984, 1985). A volume ofmemoirs about Zel’dovich was published under the titleZnakomyi neznakomyi Zel’dovich [The Known andunknown Zeldovich] (Moscow: Nauka, 1994).22. Vospominaniia ob akademike IsaakeKonstantinoviche Kikoine [Reminiscinces of academicIsaac Konstantinovivh Kikoin] (Moscow: Nauka, 1991).23. Vospominaniia ob akademike L.A. Artsimoviche[Reminiscences of the academic L.A. Artsimovich] (Mos-cow: Nauka, 1981).24. G.N. Flerov, “Vsemu my mozhem pouchit’sia uKurchatova” [“We can learn everything fromKurchatov”], in A.P. Aleksandrov, ed., Vospominaniiaob Igore Vasil’eviche Kurchatove (Moscow: Nauka,1988). Flerov talked to many people about his role inthe initiation of the Soviet project, and his account of hisletter to Stalin in the spring of 1942 has been widelyreported in the popular Soviet literature. The mostreliable of these popular accounts are two books bySergei Snegov: Tvortsy [Creators] (Moscow: SovetskaiaRossiia, 1979); and Prometei raskovannyi [Prometheusunbound] (Moscow: Detskaia literatura, 1980), whichare based on extensive interviews with project partici-pants. The books were recommended to me by Flerov,as well as by others in the Soviet project. They are nowcuriosities rather than useful sources, in view of thematerial that subsequently became available.25. A.P. Aleskandrov, “Gody s Kurchatovym,” Naukai zhizn’ [Science and life] 2 (1983).26. Vernadskii’s statements on atomic energy arescattered throughout his writings. For early thoughts onthe significance of atomic energy see V.I. Vernadskii,Ocherki i rechi [Essays and speeches] (Petrograd:Nauchnoe khimikotekhnicheskoe izdatel’stvo, 1922).A wartime memorandum is published in Priroda 4(1975). The most important sources are Vernadskii’sdiaries and correspondence in the Archive of the Rus-sian Academy of Sciences; some relevant correspon-dence can be found in the Vernadsky Collection in theRussian Archives, Butler Library, Columbia Univer-sity. See I.I. Mochalov, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii(Moscow: Nauka, 1982); Kendall E. Bailes, Scienceand Russian Culture in an Age of Revolutions: V.I.Vernadsky and his Scientific School, 1863-1945(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).27. Akademik V.G. Khlopin: Ocherki, vospominaniiasovremennikov [Academician V.G. Khlopin: Essays,memoirs of contemporaries] (Leningrad: Nauka, 1987);F.I. Vol’fson, N.S. Zontov, G.R. Shushaniia, DmitriiIvanovich Shcherbakov (Moscow: Nauka, 1987).28. A valuable collection, for example, is P.N. LebedevPhysics Institute, Andrei Sakharov: Facets of a Life(Gif-sur-Yvette: Editions Frontières, 1991). The En-glish translation is very poor, but the volume is not yetavailable in Russian. [Ed. note: A Sakharov archive,containing materials smuggled out of the Soviet Unionduring his dissident years, has been established atBrandeis University.]29. Among relevant articles that he has already pub-lished are: “Fizika universitetskaia i akademicheskaia”[“Physics in the university and the academy”], Voprosyistorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki [Questions in thehistory of science and technology] 2 (1991), and “S

chego’nachinalos’ sovetskaia vodorodnaia bomba”[“What started the Soviet hydrogen bomb”], Voprosyistorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki 1 (1993).30. V.A. Tsukerman and Z.M. Azarkh, “Liudi i vzryvy”[“People and explosions”], Zvezda [Star] 9-11 (1990).These memoirs were published before Arzamas-16could be mentioned by name.31. M.G. Pervukhin, “U istokov uranovoi epopei”[“The origins of the uranium epic”], Tekhnika-molodezhi[Technology of Youth] 6, 7 (1975); “Pervye godyatomnogo proekta” [“The first years of the atomicproject”], Khimiia i zhizn’ [Chemistry and life] 5 (1985).32. N.A. Dollezhal’, U istokov rukotvornogo mira [Theorigins of the hand-made world] (Moscow: Znanie,1989).33. E.P. Slavskii, “Kogda strana stoiala na plechakhiadernykh titanov” [“When the country was standing onthe shoulders of nuclear titans”], Voenno-istoricheskiizhurnal 9 (1993), 13-24.34. P.L. Kapitsa, Pis’ma o nauke [Letters on science](Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1989); see also J.W.Boag, P.E. Rubinin, and D. Shoenberg, eds., Kapitza inCambridge and Moscow (Amsterdam: North-Holland,1990). In December 1945 Kapitsa sent Molotov theoutline of an article on atomic energy that he wanted topublish. For this see P.L. Kapitsa, “Pis’mo Molotovu”[“Letter to Molotov”], Vestnik MinisterstvaInnostrannykh Del SSSR [Bulletin of the USSR Ministryof Foreign Affairs] 10 (1990).35. Nikolaus Riehl, 10 Jahre im goldenen Käfig:Erlebnisse beim Aufbau der Sowjetishchen Uran-Industrie [10 Years in the Golden Cage: Adventures inthe Construction of the Soviet Uranium Industry](Stuttgart: Riederer, 1988).36. Max Steenbeck, Impulse und Wirkungen [Impulsesand Influences] (Berlin: Verlag der Nation, 1977);Heinz Barwich, Das Rote Atom [The Red Atom] (Munichand Berne: Scherz Verlag, 1967); Manfred Von Ardenne,Ein glückliches Leben für Technik und Forschung [TheHappy Life for Technology and Research], 4th ed.(Berlin: Verlag der Nation, 1976).37. CIA, The Problem of Uranium Isotope Separationby Means of Ultracentrifuge in the USSR, Report No.DB-0-3, 633, 414, 4 October 1957.38. Heinemann-Grüder, Die Sowjetische Atombombe.39. Norman Naimark, The Soviet Occupation of Ger-many (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,planned publication date: 1995).40. On this episode see my letter to the editor in TheBulletin of the Atomic Scientists 50:1 (Jan./Feb. 1994),62-63. [Ed. note: Holloway wrote in response to anarticle describing the incident (Sergei Leskov, “Divid-ing the Glory of the Fathers,” The Bulletin of the AtomicScientists 49:4 (May 1993), 37-39) which implied thatKhariton might have opposed publication of the issuecontaining the espionage documents in order to mini-mize public appreciation of the intelligence agencies’contribution to the Soviet atomic effort as opposed tothat of Soviet atomic scientists. Holloway wrote:

Because I was involved in this incident, I wouldlike to comment.

The documents throw a good deal of light onSoviet atomic espionage during World War II andon the KGB’s contribution to the Soviet atomicproject. They include, for example, detailed as-sessments by Igor Kurchatov, scientific directorof the Soviet project, of the value of the materialobtained by the intelligence service.

The documents were referred to, and cited in,the Soviet—and then Russian—press in 1991 and

1992. In 1992, Anatoli Iatskov, a former KGBagent who had been involved in atomic espionage,gave photocopies to the Institute of the History ofScience and Technology with the understandingthat the documents would be published in theinstitute’s journal.

The journal’s plan was drawn to the attention ofYuli Khariton by Yuri Smirnov in September1992. Khariton asked the Ministry of AtomicPower to stop publication of two of the docu-ments, on the grounds that their contents wouldcontravene the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT).

When the Russian government sought to banpublication, the editor of the journal in which thedocuments were to appear asked my opinion,since I had already seen galleys of the proposedpublication. I consulted some U.S. colleagueswho are knowledgeable about proliferation is-sues. They told me that publication of two of the14 documents might well contravene Article I ofthe NPT. Article I states that nuclear weaponsparties to the treaty (and that now includes Russia)“undertake ... not in any way to assist, encourage,or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manu-facture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons.”That was the response I sent to the editor of thejournal.

In his article, Leskov dismisses this issue, say-ing that “even Edward Teller and Andrei Sakharovwould not have been able to build a bomb” withthe information that was to be revealed. But theissue is more complex and more serious than that.The criterion for declassification of nuclear-weapon-related information is not whether it wouldenable someone to build a bomb—the issue iswhether the information could be helpful to some-one who wanted to build a bomb.

Most of the technical information contained inthe documents is already in the public domain, butsome details of the bomb design are not. Thisinformation would not by itself enable someone tobuild a bomb—they would need the right materi-als, after all. But it might help someone whowished to build one. The information was cer-tainly useful to the Soviet Union, and it providedthe basis for the design of the first Soviet atomicbomb.

According to Leskov, copies of the journalwere sent to subscribers in St. Petersburg beforethe government ban went into effect. No doubt thepublic dissemination of this information will notlead to immediate proliferation; but it would havebeen better, I think, if it had not been published.This may be a very cautious position to take, butthe issue should not be dismissed lightly. More-over, it is not surprising that the Russian govern-ment took action, given Western concern that thebreakup of the Soviet Union would lead to thedispersion of information, specialists, and tech-nology that would contribute to proliferation.

After dismissing the issue of proliferation,Leskov implies that Khariton tried to prevent thedocuments’ publication because it would be ablow to his reputation. (Khariton was chief de-signer and scientific director of the nuclear weap-ons laboratory at Arzamas-16 from 1946 to 1992.)This, I think, is unjust. Khariton had alreadyacknowledged that the first Soviet atomic bombwas a copy of the first U.S. plutonium bomb (in aninterview with me in July 1992, for example). I do


not believe that he tried to stop publication forpersonal reasons.

No one objected to the publication of the 12non-design documents, which by themselves makeit clear that Soviet scientists obtained extensiveinformation from espionage. Unfortunately, bythe time the ban on publication was issued, it wastoo late for the journal to remove the two design-rich documents in question. Through no fault of itsown, the journal was put in an extremely awkwardposition.

Students of Soviet history hope that all thedocuments will appear before long, perhaps withexcisions in the two documents on bomb design.What is needed is a procedure for declassifyinghistorically important documents, even if theycontain sensitive information—by removing thesensitive portions before publication. The Minis-try of Atomic Power should institute a procedureof this kind. The KGB had reviewed these docu-ments, but apparently only to insure that theywould not reveal information about intelligencesources or methods, not to check the sensitivity ofthe weapon information they contained.

Mike Moore, editor of the Bulletin, wrote in hisMay [1993] “Editor’s Note” that “those who livelongest write history.” In a certain sense this istrue. It is only because he survived the end of theCold War that Khariton has been able to writeabout the Soviet nuclear weapons program. Hisaccount is invaluable because he was one of thekey people in the program from the very begin-ning. He has not used his recollections to aggran-dize himself or to exaggerate the role that heplayed in nuclear weapon development. This in-creases the value of his testimony; and it is mademore valuable by the fact that the history of theSoviet nuclear project is encrusted with legendand myth. Moore is incorrect if he means thatKhariton has tried to shut out other accounts of theSoviet project.]

41. Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatolii Sudoplatov withJerrold L. Schecter and Leona P. Schecter, SpecialTasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness — ASoviet Spymaster (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994), app. 2,pp. 436-67.42. A.S. Feklisov, “Podvig Klausa Fuksa” [“The feat ofKlaus Fuchs”], Voenno-istircheskii zhurnal [Military-historical journal] 12 (1990), and 1 (1991); A.A. Iatskov,“Atom i razvedka” [“The atom and reconnaissance”],Voprosy istorii estestvozananiia i tekhniki 3 (1992);Sudoplatov et al., Special Tasks.43. There has been, for some years, a running battlebetween the KGB and the physics community about theSoviet atomic project. Some former KGB officialshave claimed that Soviet physicists made no contribu-tion to the development of the atomic or hydrogenbombs, and that everything was done on the basis ofintelligence material. The physicists have acknowl-edged the important role of intelligence in Soviet atomicbomb development, but have argued that the intelli-gence could have been checked and used only bycompetent physicists, and have asserted, moreover, thatintelligence did not help in the development of Sovietthermonuclear weapons.44. See the review by Thomas Powers in The New YorkReview of Books 41:11 (9 June 1994), 10-17; and myreview in Science 264 (27 May 1994), 1346-47.45. Sudoplatov gives an exaggerated view of the sizeand scope of the project during the war.46. Ia.P.Terletskii, “Operatsiia ‘Dopros Nil’sa Bora”

[“Operation ‘Interrogation of Niels Bohr’”], in Voprosyistorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki 2 (1994); Press State-ment by Aage Bohr, 27 April 1994.47. [Ed. note: In an interview for a documentary (“TheRed Bomb”) broadcast on the Discovery Channel inSeptember 1994, Terletsky recalled that he did not takenotes during his meetings with Bohr, which may ex-plain errors appearing in a memorandum composedsubsequently.]48. Henry deWolf Smyth, Atomic Energy for MilitaryPurposes: The Official Report on the Development ofthe Atomic Bomb Under the Auspices of the UnitedStates Government, 1940-1945, available in a 1989reprint edition published by Stanford University Press.49. “Za Kulisami tikhookeanskoi bitvy (iapono-sovetskie kontakty v 1945 g.)” [“Behind the scenes ofthe Pacific battle (Japanese-Soviet contacts in 1945)”],Vestnik Ministerstva Inostrannykh Del SSSR (15 Octo-ber 1990); Boris N. Slavinsky, “The Soviet Occupationof the Kurile Islands and the Plans for the Capture ofNorthern Hokkaido,” Japan Forum, April 1993; KathrynWeathersby, “New Findings on the Korean War,” ColdWar International History Project Bulletin 3 (Fall 1993),1, 14-18; and Weathersby, “The Soviet Role in theEarly Phase of the Korean War: New DocumentaryEvidence,” The Journal of American-East Asian Rela-tions 2:4 (Winter 1993), 425-58.50. A.A. Gromyko, Pamiatnoe [Memories], 2nd ed., 2vols. (Moscow: Politizdat, 1990).51. N.V. Novikov, Vospominaniia diplomata: zapiski1938-1947 [Reminiscinces of a diplomat: diaries 1938-1947] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1989).52. Sto sorok besed s Molotvym: iz dnevnika F. Chueva[One hundred and forty conversations with Molotov:from the notebook of F. Chuyev] (Moscow: Terra,1991). An English-language edition was published byIvan R. Dee (Chicago) in 1993.53. As yet unpublished.54. Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and XueLitai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the KoreanWar (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993); ChenJian provides a useful survey of Chinese sources in TheSino-Soviet Alliance and China’s Entry into the KoreanWar (Washington D.C.: Wilson Center, Cold WarInternational History Project Working Paper No. 1,1992).55. Voennaia Mysl’ [Military Thought] ran a series ofarticles on the tactical use of nuclear weapons.56. “Delo Beriia” [“The problem of Beria”], IzvestiiaTsK KPSS, 1, 2 (1991).57. See, e.g., A.Iu. Ishlinskii, ed., Akademik S.P.Korolev: uchenyi, inzhener, chelovek [AcademicianS.P. Korolev: scientist, engineer, man] (Moscow: Nauka,1986); M.V. Kel’dysh, Izbrannye trudy: Raketnaiatekhnika i kosmonavtika [Selected Works: Rocket tech-nology and cosmonautics] (Moscow: Nauka, 1988);and B.P. Ivanov, “Atomnyi vzryv u poselka Totskoe”[“Atomic explosion in Totsky Settlement”], Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal 12 (1991).

David Holloway is Professor of Political Science, andco-director of the Center for International Security andArms Control, at Stanford University.

SOVIET MILITARY STRATEGYcontinued from page 1

them.2 And to a great extent, that data,whether leaked/declassified or not, had beenfiltered through the U.S. intelligence sys-tem. Under those circumstances, interpre-tive efforts were always constrained; therelative opacity of Soviet defensepolicymaking made it difficult to ascertain,much less evaluate, the relevant “facts.”This made it easy for analysts to fall back onCold War ideology and habits such as “mir-ror imaging,” which could easily lead tomisunderstanding. Thus, educated guess-work and perceptions alone, severed fromthe deeper understanding that primarysources can provide, shaped the Americanpublic’s understanding of Soviet militarydecision-making, policies, and programs forthe entire Cold War period.

Even with the end of the Cold War andnew evidence from Russian archives, histo-rians and political scientists must still relyon perceptions. Despite the significant open-ings in the files of the Foreign Ministry andthe Central Committee of the CommunistParty of the Soviet Union, the culture ofsecrecy continues to limit access to Soviet-era military records. Although retired mili-tary officers are willing to share their recol-lections of key events, lack of access toRussian military archives means that a cru-cial portion of Cold War territory cannot beexplored systematically.3 Thus, historianscannot investigate the way that the Sovietmilitary leadership saw the world at the endof World War II, much less during crisis andnon-crisis periods of the Cold War.4 More-over, given the important role that the mili-tary had in the state apparatus, lack of accessadds to the difficulty of understanding So-viet national security decision-making dur-ing the Stalin and Khrushchev eras, and theyears in between and since.

If Soviet military records on nuclearweapons issues ever become available theywill undoubtedly greatly enhance our abilityto address broad areas of Moscow’s ColdWar strategies and policies. In the mean-time, researchers will benefit from the guid-ance provided and questions raised in adeclassified history prepared under the aus-pices of the U.S. Department of Defense inthe late 1970s. As a result of a request madein 1974 by Secretary of Defense JamesSchlesinger, an interdisciplinary team com-prising historian Ernest May of Harvard

Articles appearing in this journal are ab-stracted and indexed in HISTORICAL AB-STRACTS and AMERICA: HISTORYAND LIFE.


and American policy remains excised.6

In spite of the redactions, the generalline of argument remains relatively trans-parent. But rather than summarizing orassessing the study as a whole, this articlediscusses some of the questions raised in thechapters on Soviet-era defense planning anddecision-making, strategic nuclear policy,and force deployments, particularly duringthe 1940s and 50s. The lack of primarysources on the Soviet side forced the authorsto rely on “speculation and inference” usingdata from a variety of secondary sources andhighly classified intelligence reports. Nev-ertheless, MSW produced some rich andprovocative material on the range of motivesthat may have informed Stalin’s postwarmilitary policy, the 1949-52 military buildup,Khrushchev’s strategic priorities, the Ber-lin/Cuban crises, and the mid-1960s ICBMbuildup, among other issues. These analy-ses merit careful pondering by historiansand political scientists alike.

The authors believe that Stalin expectedan “antagonistic” relationship with Wash-ington, yet also suggest that his postwarmilitary decisions provided “little provoca-tion” for a “stepped up competition in arma-ments.” Thus, taking into account postwardemobilization, Soviet forces were largeenough to maintain domestic security, stabi-lize the East European sphere of influence,and possibly to support West European Com-munists. Anticipating more recent historio-graphic trends, they see Stalin as “extremelycautious,” but possibly mindful that if revo-lutionary scenarios materialized in WesternEurope, military strength could deter counter-revolutionary intervention. Consistent withthe idea of a cautious Stalin, MSW offeranother explanation as well: that force levels“mirrored some of Stalin’s domestic con-cerns,” especially the possibility of instabil-ity brought on by reintroducing prewar lev-els of “discipline.” Alternatively, Stalinmay have believed that his practice of assur-ing relatively equal funding for each of theservices would provide capabilities for fore-seeable military requirements while ensur-ing that the leaders of any one of them did notbecome too powerful.7

The possibility that Stalin operated onnon-rational grounds, like a “Nero or aCaligula,” is suggested in a perfunctory way.8

But the weight of the analysis on postwardevelopments assumes a pattern of politicalrationality however it may have expressed

itself in particular decisions. This is cer-tainly true of the discussion of the 1949-1952 buildup. For MSW, there are severalissues for which there is insufficient data.One is the dimensions of the buildup itself;U.S. intelligence agencies may still not knowthe size of ground forces expansion duringthis period. Another problem is motive, thedegree to which the buildup was “plannedlong in advance or ... reflected a Sovietreaction to threatening gestures and lan-guage from the West.”9 The possibility thatthe buildup had something to do with theKorean War is considered, but MSW placegreater emphasis on treating it as “primarilya response to fears aroused by Yugoslavia’sdefection and the concurrent buildup” ofU.S. and NATO forces.10 Indeed, citingSoviet public reaction to Truman’s January1949 budget message, it is suggested thatsubsequent defense budget growth was “pos-sibly the first instance of action-reaction inthe Soviet-U.S. military competition.”11

The authors carefully avoid concludingthat USSR or U.S. strategic forces “devel-oped ... only in reaction to each other.” Butthey suggest that the influence of Westerndecisions was more than casual.12 For ex-ample, MSW find that Soviet decisions onground force levels were reactive, followingtrends in the West. Thus, when in 1952-3 itbecame evident that NATO could not meetits ground force targets, the Soviets began tocut forces. Moreover, the authors believethat the heavy increase in U.S. spending onnuclear weapons and delivery systems dur-ing the Korean War era had a decided impacton Soviet military organization and deploy-ments. PVO Strany, the organization incharge of air defenses, became an indepen-dent entity and secured resources that it usedto encircle Moscow with SA-1 surface-to-air missiles—reportedly costing over a bil-lion dollars—designed to destroy bomberaircraft.13

The extent to which the U.S. nuclearbuildup of the early 1950s contributed tointensified Soviet programs in that area isless certain. MSW believe Stalin respondedto it with “sangfroid” because he was satis-fied that relatively small nuclear forces wereenough to deter attack and also constrain theinfluence of industrial managers. They alsobelieve that heavy investments in nuclearreactors implied that Stalin’s priority wasnot so much producing deliverable weaponsbut developing the technological basis for

University, political scientist JohnSteinbruner of the Brookings Institution,and the late RAND Corporation analystThomas W. Wolfe set to work on a historyof the Cold War arms race. They completedthe History of the Strategic Arms Competi-tion, 1945-1972 in 1980. Their five-yearstudy produced an immense report; includ-ing tables, endnotes, and bibliographies, itruns over a thousand typescript pages.

Although prepared under official aus-pices, this was not “official history” in theconventional sense. Schlesinger requesteda “thorough, objective, critical, and analyti-cal history of the arms race,” particularlyduring the formative postwar years. It isevident that the authors were not constrainedto follow a “Pentagon line” and were free todraw their own conclusions, some of whichstrayed quite far from received wisdom aboutthe dynamic forces shaping the arms race.Nevertheless, the authors wanted their ef-forts to be policy relevant; they hoped toclarify thinking in the “defense commu-nity” and to “improve ... capacity for shap-ing U.S. programs and policies.” To thatextent, this study can be seen as part of thedocumentary record of the Cold War, shed-ding light on the murky relationship be-tween the universities, think-tanks, and theexecutive branch, particularly the role ofintellectuals in interpreting and influencingnational policy.

The study itself is an invaluable guideto the U.S. documentary record, aided bythe fact that May, Steinbruner, and Wolfe(hereafter MSW) enjoyed the cooperationof other military organizations—includingthe Institute for Defense Analyses, RAND,the uniformed services, and the DOD His-torical Office—which prepared huge chro-nologies, studies, and official and oral histo-ries for use as research material.5 All of thescholars involved in the enterprise had vary-ing degrees of access to a wide variety ofclassified material held at Presidential Li-braries, the State Department, Departmentof Energy, Pentagon, and CIA. Some of thismaterial, especially “Restricted Data” onnuclear weapons and derived from intelli-gence sources, apparently remains sensitiveto this day. These problems made the Pen-tagon exceedingly reluctant to review thearms competition history for declassifica-tion. Thus, not surprisingly, but unfortu-nately, while most of the report has beendeclassified, important material on Soviet


producing a modern and powerful arsenal.This, they suggest, may have dovetailedwith Stalin’s conviction that nuclear weap-ons were relevant to supporting Soviet for-eign policy rather than for actual militaryuse. That emphasis was also consistent withSoviet military doctrine prior to the mid-1950s, which either ignored or downplayedthe role of nuclear weapons and emphasizedinstead “permanently operating factors” suchas national morale and cohesion.14

Central to MSW’s study is their discus-sion of the mid-to-late 1950s, which they seeas a formative period for Soviet strategicdoctrine and weapons systems. At that timethe political and military leadership revisedofficial doctrine about nuclear war; ratherthan minimizing the problem of a preemp-tive nuclear attack, they began to treat it asthe preeminent danger and emphasized theimportance of ready forces and preparationas well as arms control. More or less concur-rently, the Soviets began to scale down theirlong-range bomber program and redirectresources toward ICBM and IRBM devel-opment. They did not, however, acceleratethe latter; worried abut the costs of militarycompetition, they decided to make largeinvestments slowly.15

MSW’s interpretation of these develop-ments, which fed into U.S. decisions to has-ten ICBM and SLBM programs, raises im-portant questions that deserve further explo-ration when Russian Defense Ministry ar-chives become available. The authors con-tend that during the mid-’50s Soviet leadersconcluded that bombers were useful for de-terring an attack but not for “damage limita-tion,” i. e., for the “defensive purpose ofminimizing the harm an enemy nation coulddo.” Believing that Washington was farahead of them in ability to launch a cripplingstrategic attack, and perhaps overestimatingU.S. air defense capacities, the Soviets rea-soned that missiles, not bombers, could helpthem solve their problems, MSW suggest.Missiles, unlike bomber aircraft, were moreor less unstoppable and could reach theirtargets quickly. While acknowledging theimportance of various organizational andtechnological considerations, along with thepersuasive abilities of rocket designer Ser-gei P. Korolev, MSW argue that a preoccu-pation with the “strategic defensive” wasfundamental to explaining the shift in re-sources from bombers to missiles.16

The authors present a stimulating inter-

pretation of Nikita Khrushchev’s unsuccess-ful “missile diplomacy” of the late 1950sand early ’60s, an issue that has been of greatinterest to scholars.17 For MSW,Khrushchev’s missile rattling needs to beunderstood in terms of military pressure onhim to reverse his policy of restraint onmilitary spending. Noting that the bulk ofSoviet effort lay in MRBMs and not ICBMs(such as the SS-7 and SS-8), they suggestthat Khrushchev was content to pursue a“second best strategic posture” that couldmeet potential threats on the Eurasian pe-riphery, in particular West Germany andChina. At the same time, restraint on ICBMdevelopment might have been a way to en-courage Washington to disengage fromWestern Europe. Alternatively, the Sovietsmay also have had a problem in meetingtheir ICBM production goals. In this con-text, perhaps Khrushchev and the Sovietmilitary found a “strategic bluff” as usefuland necessary for meeting political goals aswell as for concealing the weakness in theirstrategic posture.18

Without access to Soviet military andPresidential archives, MSW’s hypothesescannot be adequately tested; this problem isno less true for their reading of the early1960s U.S.-Soviet crises—especially theCuban Missile Crisis—and their impact onSoviet ICBM deployments in the followingyears. Like many analysts, the authors seethe Soviet decision to deploy the MRBMs asmotivated in part to defend Cuba and in partto offset U.S. strategic superiority, whichhad put Soviet nuclear forces in a situationthat was “little short of desperate.”19 Butthey are puzzled by the military logic, notingthat the small force of missiles would have“been inadequate to destroy enough of theAmerican strategic strike capability to pre-clude severe retaliatory damage” to the So-viet Union. MSW provide two possibleanswers to this problem. One possibility isthat the Soviets believed that their deploy-ment was adequate to deter Washington in acrisis: the U.S. would avoid a confrontationrather than risking a few cities. The other,admittedly speculative, is that prospectivetargets were U.S. Strategic Air Command(SAC) command and control facilities thatcould not be reached from Soviet territory.With their MRBMs in Cuba, and in keepingwith the Soviet’s strategic defensive orien-tation, they could hinder a “fully coordi-nated” U.S. first strike.20

MSW relate Khrushchev’s decisions onCuba to a struggle with his Presidium col-leagues over strategic force levels. Losingpolitical clout after the U-2 affair and theretreat from the Berlin ultimatum (to sign apeace treaty with East Germany that wouldisolate West Berlin) in October 1961,Khrushchev was under greater pressure toallocate more resources to ICBMs. In thiscontext, he may have seen the Cuban de-ployment as a way to contain military spend-ing while giving the military more coverageof critical targets in the United States. Thus,“targeting the SAC command structurewould help explain why the Soviets wouldundertake the very risky Cuban venture.”21

Whatever the purposes of the deploy-ment may have been, MSW argue that theMissile Crisis’ outcome, with Moscow forcedto back down and withdraw the missiles,acted as a “catalyst” by bringing to thesurface latent dissatisfaction withKhrushchev’s “second best” approach if nothis concern with Germany and China. Thus,U.S. “strategic pressure” touched off a two-year-long debate involving a major decisionfor significant deployments of third genera-tion ICBM systems: the SS-7 and SS-8 wereabandoned and more resources poured intothe SS-9 and SS-11 ICBMs. Moreover, theSoviets decided to develop the “Yankeeclass” submarine missile system. By 1965,MSW propose, the Soviets had completedbasic decisions on force levels which re-mained relatively stable in the followingyears. And they further suggest that theintention behind these decisions was notstrategic dominance or even serious“counterforce” capabilities, as the CIA’s“Team B” maintained in the mid-70s’.Rather, a basic purpose may have been par-ity with the United States. Indeed, if itspriority was MRBM deployments on theirterritorial periphery, the Kremlin may wellhave seen parity as sufficient to support theirpolitical interests in a future crisis.22

Besides their overall assessment of themid-1960s decisions, MSW raise specificquestions about the characteristics of themissile deployments. For example, they areuncertain whether the Soviets developed therelatively inexpensive SS-11 ICBM in a“crash program” after the Cuban MissileCrisis or in 1961, becoming important later.In addition, solid information is not avail-able on what the missile designers and themilitary had in mind when they developed


and deployed the heavy SS-9 ICBM. Re-turning to their earlier line of argumentabout command-and-control targeting,MSW use circumstantial evidence to con-jecture that the SS-9’s mission may havebeen to disable the command-and-controlsystem of the U.S. Minuteman missile com-plex. Perhaps that is why the Pentagonfound the SS-9s worrisome; thus, one pur-pose of Johnson and Nixon-era SALT strat-egy was to “seek to dissuade the SovietUnion from further large-scale deploy-ments.”23

MSW raise a host of other interestingquestions about Soviet decision-making insuch areas as arms control, anti-ballisticmissile systems, missile accuracy, multipleindependently targetable reentry vehicles(MIRVs), and fourth generation ICBM de-ployments of the early 1970s. Like theearlier material, the analysis is stimulatingand deserves careful study. For example,the authors link the mid-’60s ICBM buildupto the SALT process by suggesting that inthe process of deciding force levels eachside developed an interest in arms control.They argue that conditions for SALT ex-isted by 1965, when both sides had madebasic decisions about ABM systems and theSoviets had decided to match U.S. ICBMdeployments and MIRV technology. Thus,SALT was a “matter of ratifying decisionson the size and basic technical competitionwhich each side reached unilaterally.”24

Declassification of some of the mate-rial once closely held by intelligence com-munity—some of which may not even havebeen available to MSW—may shed light onsome of MSW’s interpretations. For ex-ample, the CIA has begun to release itsNational Intelligence Estimates of Sovietstrategic forces, including NIEs that wereproduced during the “missile gap” debate ofthe late 1950s.25 Perhaps even more impor-tant, beginning in 1992 the CIA began todeclassify documents on one of the mostfamous and most successful Cold War es-pionage cases, the defection-in-place of So-viet GRU (military intelligence) ColonelOleg Penkovsky. Penkovsky provided CIAwith a treasure trove of classified material,some of which is now available in translatedform. A highlight is the top secret edition“Special Collection” of the journalVoyennaya Mysl (Military Thought) pro-vided to the Agency in 1961-62 byPenkovsky. More in the nature of “think

pieces,” contributions to debates, etc., ratherthan policy and planning documents, thearticles in the “Special Collection” clearlyindicate important trends of thought in theKhrushchev-era high command. For ex-ample, the material documents the some-times bitter controversy within the Sovietmilitary over the extent to which strategyshould depend on nuclear weapons andwhether there remained a role for generalpurpose forces.26 In addition, some of thearticles show that a number of articulategenerals believed that it was essential to havean array of ICBMs at their disposal if theywere to “fight against means of nuclear at-tack” with any degree of success. Suchstatements, which can be interpreted as pres-sure to raise the ICBM budget, make MSW’sline of argument about the strategically de-fensive character of Soviet planning all themore plausible.27

In addition to the top secret articles fromVoyennaya Mysl, the CIA has also declassi-fied most of Penkovsky’s debriefings to CIAand SIS officials during visits to England andFrance during 1961 and 1962.28 Besides aremarkable statement on Soviet ICBM forcedeficiencies (“we don’t have a damn thing”),the transcripts contain a wide range of detailon nuclear weapons-related issues, includ-ing command and control, missile and weap-ons tests, anti-ballistic missile and air de-fense programs, tactical weapons, rockettypes and missile technology, weapons dis-persal, nuclear facilities and key militaryfigures in the nuclear area.29 (An amusingrevelation is the previously obscure “vodkacrisis” of 1961; to ensure the availability ofalcohol for missile fuel, the military crimpedsupplies for civilian use, thus creating a vodkashortage.) As with oral history, Penkovsky’sstatements require corroboration and cross-checking to screen out inaccuracies and po-litically-driven interpretations.30 Neverthe-less, the transcripts provide striking detailabout personalities and issues during one ofthe Cold War’s tensest passages.

The Penkovsky material, much of whichthe CIA has yet to release, sheds some lighton the Khrushchev era, but more than thatwill be needed to permit even a preliminaryresolution of the interpretive problems thatMSW broach. A program of oral historyinterviews with retired Soviet general offic-ers and weapons designers could be particu-larly valuable for clarifying developmentsduring the Khrushchev era and after. Oral

histories may be essential when writtenrecords on some events no longer exist, butthey are only a stopgap. It may well be thatthe eventual transfer of records from theRussian Presidential Archives to the StorageCenter for Contemporary Documentation(the archival repository for post-1952 CCCPSU records) will enable researchers totest the various hypotheses developed byMSW. Nevertheless, a full picture of Sovietmilitary policy during the Cold War willrequire the Russian Defense Ministry todevelop programs for regularizing access tothe archival collections under its control. Ifand when such material becomes available,the history of Soviet strategic program willonly incidentally be a history of U.S. percep-tions.

1. Ernest May, John Steinbruner, and Thomas Wolfe,History of the Strategic Arms Competition, 1945-1972,ed. Alfred Goldberg, (Office of the Secretary of De-fense, Historical Office, March 1981, declassified withdeletions, December 1990), 634. Hereafter cited asHistory.2. History, 634.3. Since this essay was written, several importantstudies have become available that show how much canbe accomplished without extensive access to Russianmilitary archives; see, e.g., Thomas B. Cochran andRobert Standish Norris, Russian/Soviet Nuclear War-head Production, National Resource Defense CouncilWorking Paper NWD93-1, 8 September 1993; andDavid Holloway’s magisterial Stalin and the Bomb:The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1994).4. [Ed. note: In what may be a hopeful portent, since thisarticle was written the Russian military has declassifieda limited amount of records pertaining to specific ColdWar events, such as the Korean War, the Berlin Crisis(1961), and the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, it is toosoon to tell whether these limited steps, taken in con-junction with particular political events or academicprojects, will lead to more systematic declassificationor even to easier and equitable scholarly access to thosematerials that are declassified.]5. Some of the supporting studies have been declassi-fied, e.g., IDA Study S-467, The Evolution of U.S.Strategic Command and Control and Warning, 1945-1972 by L. Wainstein et al. (June 1975). Others areunder declassification review, including the chronol-ogy used to prepare the study, as well as an IDA historyof Soviet strategic command, control and warning.6. Pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request bythe National Security Archive, the Defense Depart-ment, CIA, and other agencies are now reviewing theexcised portions for possible declassification.7. History, 96-103. For Stalin’s cautiousness, see alsoRaymond L. Garthoff, Deterrence and the Revolutionin Soviet Military Doctrine (Washington, D.C.: Brook-ings Institution, 1990), 15-18.8. History, 103. For a still useful assessment of theStalin literature, see Ronald Grigor Suny, “Second-guessing Stalin: International Communism and theOrigins of the Cold War,” Radical History Review 37(1987), 101-115.9. Ibid., 82. For intelligence estimates on Soviet


ground force levels during the 1940s-’50s, see, e.g.,Matthew Evangelista, “Stalin’s Postwar Army Reap-praised,” International Security 7:1 (Winter 1982/83),110-138; and John Duffield, “The Soviet Military Threatto Western Europe: US Estimates in the 1950s and1960s,” Journal of Strategic Studies 15 (June 1992),208-27. During 1993 and 1994, knowledge of NationalIntelligence Estimates of the USSR greatly increasedwhen the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligenceturned over copies of many Soviet-related NIEs to theNational Archives and published two useful compendiain its “CIA Cold War Record Series”: Scott A. Koch,ed., Selected Estimates on the Soviet Union, 1950-1959(Washington, D.C.: History Staff, Center for the Studyof Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1993),and Michael Warner, ed., The CIA Under Harry Truman(Washington, D.C.: History Staff, Center for the Studyof Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1994).These collections were released in conjunction withCIA-sponsored academic conferences on “TeachingIntelligence” (October 1993) and the Truman era (March1994). Strategic forces estimates from the years of the“missile gap” controversy and later periods are sched-uled to be the subject of additional declassificationreleases and another conference, to be held at HarvardUniversity in December 1994.10. Ibid., 257. Kathryn Weathersby of Florida StateUniversity is now preparing a major study of the role ofthe Korean question in Soviet policy during 1949 and1950.11. Ibid., 250. Others may argue that the first examplewas the Soviet atomic bomb program.12. Ibid., 810-11.13. Ibid., 257, 277-78. For background on Sovietantimissile programs during the 1950s and 60s, seeSayre Stevens, “The Soviet BDM Program,” in AshtonB. Carter and David Schwartz, eds., Ballistic MissileDefense (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution,1987), esp. 182-201.14. Ibid., 280-83, 299, 302. For Stalin and nuclearweapons, see Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb.15. Ibid., 315-33. See also Garthoff, Deterrence andthe Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine, 34-35, 42,which emphasizes ideas about deterrence in the newmilitary thinking.16. History, 331-33. Information provided to the CIAby GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovsky supports the strategi-cally defensive character of Soviet policy: according tothe CIA officials who reviewed the Penkovsky “take,”it reaffirmed that the “prime Soviet intelligence objec-tive is to furnish early warning of foreign attack.” SeeJerrold Schecter and Peter S. Deribian, The Spy WhoSaved the World (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 195.17. See, e.g., David Holloway, The Soviet Union andthe Arms Race (New Haven: Yale University Press,1983), 84-86.18. History, 334-92. For Penkovsky’s explanation ofKhrushchev’s boasting, see Schecter and Deribian, TheSpy Who Saved the World, 273-74.19. See, e.g., Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on theCuban Missile Crisis, rev. ed. (Washington: BrookingsInstitution, 1989), 20-21. For “desperate,” see History,475.20. Ibid., 474-86, 664-65. The first interpretation isconsistent with Garthoff’s reading (Reflections, 20-21). A second interpretation assumes that Soviet nucleartests in 1961 may have alerted Moscow to the possibil-ity that Electromagnet Pulse (EMP) effects could beused to cripple command and control machinery.21. History, 684-86.22. Ibid., 491-503, 643-45, 687-90, 704-708. See also

Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race, 43-44.MSW note that the number of Soviet ICBMs deployedin the 1960s was “not wildly out of line with what Sovietplanners might have projected as a matching response”to American programs as of 1963-1965. History, 707.For their critique of “counterforce” interpretations, seeibid., 660-63. The 1976 CIA “Team B” report has beendeclassified and is available at the Modern MilitaryBranch, National Archives.23. History, 500-501, 663-65. Unfortunately, the De-fense Department has excised significant parts of dis-cussion of the SS-9. However, the Defense IntelligenceAgency made important data available when it recentlydeclassified a supporting study for MSW; see U.S. AirForce, History of Strategic Arms Competition, 1945-1972, Vol. 3, A Handbook of Selected Soviet Weaponand Space Systems, June 1976. The most detailedpublicly available source on the nuclear arsenal of theformer Soviet Union is Thomas B. Cochran et al.,Nuclear Weapons Databook, Vol. IV, Soviet NuclearWeapons (New York: Harper & Row, 1989). For theaccuracy of the SS-9, among other ex-Soviet ICBMs,see Donald Mackenzie’s extraordinary and challengingInventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of NuclearMissile Guidance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993).24. History, 737-38.25. One example can be found at the Lyndon B.Johnson Library: NIE 11-4-60, “Main Trends in SovietCapabilities and Policies, 1960-1965,” 1 December1960. See also the forthcoming collection of NIEswhich the CIA hopes to publish in late 1994.26. Compare “The Nature of Modern Armed Combatand the Role and Place in It of the Various Branches ofthe Armed Forces” by General of the Army P. Kurochkin,19 September 1961, with “Military Thought: Theory ofMilitary Art Needs Review” by Colonel-General A.Gastilovich, 18 December 1961. The CIA codenamedIRONBARK these and other secret and top-secret docu-ments, and included some in its collection, CIA Docu-ments on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (Washington,D.C.: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelli-gence, Central Intelligence Agency, October 1992).27. See, e.g., “Military Thought: ‘The Initial Period ofa Future War and the Special Features of the Conduct ofMilitary Operations During This Period,’ by Colonel-General N. Pavlovskiy,” 10 January 1962, and “Mili-tary Thought: ‘Some Conclusions on NATO ArmedForces Exercise SIDE STEP,’ by Colonel-General S.Ivanov,” 22 January 1962.28. The CIA and DIA have yet to declassify the studiesof the “Ironbark” and “Chickadee” material preparedby intelligence analysts at the time as well as thetranslations of many of the documents that Penkovskyprovided. Some declassification review of some of thismaterial may be underway.29. For “we don’t have a damn thing,” which was aquotation of a statement by Gen. Sergei S. Varentsov,see “Meeting No. 4 at Leeds, England, 23 April 1961.”Initially dubious about the value of Penkovsky’s infor-mation—he was a “subsource about whom they knewnothing”—U.S. intelligence refused to include it in NIE11-8-61 on Soviet strategic forces. See “Conversationswith Messrs. Ed Proctor and Jack Smith Re Use ofCHICKADEE Material in NIE 11-8-61,” 7 June 1961.30. For example, his description of the “first” Sovietatomic test confuses an air-drop of an atomic weaponwith the actual first test, in 1949, of a device on a tower.Compare “Meeting #12, London, England, 1 May 1961”with Cochran and Norris, Russian/Soviet Nuclear War-head Production, 15-16. In addition, new work onKhrushchev and the Berlin crisis does not support

Penkovsky’s reading of Khrushchev as an “atomicHitler” who might make a “tremendous attack” on theWest. See Vladislav Zubok, “Khrushchev’s Motivesand Soviet Diplomacy in the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1962,”paper presented for University of Essen-CWIHP Con-ference on “Soviet Union, Germany, and the Cold War,1945-1962: New Evidence from Eastern Archives,”Essen, Germany, 28-30 June 1994.

William Burr, who received his Ph.D. from NorthernIllinois University, works at the National Security Ar-chive, where he is project director for a documentcollection on the arms race and arms control since the1950s. He was the editor of The Berlin Crisis, 1958-1962 (National Security Archive-Chadwyck HealeyLtd., 1992). The author thanks Lynn Eden, RaymondGarthoff, and Max Holland for their comments.

COLD WAR SOVIET SCIENCEcontinued from page 2

of them. Although Center-financed inter-views have largely focused on Western sci-ence, a fraction of these interviews discussSoviet research, some extensively. Of par-ticular interest are in-depth interviews withViktor Ambartsumian, VladimirAleksandrovich Fok, Petr LeonidovichKapitsa, Alla Genrikova Massevich, andMitrofan Stepanovich Zverev.

III. Biographical and InstitutionalInformation. The Center for History ofPhysics also maintains files for individualbiographical data and institutional histories.While the bulk of these materials concernWestern and particularly U.S. scientists, anumber of files contain information on promi-nent Soviet and East European scientists andscientific institutions. Researchers shouldphone prior to planned visits to ascertainwhether material on particular individualsor institutions is available. Examples ofinformation recently received by the Centerinclude a manuscript by Vitaly A. Bronshtenon the influence of V.T. Ter-Oganezov onthe development of Soviet astronomy; cop-ies of records relating to the Kharkov Physi-cal Institute between 1926 and 1945; andphotocopies of interrogation transcripts oftwo scientists (Lev Shubnikov and VadimGorsky) accused of espionage during the1930s Stalinist purges.

For further information, contact the NielsBohr Library, Center for History of Physics,American Institute of Physics, One PhysicsEllipse, College Park, MD 20740, tel. 301-209-3175; fax 301-209-0882; [email protected].

Ronald E. Doel is working on a history of scientists andthe Cold War; Caroline Moseley is an associate archi-vist at the Center for History of Physics, AmericanInstitute of Physics.


AFTER STALINcontinued from page 1

Addressing the Central Committee ofthe Communist Party of the Soviet Union(CC CPSU) Plenary Meeting on 3 July1953, Avraami Zavenyagin, deputy head ofthe recently-created Ministry of MediumMachine Building, spoke proudly: “TheAmericans [after the first Soviet atomic testin 1949] saw that their advantages had gone,and at Truman’s order began the work onthe hydrogen bomb. Our people and ourcountry are no slouches. We took it up aswell and, as far as we can judge, we believewe do not lag behind the Americans. Thehydrogen bomb is tens of times more pow-erful than a plain atomic bomb and its explo-sion will mean the liquidation of the secondmonopoly of the Americans, now underpreparation, which would be an event ofultimate importance in world politics.”3

The country’s new leaders, GeorgiiMalenkov and Nikita Khrushchev, havingquickly solved “the Beria problem” inher-ited from Stalin, still faced another danger-ous legacy—the confrontation with theUnited States. Stalin left to his successorshis orthodox vision of international affairs,based on Leninist theory, the most staunchsupporter and advocate of which in theSoviet leadership was Foreign MinisterVyacheslav M. Molotov. Even as late as theJune 1957 CC CPSU Plenum, Molotov stilltoed the orthodox line while giving lip ser-vice to the new currents in foreign policy:“We all understand and consider it to benecessary to conduct, promote and stimu-late such measures which are conducive tothe reduction of international tension. Thisis the foundation of our work on the strength-ening of peace, on the postponement [em-phasis added] and prevention of a new war.”4

To Molotov, in other words, the world con-flagration was just a matter of time anddetermining the proper moment for the in-evitable “final victory” over “the aggressiveforces of imperialism.” The phrase “pre-vention of a new war,” in Molotov’s mouth,was a token bow to new fashion.

But nuclear, especially thermonuclear,weaponry very quickly began to dictate newpriorities to the Soviet leaders, inasmuch asthey came to comprehend its power anddanger. Of particular importance in thisregard was a classified report prepared inMarch 1954 by four senior physicists fromamong the elite of the secret Soviet atomic

project—Igor Vasil’evich Kurchatov, scien-tific director of the nuclear effort since 1943;Abram Isaakovich Alikhanov, who had di-rected the creation of the first Soviet heavy-water nuclear reactor; Isaak KonstantinovichKikoin, director of the gaseous diffusion andcentrifuge uranium isotope separationprojects; and A.P. Vinogradov, scientificdirector at the plant at Cheliabinsk-40 whichpurified and converted plutonium into metalfor weapons. The four scientists presentedtheir report in the form of a draft article. Acopy of this paper, now available in thearchives of the former CPSU Central Com-mittee, was sent on 1 April 1954 by Ministerof Medium Machine Building V.A. Malyshevto CC CPSU First Secretary Khrushchevwith the suggestion to publish the text notover the names of its authors, all key partici-pants in the atomic project, but above thesignatures of other authoritative Soviet sci-entists who were “well known abroad andnot related to our field.”5 In his cover memo-randum to Khrushchev, Malyshev, a DeputyChairman of the USSR Council of Ministerswho had headed the tank industry during thewar, stated that he, too, had helped author thedraft article and had also sent copies toKhrushchev’s two leading colleagues, “Com-rades Malenkov and Molotov.”6

The content of the document is of excep-tional significance, as is the reaction to it bythe ruling Soviet “troika.”

In the draft article, Kurchatov and hisco-authors vividly and powerfully arguedthat the advent of fusion weapons meant thatthe nuclear arms race had reached a new,vastly more dangerous stage:

The modern atomic practice, based onthe utilization of thermonuclear reac-tion, allows us to increase, practicallyto an unlimited extent, the explosiveenergy contained in a bomb....Defenseagainst such weapons is practically im-possible [so] it is clear that the use ofatomic weapons on a mass scale willlead to devastation of the warringcountries....Aside from the destructiveimpact of atomic and hydrogen bombs,there is another threat for mankind in-volved in atomic war—poisoning theatmosphere and the surface of the globewith radioactive substances, originat-ing from nuclear explosions...the windspreads them all over the Earth’s atmo-sphere. Later these radioactive sub-stances fall onto the surface of the Earth

with rain, snow and dust, thus poison-ing it....Calculations show that if, incase of war, currently existing stocksof atomic weapons are used, dosages ofradioactive emissions and concentra-tions of radioactive substances whichare biologically harmful for human lifeand vegetation will be created on asignificant part of the Earth’ssurface....The tempo of growth ofatomic explosives is such that in just afew years the stockpiles of atomic ex-plosives will be sufficient to createconditions under which the existenceof life over the whole globe will beimpossible. The explosion of aroundone hundred hydrogen bombs wouldlead to the same effect....So, we cannotbut admit that mankind faces an enor-mous threat of the termination of alllife on Earth.7

The timing and context of the Sovietphysicists’ initiative should be noted. As itstitle suggested—“The Danger of AtomicWar and President Eisenhower’s Pro-posal”—the draft article sent by Malyshevto Khrushchev was, on its surface, intendedto rebut the “Atoms for Peace” proposaladvanced by Eisenhower to the United Na-tions almost four months earlier, on 8 De-cember 1953; in his speech, the U.S. presi-dent had warned of the grave threat nuclearweapons posed to humanity, and proposedthat the nuclear superpowers (the USA,USSR, and Britain) share their stocks offissionable material to create an interna-tional pool for peaceful worldwide atomicenergy development. However, while ap-plauding Eisenhower’s conciliatory rheto-ric, Moscow responded tepidly to the “At-oms for Peace” scheme, as did the Sovietphysicists who authored the draft article.The spread and development of “peaceful”atomic energy technology, they notedsharply, leads “not to a reduction in, but to aproliferation of atomic weapons supplies.”Expertise in operating nuclear power plants“can also serve as a means for the furtherperfection of methods for the production ofatomic energy for military purposes,” theypointed out, and atomic electric power sta-tions “‘for peaceful purposes’ may at thesame time be an industrial and sufficientlycheap way to produce large amounts ofexplosive substances for atomic and hydro-gen bombs”—giving the example of anatomic energy plant with a 10,000-kilowatt


capacity, which would annually generate,besides the electric power, about 130-200kilograms of plutonium a year, an amountsufficient to produce “dozens” of atomicbombs. “Moreover, the production of atomicbombs from these materials is a processwhich can be accomplished within a veryshort period of time.”

“In this light,” they concluded,Eisenhower’s proposals “do not at all dimin-ish the danger of atomic war” and, rather,were “directed at the disorientation of worldpublic opinion.”8

More immediately, however, the Sovietphysicists’ impassioned statement cameagainst a backdrop of heightened interna-tional awareness of the perils of the hydro-gen bomb. On 1 March 1954, in the MarshallIslands in the Pacific Ocean, the UnitedStates had detonated what was then the larg-est explosion ever created by human beings,a blast with the explosive power of 15 mil-lion tons (megatons) of TNT, three times theyield scientists had predicted. This first testof a deliverable U.S. hydrogen bomb, code-named Bravo, had produced a pall of radio-active fallout that descended over 7,000square miles of the Pacific, forced the unex-pected evacuation of hundreds of U.S. ser-vice personnel participating in the test andresidents of nearby atolls, and irradiated aJapanese fishing trawler, the Lucky Dragon,killing one crewman and setting off a panicamong Japanese who feared that their tunasupply had been contaminated. As Wash-ington moved forward with the OperationCastle series of thermonuclear test explo-sions in the Pacific, exploding a second, 11-megaton device (code-named “Romeo”) onMarch 27 (and a total of six explosionsbetween March 1 and May 14), protests rosearound the world calling for a ban on furthersuch experiments. Amid the uproar, pressconferences in late March by PresidentEisenhower and the chairman of the U.S.Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis L.Strauss, conveyed to the general public whatmany scientists already understood: that anH-bomb could destroy an entire metropoli-tan area, and that radioactive fallout from athermonuclear war could endanger the sur-vival of civilization.9

In their draft article, the senior Sovietnuclear physicists specifically alluded tothese events, citing the case of the LuckyDragon and the fact that the United Stateshad “already twice informed the world about

the explosion of hydrogen bombs”—indi-cating that their draft was not completeduntil the very end of March. “The worldcommunity is concerned,” the state scien-tists told their political leaders. “Such con-cern is entirely understandable.” As in theWest, atomic scientists were also trying toeducate their publics to this new magnitudeof nuclear danger. Echoing the explanationsgiven by Eisenhower and Strauss to an in-credulous and fearful world, the physicistsstated in their draft article that thermonuclearweapon yields had “already reached manymillions of tons [of TNT] and one suchbomb can destroy all residential buildingsand structures within a radius of 10-15 kilo-meters, i.e., to eliminate all above-groundconstructions in a city with a population ofmany millions....The power of one or twomodern hydrogen bombs...is comparable tothe total quantity of all explosive materialused by both fighting sides in the last war.”10

Kurchatov and his colleagues, havingstrongly put before the Soviet leadership theproblem of nuclear peril, stressed the needfor a “complete ban on the military utiliza-tion of atomic energy.” This viewpoint obvi-ously contradicted the “historic optimism”of Soviet ideology about the ultimate, inevi-table victory of socialism over capitalism. Itwas, in essence, a pacifist position.

A warning of such seriousness couldnot go unnoticed by the Soviet leaders. But,it might be the case that by the time of thepublic speeches of the electoral campaignfor the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in thefirst half of March 1954, this document or itsessence had become known only toMalenkov. (Although Malyshev addresseda draft of the article to Khrushchev on 1April, it is probable that earlier he, orKurchatov himself, had informed Malenkov,at that time the number one figure in theleadership, of its contents.) In any case, inhis electoral address on 12 March 1954—one day after the news broke that the BravoH-bomb test had forced unanticipated evacu-ations—Malenkov, the head of the Councilof Ministers of the USSR, said that warbetween the USSR and the United States,“considering the modern means of warfare,would mean the end of world civilization.”11

This public declaration from the mouthof Stalin’s successor was something com-pletely extraordinary with respect to theproblem of war and peace, particularly sincean electoral speech by Anastas Mykoyan

made the same day restated the familiarthesis that “atomic and hydrogen weapons inthe hands of the Soviet Union are a means fordeterring aggressors and for waging peace,”well within the traditional party frameworkand official propaganda of that time.12

Taken together, Malenkov’s public pro-nouncement and the physicists’ secretly sub-mitted (for later publication) counsel consti-tuted a clear challenge to orthodox Marxist-Leninist ideology, which “scientifically” or-dained socialism’s triumph in any futureconflict, as well as to those who adhered tosuch an outdated concept. And with thepost-Stalin succession struggle at full tilt,Malenkov’s rivals in the ruling troika movedquickly to block the profound policy shiftwhich he and the physicists believed wasrequired by the advent of thermonuclearweapons. Publication of the proposed ar-ticle signed by Kurchatov and his colleagueswas vetoed, presumably by Khrushchev,Molotov, or both. And after the next CCCPSU Plenum in April, at which he receivedsharp criticism from Khrushchev andMolotov, Malenkov was forced publicly torepudiate his heresy by issuing the confident(if hollow) assertion that any atomic aggres-sion by the West would be “crushed by thesame weapons” and lead to the “collapse ofthe capitalist social system.”13

Unfortunately, the protocols of the April1954 Plenum still have not been made acces-sible to scholars, thus precluding a moreprecise analysis of the internal reaction toMalenkov’s speech. But excerpts haveemerged from the 31 January 1955 CC CPSUPlenary Meeting at which Khrushchev andMolotov denounced Malenkov shortly be-fore he was officially demoted.14

Khrushchev called his allusion to the pos-sible thermonuclear destruction of worldcivilization “theoretically mistaken and po-litically harmful.”15 He complained furtherthat the statement encouraged “feelings ofhopelessness about the efforts of the peoplesto frustrate the plans of the aggressors,” andconfused comrades who had presumed itreflected the CC’s official line.16

As David Holloway notes in his recentaccount, Molotov took an even harsher stand.“A communist should not speak about the‘destruction of world civilization’ or aboutthe ‘destruction of the human race,’ butabout the need to prepare and mobilize allforces for the destruction of the bourgoisie,”he was quoted as saying.17


How can it be asserted [Molotovadded] that civilization could perish inan atomic war?...Can we make thepeoples believe that in the event of warall must perish? Then why should webuild socialism, why worry about to-morrow? It would be better to supplyeveryone with coffins now...You seeto what absurdities, to what harmfulthings, mistakes on political issues canlead.18

It remains unclear, at least so far asKhrushchev was concerned, whether thiscriticism was merely a means to discreditMalenkov as a leader or was instead a mani-festation of genuine loyalty to dogmatictenets. It is known, however, thatKhrushchev, who ousted Malenkov in Feb-ruary 1955 from the post of head of state,and then pushed Molotov aside from thehelm of foreign policy, soon revealed thathe shared the same estimate of the danger ofthermonuclear war he had recently con-demned. The East-West summit meeting inGeneva in July 1955, where Khrushchevalready acted as the real leader of the Sovietdelegation, demonstrated this as well.

During the summit, a memorable one-on-one conversation took place, with onlySoviet interpreter Oleg Troyanovskypresent, between Eisenhower and SovietDefense Minister Marshal Georgi Zhukov—two famous military leaders of the SecondWorld War. Each had a clear understandingof the power of nuclear weapons.Eisenhower was first to show how much thegrowth of nuclear armaments worried him,stressing that “now, with the appearance ofatomic and hydrogen weapons, many no-tions that were correct in the past havechanged. War in modern conditions withthe use of atomic and hydrogen weaponbecame even more senseless than ever be-fore.” Zhukov agreed and noted that “hepersonally saw how lethal this weapon is.”(Zhukov, in September 1954, had super-vised a military exercise in the southernUrals at Totskoye, during which a 20-kilo-ton atomic bomb was dropped from a planeand 44,000 soldiers immediately thereafterstaged a mock battle at the test site to simu-late nuclear war under “realistic” condi-tions.19)

Eisenhower continued: “Even scien-tists do not know what would happen if, say,in the course of one month 200 hydrogen

bombs would explode and if the conditionswould favor the spread of atomic dust.” Inhis answer Zhukov stressed that he “person-ally favors the liquidation of atomic andhydrogen weapons” and noted that “if in thefirst days of war the United States woulddrop 300-400 bombs on the USSR,” and theSoviet Union retaliated in kind, “then onecan imagine what would happen to the atmo-sphere.20

One is struck by the realism and respon-sibility of two professional military men whohad become prominent statesmen. Still,Zhukov had undoubtedly spoken withKhrushchev’s advice and consent.

Therefore, one may infer that the physi-cists’ warnings had reached their target. TheGeneva Summit, Khrushchev recalled manyyears later, “convinced us once again, thatthere was no pre-war situation in existence atthat time, and our enemies were afraid of usin the same way as we were of them.”21

No wonder that, already, in the docu-ments adopted by the Twentieth Congress ofthe CPSU in 1956, the thesis of the inevita-bility of a new world war resulting from theaggressive encroachments of imperialism andnew “warmongers” was replaced with thethesis of durable “peaceful coexistence be-tween different social systems.”

In subsequent years, profoundly con-cerned about the threat of thermonuclearwar, Kurchatov did not cease his efforts toenlighten the country’s leadership aboutnuclear danger. “Early in 1957,” AndreiSakharov recalled, “Kurchatov suggested...that I write something about the effects ofradiation from the so-called clean bomb.”22

Sakharov’s investigation enhanced un-derstanding of the extreme danger of atmo-spheric nuclear tests not only to present, butto future generations. He estimated that theoverall number of possible victims from theradiation impact of each megaton of nuclearexplosion might approach 10,000 in thecourse of several thousand years followingthe test. His article ended with a seminalrecommendation: “Halting the tests will di-rectly save the lives of hundreds of thousandsof people, and it also promises even greaterindirect benefits, reducing international ten-sions and the risk of nuclear war, the funda-mental danger of our times.”23

Even before this article’s publication ina scientific journal in July 1958, Sakharov,again at Kurchatov’s suggestion, wrote an-other article on the dangers of atmospheric

testing for a wide audience. It was translatedinto major languages and published, withthe aim of reaching foreign readers, by manySoviet journals distributed abroad. In thiscampaign one again senses Kurchatov’s pur-poseful activity, but, what is especially sig-nificant, even Khrushchev’s personal in-volvement. As Sakharov recalled:“Khrushchev himself authorized the publi-cation of my articles. Kurchatov discussedthe matter twice with him and then referredsome minor suggested editorial changes tome....Khrushchev approved the revised ver-sions at the end of June and they were sentoff immediately to the editors.”24

On 31 March 1958, Khrushchev an-nounced a unilateral moratorium on nucleartesting—a move that may well have beeninfluenced not only by the immediate politi-cal calculus, but also by the considerationsof Soviet atomic physicists. In this contextthe words that Kurchatov spoke at the ses-sion of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on15 January 1960, three weeks before hissudden death—when he professed his “deepfaith and firm knowledge that the Sovietpeople, and government would channel tothe benefit of mankind”25 the achievementsof atomic science—should be understood asan urgent plea to his country’s leaders.

But, as the Soviet missile and nucleararsenal continued to grow and develop, itbegan to figure increasingly prominently,and menacingly, as an element of Sovietpower diplomacy. This happened, for in-stance, at the climax of the Suez crisis inNovember 1956, when Moscow remindedBritish and French leaders of their nations’vulnerability to Soviet rockets if they did notwithdraw their forces from Egyptian terri-tory. Khrushchev and his supporters spokelater with pride about the good results alleg-edly produced by this flexing of nuclearmuscles. Speaking on 24 June 1957 at a CCCPSU Plenum, Mikoyan (at Khrushchev’sprompting) recalled: “We were strongenough to keep troops in Hungary and towarn the imperialists that, if they would notstop the war in Egypt, it might come to theuse of missile armaments from our side. Allacknowledge that with this we decided thefate of Egypt.”26

Khrushchev’s realization that the USSRhad become a mighty nuclear power temptedthe Soviet leader not only to play a some-times tough game, but even to launch dan-gerous, reckless adventures, most egre-


cies, claiming that he was “a bad commu-nist” who “lacks toughness and falls underalien influence.”32

After taking Malenkov down a notch,Khrushchev undermined Molotov. He con-tinued to use the nuclear “topic” to accusehis rival, this time for conservatism anddogmatic “deviation.” The final clash be-tween Khrushchev and Molotov took placeat the June 1957 CC CPSU Plenum. As atarget for his attack, Molotov chose a phraseKhrushchev spoke to The New York Times amonth earlier: “Speaking in more definiteterms about international tension, the cruxof it, in the final analysis, is in the relationsbetween the two countries—the Soviet Unionand the United States of America.” Molotov,admitting that the USSR had become a greatnuclear power, drew from it a conclusionthat fit the party orthodoxy but was quiteopposite to what Khrushchev meant—thatwhile relying on this power, Molotov in-sisted that Moscow “must take special careto broaden every fissure, every dissent andcontradiction in the imperialist camp, toweaken international positions of the UnitedStates of America—the strongest amongimperialist powers.”33

In a rejoinder, Khrushchev’s allyAnastas Mikoyan called Molotov “a dyed-in-the wool conservative” and stressed thatKhrushchev’s declaration “is correct in es-sence and corresponds to the accepted deci-sion of the CC,” since it meant that “thequestion—to be or not to be for a war—in thepresent times depends on the biggest powersof the two camps, possessing the hydrogenbomb.” Continuing his allegation that theanti-Khrushchev (“anti-party”) group repu-diates this crucial fact, Mikoyan said: “Thisis being done in order to subsequently...turnaround our foreign policy, [which is] aimedat the relaxation of international tension.”34

Khrushchev outwitted his competitors.Unlike Malenkov, whose estimate of nucleardanger sounded as a lonely shot in the dark,Khrushchev skillfully and repeatedly ex-ploited the Soviet atomic project’s achieve-ments and the nuclear issue in general in histactical moves during the power struggle.Moreover, he advanced the new strategicconcept of “peaceful coexistence betweenthe capitalist and socialist systems” and guar-anteed its approval by the CPSU 20th PartyCongress. Thereafter, Khrushchev’s bolddeclaration about the two nuclear powerscould be defended as a new party line. Al-

ing the renunciation of “socialism” in theGDR, and a secret rapprochement with Tito’sYugoslavia)—became the basis for his in-dictment and execution in December 1953.The recriminations against Beria as a chiefof the atomic project were as bizarre as theywere effective in the power struggle. Inreality, Beria, being the high commissionerof the Soviet atomic project, was also theFirst Deputy of the Council of Ministers ofthe USSR, a member of the Presidium (Po-litburo) of the CC CPSU, and, after Stalin’sdeath, one of the ruling troika. This pro-vided him with more than sufficient author-ity in the framework of the atomic project.Moreover, according to many Soviet atomicveterans, the “die-hard bureaucrat” Beriahad quickly given an appropriate impetusand scope to all works on the project, and if,instead, Molotov had remained in charge,the chances for rapid accomplishment of theproject’s monumental tasks would have beenslim.30 Finally, Malenkov and Zavenyagin’saccusation about the decision to test is sim-ply absurd, for a month and a half still had topass after Beria’s arrest until the explosionof the first Soviet hydrogen device. Not toBeria but to his accusers fell the decision toissue the actual authorization for the testing.

After Beria’s arrest, the atomic com-plex became a darling of “the party and thegovernment” (as an official formula put it),guarded and controlled by the Defense De-partment of the CC CPSU, as well as by themilitary-industrial commission of the USSRCouncil of Ministers. But this did not stopGorbachev in the days of Chernobyl, 30years after the Beria accusations, from per-forming a traditional party somersault andmaking strange accusations at a Politburosession: “All is kept secret from the CC. Itsofficials could not dare to put their nose intothis field. Even the questions of location of[nuclear power plants] were not decided bythe government.”31

New priorities, dictated by nuclearweapons, also played an exceptional role inKhrushchev’s ascendancy and his struggleagainst the Old Guard. The March 1954episode has already been mentioned, whenKhrushchev subjected Malenkov, the headof the state, to sharp criticism for his thesisabout “the end of civilization” in the event ofthermonuclear war. By taking Molotov’sside in this debate, Khrushchev was ablelater, with his support, to remove Malenkovfrom the sphere of foreign and defense poli-

giously with regard to the Berlin and CubanMissile Crises, which brought the world tothe edge of the thermonuclear precipice.

By then, Khrushchev had alreadylearned that the atomic bomb could also be apotent force in internal, domestic struggles.Beria’s arrest on 26 June 1953, and thespecial CC CPSU Plenum dedicated to the“Beria affair” a week later, demonstratedthat the Soviet nuclear capability had ac-quired unexpected weight in the eyes of theleadership of the country as a new, addi-tional lever in political skirmishes and thestruggle for power.

In the course of “unmasking” Beria atthe July 1953 Plenum, the leadership troikaof Malenkov, Khrushchev, and Molotov ar-ranged that among the accusers would be theadministrators of the Soviet atomic project,Beria’s recent subordinates: the Minister ofMedium Machine Building Malyshev andhis deputy Zavenyagin. Taking his politicalcue from the troika, Malyshev, in his speechat the Plenum, pointed to the following sinsof Beria: “he put his signature on a wholenumber of important decisions without in-forming the CC and the government, forinstance, on the working plan of 1953 for avery important research and developmentbureau working on the design of atomicbombs....He hid them from the government,signed them single-handedly, taking advan-tage of his position of the chairman of theSpecial committee.”27

Zavenyagin seconded his chief, addingthat “the decision to test the hydrogen bombhad not been reported to the government,had not been reported to the Central Com-mittee, and was taken by Beria single-handedly.” Zavenyagin even took a slap athis former boss’s role in the atomic project:“Beria had a reputation of organizer, but inreality he was a die-hard bureaucrat.... Deci-sion-taking dragged on for weeks andmonths.”28 Malenkov set the tone and sum-marized the accusations in a crisp formula ofpolitical verdict. In his words, Beria had“positioned himself apart and began to act,ignoring the CC and the government in thecrucial issues of the competence of the CC.For instance, without informing the CC andthe government, he took a decision to orga-nize the explosion of the hydrogen bomb.”29

The proposition that Beria “positionedhimself above the party” and was ready tocrush it—aside from other purported “trea-sonous schemes” attributed to him (includ-


1. Thomas B. Cochran, William M. Arkin, Robert S.Norris, and Jeffrey J. Sands, Soviet Nuclear Weapons,1989 (Russian edition) (Moscow: Atomizdat, 1992), 8.2. Stalin’s role in launching the Soviet nuclear programis well described and amply documented in DavidHolloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union andAtomic Energy, 1939-1956 (New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press, 1994). The deliverability of the ther-monuclear weapon tested in August 1953 is noted inHolloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 307. The United Statesfirst tested the thermonuclear concepts employed in itshydrogen bombs by detonating a non-deliverable de-vice on the island of Eniwetok in the South Pacific on 1November 1952; and first tested a deliverable hydrogenbomb in March 1954.3. See transcript of the 3 July 1953 CC CPSU Plenumin Izvestia TsK KPSS [News of the CC CPSU] 2 (1991),166-170; for an English translation of the July 1953 CCCPSU Plenum transcripts, see D.M. Stickle, ed., JeanFarrow, trans., The Beria Affair (Commack, NY: NovaSciences Publishers, Inc., 1993), quotation on p. 130.4. “The last ‘anti-party’ group. A stenographic report ofthe June 1957 Plenary Meeting of the CC CPSU,”Istoricheskii arkhiv [Historical Archive] 4 (1993), 4.5. Malyshev specifically suggested that the article couldbe signed by Academicians A.N. Nesmeianov, A.F.Ioffe, D.V. Skobel’tsin, and A.I. Oparin.6. Memorandum of V. Malyshev to N. Khrushchev, 1April 1954, enclosing Kurchatov, et al., n.d. but appar-ently late March 1954, “The Danger of Atomic War andPresident Eisenhower’s Proposal” [“Opasnosti atomnoivoiny i predlozhenie prezidenta Eizenkhauera”], Centerfor Storage of Contemporary Documentation (TsKhSD),fond 5, opis 30, delo 126, listy [pp.] 38ff.7. Ibid., pp. 39, 40, 41.8. Ibid., pp. 42-44. The physicists’ arguments againstthe “Atoms for Peace” plan were incorporated into theformal Soviet rejection of the proposal conveyed byForeign Minister Molotov to Secretary of State JohnFoster Dulles later that spring. See Holloway, Stalinand the Bomb, chap. 16.9. [Ed. note: This account of the 1954 tests draws onJonathan M. Weisgall, Operation Crossroads: TheAtomic Tests at Bikini Atoll (Annapolis, MD: NavalInstitute Press, 1994), 302-307; Herbert F. York, TheAdvisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 85-86;Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peaceand War, 1953-1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic En-ergy Commission (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1989), 168-82, and Stephen E. Ambrose,Eisenhower, Vol. 2, The President (New York: Simon& Schuster, 1984, 1985), 168-73.]10. Kurchatov et al., “The Danger of Atomic War...,” p.39.11. Speech of Comrade G.M. Malenkov, Pravda, 13March 1954.12. Speech of Comrade A.I. Mikoyan, Kommunist(Yerevan), 12 March 1954.13. Izvestia, 27 April 1954.14. See Andrei Malenkov, O moiem otse GeorgiiMalenkov [About my father, Georgi Malenkov] (Mos-cow: NTS Teknoekos, 1992), 115-17; Iu. V. Aksiutinand O.V. Volobuev, XX s’’ezd KPSS: novatsii i dogmy(Moscow: Politizdat, 1991), 60-61; L.A. Openkin, “Naistoricheskom pereput’e,” Voprosy istorii KPSS 1 (1990),116; and Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 338-39.15. Aksiutin and Volobuev, XX s’’ezd KPSS, 60.16. Malenkov, O moiem otse Georgii Malenkov, 115.17. Openkin, “Na istoricheskom pereput’e,” 116.18. Aksiutin and Volobuev, XX s’’ezd KPSS, 61.

19. [Ed. note: Footage of this test, once highly-classi-fied, has appeared in several documentaries in recentyears, most recently “The Red Bomb,” broadcast on theDiscovery Channel in Sept. 1994. For memories of the1954 test, including Zhukov’s attendance, see FredHiatt, “Survivors Tell of ’54 Soviet A-Blast,” Washing-ton Post, 15 September 1994, A30. See also Holloway,Stalin and the Bomb, 325-28.]20. Zapis besedy (Memorandum), meeting betweenG.K. Zhukov and President D. Eisenhower, 20 July1955, TsKhSD, fond 5, opis 30, delo 116, ll. 122-23; forthe U.S. record of this conversation, see FRUS, 1955-1957, V (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of-fice, 1988), 408-418. The latter source quotes Zhukovas saying he was “unqualifiedly for total abolition ofweapons of this character,” apparently referring tohydrogen bombs.21. “Memuari Nikiti Sergeevicha Kruscheva” [Mem-oirs of Nikita Khrushchev], Voprosi istorii 8-9 (1992),76.22. Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs (New York: Knopf,1990), 200.23. Ibid., 202-203.24. Ibid., 204.25. I.N. Golovin, Kurchatov (Moscow: Atomizdat,1967), 21.26. Istoricheskii arkhiv 4 (1993), 36.27. Transcript of 3 July 1953 CC CPSU Plenum, inIzvestia TsK KPSS 1 (1992), 204-206; also The BeriaAffair, 84.28. Transcript of 3 July 1953 CC CPSU Plenum,Izvestia TsK KPSS 2 (1991), 166-170; also The BeriaAffair, 130-33.29. Transcript of 2 July 1953 CC CPSU Plenum,Izvestia TsK KPSS 1 (1991) 144; also The Beria Affair,7-8.30. Yuli Khariton and Yuri Smirnov, “The Kharitonversion,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 49:5 (May1993), 26-27.31. A.S. Cherniaev, Shest let s Gorbachevim [Six Yearswith Gorbachev] (Moscow: Progress-Kultura, 1993),87.32. “Memuari Nikiti Sergeevicha Khruscheva,” Voprosiistorii 8-9 (1992), 70.33. Istoricheskii arkhiv 4 (1993), 5.34. Istoricheskii arkhiv 4 (1993), 36, 37.

Yuri N. Smirnov is a Leading Researcher at the RussianResearch Center Kurchatov Institute. Vladislav M.Zubok is a Russian historian of the Cold War, currentlyat the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C.This article is drawn from a paper originally presentedto the Norwegian Nobel Institute on 10 March 1994.

though this declaration implied acceptingMalenkov’s thesis, Khrushchev enjoyed apolitical net gain, since he emphasized notso much the threat of thermonuclear war asthe equal responsibility of the USSR andUnited States for the fate of the world.

The first 10-15 years of the nuclear erawrought fundamental change in the posi-tions of the Soviet leadership on the issue ofwar and peace. The atomic bomb’s appear-ance led Stalin immediately to comprehendthat it was a fact of supreme importance forthe world and forced him, in a country devas-tated by the Second World War, to mobilizeall available resources to create an atomicbomb of his own. Soon after Stalin’s death—and practically at the same moment as theAmerican leadership—Soviet statesmen re-alized that the utilization of nuclear weaponsthreatened mankind with total annihilation.

However, the understanding of the dan-gers facing humanity in the nuclear epochdid not lessen but rather exacerbated theconfrontation between the two leading pow-ers. The race for nuclear-missile power andfear of lagging behind the competitor out-weighed common sense. Only the ultimateshowdown on the brink during the CubanMissile Crisis of 1962 led to the sobering ofboth sides.

It was in the 1950s and early 1960s thatthe global view of war and peace held bystatesmen in the two countries irrevocablychanged. On the Soviet side the policyreorientation shifted away from the prepara-tions for an inevitable new world war to-wards the construction of enduring peacefulrelations with the United States and its allies.The new sources suggest that a critical rolein the enlightenment of the Soviet leadersduring that crucial period belonged to thedesigners of nuclear weapons themselves,primarily to Igor Kurchatov.

The subsequent two decades of thenuclear arms race, Soviet-American armscontrol negotiations, and, ultimately, “newthinking,” added relatively little to what hadbeen understood in principle by the politi-cians of the 1950s. Despite the huge expen-ditures on new weapons systems, the end-less speculations and maneuverings of po-litical alliances, and major geopoliticalchanges, the basic priorities which had beendictated to mankind by the advent of thenuclear era remained the same—and theywill remain a guideline into our future.

CORRECTIONS

The Bulletin regrets that several printing errors slipped intoMark Kramer’s article, “Archival Research in Moscow:Progress and Pitfalls,” in the Fall 1993 Bulletin.. On p. 22,col. 1, l. 20, the words “represent” and “showing” wereomitted from: “For the most part these documents, espe-cially those in Fond No. 5, represent key ‘inputs’ into thedecision-making process, rather than showing how deci-sions were actually made at the top levels.” On p. 23, col.2, lines 5-7 from bottom should have read, “...figure outhow to expedite and pay for the physical transfer....” P. 25,col. 1, l. 31 should have read, “...accused Pikhoia of havingbetrayed the national heritage.” On p. 31, col. 2, l. 9 frombottom should have read “to investigate the matter fur-ther....” In addition, Mark Kramer’s article, “TacticalNuclear Weapons, Soviet Command Authority, and theCuban Missile Crisis” (p. 43, col. 1, l. 7-8), incorrectly gavethe date of a Soviet General Staff document as June ratherthan September 1962.


50-MEGATON BLASTcontinued from page 3

that the bomb design had worked.Meanwhile, both aircraft and documen-

tary crews observing the test were subjectedto a most graphic experience. As one cam-eraman recalled: “The clouds beneath theaircraft and in the distance were lit up by thepowerful flash. The sea of light spread underthe hatch and even clouds began to glow andbecame transparent. At that moment, ouraircraft emerged from between two cloudlayers and down below in the gap a hugebright orange ball was emerging. The ballwas powerful and arrogant like Jupiter.Slowly and silently it crept upwards.... Hav-ing broken through the thick layer of cloudsit kept growing. It seemed to suck the wholeearth into it. The spectacle was fantastic,unreal, supernatural.”3 Another cameramansaw “a powerful white flash over the horizonand after a long period of time he heard aremote, indistinct and heavy blow, as if theearth has been killed!”4

Some time after the explosion, photo-graphs were taken of ground zero. “Theground surface of the island has been lev-elled, swept and licked so that it looks like askating rink,” a witness reported. “The samegoes for rocks. The snow has melted andtheir sides and edges are shiny. There is nota trace of unevenness in the ground.... Ev-erything in this area has been swept clean,scoured, melted and blown away.”5

A twenty-minute film about the devel-opment and test of the 50-MT bomb waslater shown to the Soviet leadership. Thefilm concluded with the following remark:“Based on preliminary data alone, it is evi-dent that the explosion has set a record interms of power.” In fact, its power was 10times the total power of all explosives usedduring World War II, including the atomicbombs dropped on Japanese cities by theUnited States. It’s hard to believe that amore powerful explosion will ever take place.

The test stunned the world community,and became the subject of numerous discus-sions, legends, and myths which continue tothis day. The Russian newspaper Izvestiareported in 1990, for example, that this su-per-powerful hydrogen bomb represented“a qualitative leap which wiped out theAmerican advantage in total number of tests,”and that Khrushchev agreed to sign theMoscow Limited Test Ban Treaty two yearslater “with a 60 megatonner in the arsenal.”6

The 1992 television documentary, “The Storyof an Invisible Town,” also promoted theincorrect theory that “only after this explo-sion did the parties make concessions andsign the treaty.”

As a result of excessive secrecy andlimited access to information, even some ofthe directors of the test formed incorrectimpressions. For example, the director ofthe test site on Novaya Zemlya, GavriilKudryavtsev, mentioned that in our country“60-megaton and even 100-megaton (fortu-nately never tested) superbombs have ap-peared.” His explanation of their “appear-ance” is bizarre: “I think that the ‘secret’ israther simple. In those days, the strikeaccuracy of our missiles was insufficient.The only way to compensate for this was toincrease the power of the warhead.”7

A completely fantastic idea about the50-MT bomb appeared in 1992 in Pravda:“[this bomb] represents the yesterday ofatomic weaponry. Even more powerful war-heads have been developed by now.”8

In fact, the 50-MT bomb tested on 30October 1961 was never a weapon. This wasa one-of-a-kind device, whose design al-lowed it to achieve a yield of up to 100megatons when fully loaded with nuclearfuel. Thus, the test of the 50-MT bomb wasin effect the test of the design for a 100-MTweapon. If a blast of such horrific magni-tude had been conducted, it would havegenerated a gigantic, fiery tornado, engulf-ing an area larger than Vladimirskaya Oblastin Russia or the state of Maryland in theUSA.

The explosion of the 50-MT bomb didnot lead, as some suppose, to the immediateconclusion of the Limited Test Ban Treaty.Negotiations to conclude the treaty contin-ued for another two years. However, onemay speculate that the explosion indirectlycontributed to the talks’ success.

The 50-MT bomb never had any mili-tary significance. It was a one-time demon-stration of force, part of the superpowergame of mutual intimidation. This was themain goal of the unprecedented test. Super-weapons are rejected by contemporary mili-tary doctrine, and the proposition that “nowwe have even more powerful warheads” issimply ridiculous.

What was the political situation? Therelations between Moscow and Washingtonat the time of Khrushchev’s visit to theUnited States in September 1959 had been

ameliorating, but the following May theespionage flight of Frances Gary Powersover the Soviet Union aggravated them seri-ously. The U-2 reconnaissance aircraft wasshot down by Soviet anti-aircraft batteriesnear Sverdlovsk on 1 May 1960. In theaftermath, the summit conference of Soviet,U.S., British, and French state leaders inParis was aborted, and the return visit to theUSSR of U.S. president Dwight Eisenhowerwas cancelled. Cuba, where Castro came topower, became the object of passions, andthe failure of the U.S.-sponsored invasion byanti-Castro Cuban emigres at the Bay ofPigs in April 1961 was a great shock for theKennedy Administration.

But the main arena of opposition be-tween the USA and Soviet Union was Eu-rope. The serious, seemingly insoluble ques-tion of a peaceful German settlement onceagain rose to the fore, with the status of WestBerlin the focus of attention. The exhaust-ing talks on arms reduction, accompanied bystrict demands from the Western Powers toinspect the territories of participating par-ties, were unsuccessful. The Geneva nego-tiations on a nuclear test ban looked moreand more gloomy although the nuclear pow-ers (except France) were adhering to a vol-untary test moratorium in the context ofthose talks. Meanwhile, hostile propagandaand recriminations between the USSR andthe USA became the norm. Finally, the mainevent of that period which aroused a storm ofprotests in the West was the erection of theBerlin Wall on 13 August 1961.

In the meantime the Soviet Union soughtself-reliance. It was the first to test anintercontinental ballistic missile and launchsatellites into orbit, and the first to send aman into outer space. Having acquired im-mense prestige, among the Third World coun-tries in particular, the USSR did not yield tothe Western pressure and started active op-erations on its own.

Therefore, when by the end of the sum-mer of 1961 international tensions grewunusually high, the course of events took onthe peculiar logic of superpower politics.For a month and a half prior to the announce-ment by the Soviet government, we, thedevelopers of nuclear weapons, began pre-paring to test new prototypes. We knew thatthe culmination of the series of tests plannedin the USSR would be the explosion of the50-MT device, which was designed to pro-duce explosions of up to 100 megatons. In


the middle of July 1961, we began thedevelopment of this device. Some timethereafter, its actual construction and as-sembly began. Andrei Sakharov called theplanned test “the crux of the program.”

The Soviet government made no secretof the planned superblast. On the contrary,it gave the world ample warning about theupcoming event and, in an unprecedentedstep, made public the power of the bombunder development. This leak correspondedto the goals of the political power game.

By October 24, the final report, includ-ing the proposed design of the bomb and thetheoretical and design calculations, was com-plete. The specifications in the report weresent to design engineers and bomb assem-blers. The report was co-authored by AndreiSakharov, Victor Adamsky, Yuri Babaev,Yuri Smirnov, and Yuri Trutnev. While thecontents of the report are not publicly avail-able, I can say that the report’s conclusioncontained the following statement: “A suc-cessful result from the test of this deviceopens the possibility of creating a device ofpractically unlimited power.”

At the same time, a bomber was pre-pared for the test, and a special parachutesystem for the bomb developed. The para-chute system to permit the slow descent ofthe bomb, which weighed more than 20tons, was unique. However, even if thisparachute system had failed during the test,the bomber’s crew would not have beenendangered, as the bomb contained a spe-cial mechanism which triggered its detona-tion only after the plane had reached a safedistance.

The Tu-95 strategic bomber which wasto carry the bomb to its target underwentunusual modification. The bomb, aroundeight meters long and two meters wide, wastoo large to fit in the plane’s bomb bay;therefore, a non-essential part of the fuse-lage was cut away, and a special liftingmechanism attached, as was a device forfastening the bomb. The bomb was so hugethat over half of it protruded from the planeduring the flight. The plane’s whole fuse-lage, and even its propeller blades, werecovered with special white paint for protec-tion from the explosion’s intense flash. Aseparate airborne laboratory plane was alsocovered with the same paint.

In Arzamas-16, the secret nuclear weap-ons laboratory in the Urals, the bomb wasassembled in a factory-shop on a special

railroad flatcar, which after completion wascamouflaged as a regular freight-train car. Itwas necessary to build a railroad line rightinto the assembly-shop.

From time to time, we would naturallyhave doubts: would the device deceive us,would it fail at the moment of testing? Allud-ing to this, Sakharov said: “If we don’t makethis thing, we’ll be sent to railroad construc-tion.” At another moment, in the last phaseof the job, when foreign protests eruptedover Khrushchev’s announcement of theforthcoming superpowerful blast, Sakharovcalmly observed that while the explosionmight lead to the smashing of some windowsin our embassies in two or three Westerncountries, nothing more would come of it.

Khrushchev defined his position in thisway:

I want to say that our tests of newnuclear weapons are also coming alongvery well. We shall shortly completethese tests—presumably at the end ofOctober. We shall probably wind themup by detonating a hydrogen bomb witha yield of 50,000,000 tons of TNT. Wehave said that we have a 100-megatonbomb. This is true. But we are notgoing to explode it, because even if wedid so at the most remote site, we mightknock out all our windows. We aretherefore going to hold off for the timebeing and not set the bomb off. How-ever, in exploding the 50-megaton bombwe are testing the device for triggeringa 100-megaton bomb. But may Godgrant, as they used to say, that we arenever called upon to explode thesebombs over anybody’s territory. Thisis the greatest wish of our lives!9

. . .In strengthening the defense of the

Soviet Union we are acting not only inour own interests but in the interests ofall peaceloving peoples, of all man-kind. When the enemies of peacethreaten us with force they must be andwill be countered with force, and moreimpressive force, too. Anyone who isstill unable to understand this todaywill certainly understand it tomorrow.10

Once, during a discussion with Sakharov,a pointed question was heard: “Why do weneed to make ‘cannibalistic’ weapons likethis?!” Sakharov smiled and said: “Nikita

Khrushchev said: ‘Let this device hang overthe heads of the capitalists, like a sword ofDamocles.’”11

The test of the 50-MT bomb was awatershed in the development of nuclearweapons. This test demonstrated the globalnature of the effects of a powerful nuclearexplosion on the Earth’s atmosphere. Thetest of the bomb’s design confirmed thepossibility of making a device of any power,however large.

For Sakharov, his involvement in thedevelopment of the 1961 superbomb markeda turning point in his years of work in ther-monuclear weapons. This was the last de-vice on which he worked intensely, seri-ously, and without hesitation.12 He acceptedthe proposal to make and test this awe-somely powerful bomb, motivated by a de-sire to demonstrate the absolute destructive-ness and inhumanity of this weapon of massannihilation, to impress on mankind andpoliticians the fact that, in the event of atragic showdown, there would be no win-ners. No matter how sophisticated an oppo-nent, the other side would find a simple, butcrippling, response.

The device at the same time demon-strated the technological potentials avail-able to humanity. Not without reason didSakharov search for a worthy application forit. He suggested using superpowerful explo-sions to prevent catastrophic earthquakesand to create particle accelerators of unprec-edented energy to probe the secrets of mat-ter. He also advanced a plan to use similarexplosions to deflect the course of heavenlybodies near earth, such as comets or aster-oids, in the interests of mankind. But also, atthat time, he was still preoccupied with thesearch for possible military applications ofnuclear energy.

Ninety-seven percent of the power ofthe 50-MT bomb derived from thermonuclearfusion; that is to say, the bomb was remark-ably “clean” and released a minimum offission by-products which would elevatebackground radiation in the atmosphere.Thanks to this, our U.S. colleagues under-stood13 that our scientists also desired toreduce to a minimum the radioactive after-effects of nuclear testing, as well as to lessenthe effect of radiation on present and futuregenerations.

The fact that the 30 October 1961 ex-plosion and its expected yield were an-nounced in advance by political leaders


placed a special burden on the bomb’s de-signers, for a failure or serious shortfall inyield would have undermined the authorityof our researchers. The enormous yield ofthe test (the most powerful of all tests con-ducted either by us or the USA) should haveprovoked and in fact did provoke fearthroughout the world, in the sense that nuclearweapons were seen to threaten humanity’sfuture. It also led to the realization that suchweapons should be placed under interna-tional control, the framework for which hasyet to be found but must be sought out andimplemented. A series of agreements limit-ing the testing and spread of nuclear weap-ons was gradually concluded. The worldcommunity and the superpowers’ govern-ments came to see the necessity for suchagreements as a result of evaluating theresults of many nuclear tests, among themthe test of 30 October 1961.

1. Trud, 23 May 1991.2. XXII siezd Kommunisticheskoi partii SovetskogoSoiuza: Stenographicheskii otchet [22nd Congress ofthe Communist Party of the Soviet Union], tom [Vol.]3 (Moscow: Gospolitizat, 1962), 122.3. V.A. Suvorov, Strana limoniia [Land of Lemons](Moscow: Sovetskaia Rossiia, 1989), 117-27.4. Ibid.5. Ibid.6. Izvestiya, 13 October 1990.7. Trud, 23 May 1991.8. Pravda, 20 October 1992.9. XXII seized Kommunisticheskoi..., tom. 1 (Moscow,Gospolitizdat, 1992), 55.10. XXII seized Kommunisticheskoi..., tom. 2 (Mos-cow, Gospolitizdat, 1992), 571-73.11. Quoted in P.N. Lebedev Institute, Andrei Sakharov:Facets of a Life (Gif-Sur-Yvette: Editions Frontieres,1991), 603.12. [Ed. note: But also see the account given bySakharov in his memoirs, in which the scientist statedthat he sent a note to Khrushchev on 10 July 1961opposing his decision to resume nuclear tests, suggest-ing that they would “seriously jeopardize the test bannegotiations, the cause of disarmament, and worldpeace,” and that he worked on the test of the “BigBomb” only after Khrushchev firmly rejected his ap-peal and chided him for meddling in politics and “pok-ing his nose where it doesn’t belong.” Once the deci-sion was made, however, Sakharov also says he was“going all out” to achieve the maximum from the fall1961 test series. See Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs (NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 215-25.]13. Ralph Lapp, Kill and Overkill (London: Weidenfeldand Nicolson, 1992), 36-37.

Physicist Viktor Adamsky worked on the Soviet nuclearweapons program in Sakharov’s group at Arzamas-16,the long-secret nuclear laboratory. Physicist YuriSmirnov is a Leading Researcher at the Russian Scien-tific Center “Kurchatov Institute” in Moscow. Bothworked on the 50-megaton test.

Letters: Stalin, Kim, and Korean War Origins

10 December 1993

To the Editor:

Ms. Kathryn Weathersby’s otherwise informative article in your Fall 1993 issue (“New Findingson the Korean War,” CWIHP Bulletin 3 (Fall 1993), 1, 14-18) shows how the study of hitherto secretSoviet archives can lead to erroneous conclusions if unaccompanied by an understanding of thegeneral context of Communist policies in the given case. She argues that the initiative for the invasionof South Korea in 1950 came from the North Korean regime, rather than from Stalin, her “proof” thatKim Il Sung had on many occasions begged Stalin to be allowed to “reunite” the peninsula, beforeactually being allowed to try to do so. But what does that prove? Using analogous reasoning, one couldargue that it was South Korea that initiated the war because Syngman Rhee had begged Washingtonto help it to do the same thing vis-a-vis the North.

The document—an internal Soviet memorandum—proves the opposite of Ms. Weathersby’sthesis. It states, “Stalin at first treated the persistent appeals of Kim Il Sung with reserve, noting that‘such a large affair in relation to South Korea needs much preparation,’ but did not object inprinciple...At Stalin’s order, all requests of North Korea for delivery of arms and equipment for theadditional units of the KPA were quickly met... But the end of May, 1950, the General Staff of the KPA,together with Soviet military advisers, announced the readiness of the Korean army to beginconcentration at the 38th parallel.”* The idea to invade was clearly Stalin’s but, reasonably enough,he waited to permit and help in the venture only at what he thought was the right moment. The notionthat in 1950 Kim, or any other Communist leader, was in a position to pressure—compel or shame—the Soviets into doing something they had not planned in the first place, or that the North Koreans couldhave invaded without Soviet permission/command, cannot be seriously entertained.

The date of the document being 1966—the height of the Sino-Soviet dispute—makes ratherdebatable its assertion that Kim also obtained Mao’s agreement for the invasion. Even in an internalSoviet document there would have been a strong inclination to dilute Soviet responsibility for theinvasion.

In an athletic event, a race is not is not initiated by the runners crouching down. The race isinitiated by the starter shouting “go.” That is what Stalin did.

Yours sincerely,

Adam B. Ulam___________________* My italics.

Adam Ulam is professor emeritus and former director of the Russian Research Center at HarvardUniversity, and the author of numerous books on Soviet foreign policy.

K. Weathersby responds (4 November 1994):

Since the publication of the Fall 1993 Bulletin, additional documents have been released thatfurther clarify the question of Stalin’s role in the outbreak of the Korean War. I have presentedtranslations and analyses of these documents in The Journal of American-East Asian Relations. Tosummarize them briefly, they reveal that in January 1950 Kim Il Sung once more appealed to Stalinto grant him permission to launch a military campaing to reunify the Korean peninsula by force ofarms. On 30 January 1950, Stalin indicated that he was “ready to approve” Kim’s request, and in thefollowing months provided the necessary arms and expertise. The Soviet role was therefore essential,but it was as facilitator rather than initiator. This distinction does not negate Soviet responsibility forthe bloodshed that followed, but it is critical for understanding the origins of the Korean War.

In May 1950 Stalin informed Mao Zedong that “owing to the changed international situation, the[the Soviets] agree with the Koreans’ proposal to proceed toward reunification.” However, he added,“the question must be decided finally by the Chinese and Korean comrades together, and in case ofa disagreement by the Chinese comrades, the resolution of the question must be put off until there isa new discussion.” Unfortunately, the Soviet documents released thus far do not clarify what Stalinmeant by “changed international situation.” This is the key question, since we must understand whyhe approved military action in Korea before we can understand the larger picture of Stalin’s approachto the Cold War. I hope to describe in future issues of the Bulletin additional Soviet documents thathave recently become available, including records on the Korean War that President Yeltsin haspresented to the government of South Korea.

RESPONSE


“The crisis years” of 1960-1962 areremembered as a peak of the Cold War, anapogee of the bipolar confrontation. Manyconsider them even more dangerous than theKorean War, when the military forces ofWest and East clashed and almost slippedinto a global conflict. The early 1960s wereall the more frightening since the two super-powers, the United States and the SovietUnion, were engaged in a fierce nucleararms race, and two more states, Great Britainand France, had developed small nucleararsenals of their own. By the end of theperiod the edge in this race clearly belongedto the United States such that, at the height ofthe Cuban Missile Crisis, Washington had atleast nine times as many deliverable nuclearwarheads as Moscow.1 After the summer of1961 the Kennedy administration was per-fectly aware of that fact, but, nevertheless,sweeping Soviet progress in ICBMs sooneliminated the impregnability of “fortressAmerica” forever.

The loss of strategic invulnerabilityweighed as heavily on the American psycheas had the loss of the atomic monopoly (andChina) in 1949. And, as before, this agitatedstate of mind offered fertile ground for spy-hysteria. This time, however, it did not reachthe proportions of McCarthyism, but re-mained localized in government officeswhere cold warriors, especially true believ-ers among them, began to talk again about a“master plan” of the Kremlin and the KGB

to delude and disrupt the Western alliance inpreparation for a decisive showdown be-tween the two Cold War blocs. Some ofthem, most prominently James J. Angleton,head of the CIA’s counterintelligence de-partment, tenaciously denied the reality ofthe Sino-Soviet split as a “hoax” designed tolull the West into complacency. Angleton,along with a Soviet defector, KGB majorAnatoly Golitsyn, also believed that therewas a KGB mole inside the CIA’s SovietDivision, and that Soviet intelligence wasassiduously planting its illegals and agents,primarily displaced persons from EasternEurope and Russia, in various high-placedpositions in the West. They even claimedthat former British Labour party leader HughGaitskell had probably been murdered bythe KGB, that his successor, Harold Wilson,was probably a KGB asset, and that thefamous double agent Oleg Penkovsky, aGRU (Soviet military intelligence) colonel,was also a Soviet plant.2

The seemingly wild surmises of anAmerican counterintelligence officer be-come more understandable as we learn moreabout the strange “behind the mirror” worldof spying, double-agents, and deliberatedisinformation in which huge and well-funded rival intelligence services clashedwith no holds barred. Intelligence at anytime is a necessary and valuable instrumentof a state’s foreign policy. But in the yearsof Cold War tension the intelligence ser-

vices were more than just “eyes,” they werepowerful weapons in propaganda warfarebetween the ideological blocs. Furthermore,in a situation of mutual fear produced by thenuclear deadlock, when mammoth armiesconfronted each other in Europe and aroundthe world, intelligence networks were theonly mobile force in action, the “light infan-try” of the Cold War: conducting reconnais-sance, but also trying to influence the situa-tion in the enemy’s rear by means some-times just short of military ones.

The plans and instructions related tooperational work and intelligence sources,in particular involving planting agents abroadand using double-agents, justifiably belongto the most zealously guarded secrets ofintelligence bureaucracies. But recently,thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union,historians have acquired a rare chance topeek into the mysteries of one of the twointelligence giants of the Cold War—docu-ments of the Committee on State Security(KGB). These are not papers of the FirstMain Directorate (PGU), which was respon-sible for foreign intelligence and which con-tinues under the new regime in Russia and,of course, preserves its secrecy (althoughsome of its former officers, Oleg Kalugin,Leonid Shebarshin, and Vadim Kirpichenkoamong them, have recently written mem-oirs3). The documents in question were sentby the KGB to the Secretariat and the Polit-buro of the Central Committee of the Com-

SPY VS. SPY: THE KGB VS. THE CIA, 1960-1962by Vladislav M. Zubok

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munist Party of the Soviet Union (CCCPSU), whose archives, unlike those of theKGB, have in part at least become acces-sible to scholars and the public.4

For all their fascination, the internalKGB documents cited in this article shouldalso be treated with a good deal of caution.They contain references to events, plans,individuals, and explicit or implicit rela-tionships that are uncorroborated and shouldbe carefully investigated and cross-checkedwith other evidence before their accuracyand significance can be confidently gauged.Many of the assertions contained in thedocuments will require, in particular, colla-tion with relevant materials in the archivesof other governments and intelligence agen-cies, especially the CIA, and analysis byspecialists in the history of intelligence.Many names in the documents are translit-erated from the Russian after being translit-erated from other languages, and the spell-ing may not be accurate. Moreover, inassessing reports by KGB leaders toKhrushchev, readers should recall the ten-dency of bureaucrats in any government toexaggerate capabilities or accomplishmentsto a superior, a provoclivity that may beaccentuated when, as in this period, there isintense pressure to produce results. Finally,in addition to remembering the lack of sys-tematic access to KGB and CIA archives,those who evaluate the documents that dobecome available must keep in mind thatevidence on crucial matters may have beendeliberately destroyed, distorted, fabricated,or simply never committed to paper. All ofthese caveats should simply serve as re-minders that however revealing these mate-rials are, much additional research will beneeded before a balanced and informedevaluation of the role of intelligence agen-cies and activities in the Cold War, on allsides, can be attained.

The KGB reports to Khrushchev

On 14 February 1961, Nikita S. Khrush-chev received an annual report of the KGBmarked “Top Secret—Highly Sensitive.”5

Only Khrushchev could decide who amongthe top Soviet leadership might see the re-port, in which the Collegium of the KGBinformed him as the First Secretary of theCC CPSU and as a Chairman of the Councilof Ministers of the USSR about the achieve-ments of Soviet foreign intelligence during

1960.In this period, Khrushchev was told,

375 foreign agents were recruited, and 32officers of the State Security were trans-ferred abroad and legalized. The stationsabroad obtained, among others, position andbackground papers prepared by Westerngovernments for the summit conference inParis in May 1960, including materials onthe German and Berlin questions, disarma-ment, and other issues. They also providedthe Soviet leadership with “documentaryevidence about military-political planningof some Western powers and the NATOalliance as whole; [...] on the plan of deploy-ment of armed forces of these countriesthrough 1960-63; evidence on preparationby the USA of an economic blockade of andmilitary intervention against Cuba”—the lasta possible allusion to preparations for theforthcoming April 1961 CIA-supported in-vasion by anti-Castro Cuban exiles at theBay of Pigs.6

The sheer numbers conveyed the vastextent of information with which the KGBflooded the tiny group of Soviet leaders.During one year alone it prepared and pre-sented 4,144 reports and 68 weekly andmonthly informational bulletins to the Party’sCentral Committee and the USSR Councilof Ministers; 4,370 documentary materialswere sent to Foreign Minister AndreiGromyko; 3,470 materials to Defense Min-ister Rodion Malinovsky and the Head of theGeneral Staff Alexander Vassilevsky; and790 materials to other ministries and agen-cies.7

Soviet foreign intelligence appeared tohave been particularly successful in “sigint”(signals intelligence) operations. The sprawl-ing Service of Radio Interception and Code-Breaking of Diplomatic and Agent-Opera-tional Communications of the CapitalistCountries, the innermost part of the KGBempire (analogous to the U.S. National Se-curity Agency), managed to break manydiplomatic and intelligence codes. During1960 it reported deciphering 209,000 diplo-matic cables sent by representatives of 51states, and the most important among them—133,200—were reported to the CPSU Cen-tral Committee. The Kremlin therefore ap-parently eavesdropped on some of the West’smost classified communications.

True, there were clouds on the horizon.The enemy became increasingly sophisti-cated and difficult to penetrate. The Direc-

torate of Counterintelligence confronted,according to the annual report, “serious dif-ficulties” in 1960. “The adversary goes togreat lengths,” the KGB complained. “Forinstance, the Committee noticed cases whenthe enemy’s intelligence officers met theiragents on a beach and secretly exchangedmaterials while swimming. If it happens ona beach, they would lie close by, pretendthey do not know each other and dig theirmaterials in the sand, and then cautiouslyextract them.” There were more seriouschallenges than the “beach” method. U.S.intelligence, the KGB found, began to use anew type of heavily-protected codes. Theywrote on a very thin (papirosse-type) paperprepared specifically for this purpose. Alsoa special plane was constructed in the USAto bring illegal agents to the USSR. “Sincethis plane is made of rubber-layered tissue,”the report said, “and can conduct flights atlow altitudes, it has practically no chance,according to our experts, of being located byexisting radar stations.”8

With the life of KGB officers and agentsin the United States becoming increasinglyrough due to the effectiveness of J. EdgarHoover’s FBI and harsh restrictions on travelfor Soviet journalists and diplomats, theCommittee tried to exploit the increasingtrickle of Soviet visitors to the United Statesto include its operatives and agents. Anotherchannel was sending younger KGB officers,Oleg Kalugin among them, as graduate andpost-graduate students to Columbia, Har-vard, and other American universities.

Yet nobody could replace illegals. TheKGB in 1960 began to move its “sleepers” inother countries to the United States “with theaim of planting them in a job in Americanintelligence or intelligence schools.” Onepriority was “to insert KGB agents as pro-fessors of Russian, Latvian, Estonian andLithuanian languages in the language schoolof USA military intelligence in Monterey,”California.9

The report distinguished between oldand new priorities of Soviet foreign intelli-gence. An old one was to ferret out, incompetition with the GRU (Glavrazvedupr)or military intelligence, Western plans forrearmament and NATO’s level of combatreadiness. New efforts were targeted, first,at scientific-technical espionage and, sec-ond, at elaborate propaganda anddisinformation campaigns. The former hadproved to be a stupendous success in the


1940s, when the Soviets obtained detailedinformation on the wartime Anglo-Ameri-can atomic bomb project, and it continued tobe important as Cold War sanctions andbarriers cut the Soviets off from Westerntechnologies and industrial machinery.

During 1960, the KGB’s scientific-tech-nical intelligence service reported that itstole, bought, and smuggled from the West8,029 classified technologies, blueprints, andschemas, as well as 1,311 different samplesof equipment.10 A special target in thisregard was, of course, the United States. On7 April 1960, the Central Committee haddirected the KGB to prepare a “prospectiveworking plan of the intelligence service ofthe Committee of State Security at the Coun-cil of Ministers against the United States ofAmerica.”11 The plan, presented on 10 March1961, postulated a wide array of measures.12

Among them were efforts to insinuate agentsinto U.S. scientific-technical centers, uni-versities, industrial corporations, and otherinstitutions specializing in missile building,electronics, aircraft, and special chemistry.The KGB planned to use “third countries” asa springboard for this penetration campaign.Its agents in Great Britain, France, WestGermany, and Japan were to worm their wayinto scientific, industrial, and military re-search and consulting institutions of thesecountries with access to American know-how or subcontracting to U.S. military agen-cies. Agents residing in England, Austria,Belgium, West Germany, and Israel wereinstructed to move to the United States withthe goal of finding jobs in the military-industrial sector.

It also planned to organize “on the basisof a well-screened network of agents” sev-eral brokerage firms in order to obtain clas-sified scientific-technical information and“to create conditions in a number of coun-tries for buying samples of state-of-the-artAmerican equipment.” One such firm wasto be opened in the United States, one inEngland, and two in France. The KGB alsoprepared to open in a European country acopying center that would specialize copy-ing blueprints and technical documentationin the fields of radioelectronics, chemistry,and robotics.13

Some orthodox anti-communists in theCIA, known as the fundamentalists, weretipped off by the Soviet defector Golitsynabout an alleged KGB “monster plot” tocreate a strategic web of deception. Accord-

ing to Golitsyn, the KGB’s new chairman,Alexander Shelepin, the energetic and imagi-native former leader of Young CommunistLeague, revealed this plot in May of 1959 tothe KGB establishment. Golitsyn even main-tained, contrary to all evidence and logic,that the political and military split betweenChina and the USSR after 1959 was a fake,just a facet of Shelepin’s diabolical masterplan.14

There was no such “master plan” in theKGB. But under Shelepin the Committeeindeed hatched several schemes of strategicand tactical deception: to conceal Sovietintentions and weak spots from the West, aswell as to disrupt consensus in Westernsocieties and alliances on policies, means,and goals for waging the Cold War. In theplan presented to the Central Committee on10 March 1961, mentioned above, for ex-ample, the KGB proposed “to carry outdisinformation measures on the informationthat American intelligence obtains about theSoviet Union; to pass along the channels ofAmerican intelligence disinformation oneconomic, defense, and scientific-technicalissues; to disinform the USA intelligenceregarding real intentions of Soviet intelli-gence services, achieving thereby the dis-persion of forces and means of the enemy’sintelligence services.”15 The deception wentside by side with blunt slander campaignsand forgery. In its 1960 report, the KGBtook pride in operations carried out to com-promise “groupings and individuals fromthe imperialist camps most hostile towardsthe USSR.” The Committee publicized inthe West 10 documentary pieces of dis-information, prepared in the name of stateinstitutions and government figures of capi-talist countries, and 193 other disinformationmaterials. The KGB took credit for staginga number of rallies, marches, and pickets inthe United States, Japan, England, and othercountries. It claimed to be instrumental inengineering 86 inquiries of governmentsand presentations in parliaments and 105interviews of leading figures in these coun-tries. In addition it asserted that it had helpedorganize 442 mass petitions to governments,distributed 3.221 million copies of variousleaflets, and published abroad 126 booksand brochures “unmasking aggressive poli-cies of the USA” and its allies, as well as3,097 articles and pieces in the media. TheCommittee reported that it had instigated allthis through 15 newspapers and magazines

on the KGB payroll.16

During the early Cold War and later,both U.S. and Soviet intelligence servicesused penetration, deception, and propagandato groom potential allies and neutralize en-emies on both sides of the Iron Curtain.Each had a record of successes and failuresduring the 1950s. The KGB successfullyplayed on French suspicions of West Ger-man militarism to frustrate ratification of theEuropean Defense Community (EDC), theWestern plan to create a “European army.”The CIA had its own triumph in Iran byoverthrowing Prime Minister Mossadeq andopening the way for conversion of that coun-try into a mainstay of Western defense struc-tures in the Middle East for a generation.

But U.S. intelligence failed during the1950s to establish a network of influence inEastern Europe, not to mention the SovietUnion itself. The KGB even in 1960 actedunder the impression that it could do betterin the United States, using the growing fa-tigue with the Dulles-Eisenhower hard lineand growing public support for U.S.-Sovietrapprochement. The Committee pledged, inaccord with its April 1960 instruction, toestablish closer contacts with liberal Demo-crats in the U.S. Congress and to encouragethem “to step up their pressure for improve-ment of relations between the USA and theSoviet Union and for settlement of interna-tional problems through negotiations.” TheKGB concentrated its propaganda efforts, itreported, on “left-wing trade unions, Quak-ers, pacifist, youth and other social organi-zations,” and was even ready “to providethose organizations and some trusted indi-viduals with the needed financial assistancein a clandestine way.”17

According to the plan, the KGB pro-posed to subsidize the “American progres-sive publishing house ‘Liberty Book Club’in order to publish and disseminate in theUSA and other capitalist countries booksprepared at our request.”18 The experimentseemed to promise further successes, sincethe KGB intended to internationalize it byopening club affiliates in England, Italy, andJapan. In a spirit of innovation, demon-strated in those years, the Committee also“studied the possibility of using a majorAmerican public relations agency for thedistribution in the USA of truthful informa-tion about the Soviet Union.”19 These andsimilar undertakings required a lot of money,and some KGB operatives like Konon


Molody (Gordon Arnold Lonsdale) wereencouraged to engage in lucrative businessesin the West and then funnel the profits intoKGB foreign accounts.20

A special division of the KGB was busyfabricating disinformation on the produc-tion in the United States of chemical andbacteriological weapons and the develop-ment of new means of mass destruction.Faked documents, innuendo, and gossipwere used to undercut U.S. positions andinfluence among delegations of Afro-Asianand Latin American countries in the UnitedNations and “to promote disorganization ofthe American voting machine in the struc-tures of the UN.” There were even attemptsto sidetrack tariff talks among Western coun-tries and “to use financial difficulties of theUnited States for strengthening of mistrustin the dollar.”

On the KGB’s list of targets in thepropaganda warfare campaign were all thepredictable suspects: U.S.-led regional alli-ances (NATO, SEATO, and CENTO) andU.S. military bases abroad, all denounced astools for American meddling into the inter-nal affairs of host countries. The Commit-tee also contemplated a terrorist strike atRadio Liberty and the Soviet Studies Insti-tute in Munich “to put out of order theirequipment and to destroy their card in-dexes.” Inside the United States this war-fare was to be spearheaded against the U.S.Information Agency (USIA), a counterpartof the KGB psychological warfare division,and “the reactionary militarist group in U.S.ruling circles - [Nelson] ROCKEFELLER,[Lauris] NORSTAD, A. DULLES, E. [J.Edgar] HOOVER, as well as their allies inpushing an aggressive course in other coun-tries.”21

One name on the hit list was that ofAllen W. Dulles, experienced in the espio-nage trade since the late 1930s and since1953 presiding over the Central IntelligenceAgency.22 In 1960-1961, Dulles became thechief target of the KGB’s vendetta.

The Hunt for Allen Dulles

The Dulles brothers had long inspiredcomplex feelings inside the Soviet leader-ship. Time and again Vyacheslav Molotovand then Nikita Khrushchev betrayed anapprehension of them bordering on respect-ful awe. Khrushchev, in his typical manner,even engaged personally in a semi-public

feud with Allen Dulles boasting that he readhis briefing papers prepared for PresidentEisenhower and found them “boring.” TheSoviet leaders had some reasons to believethat their sources of “humint”—“human in-telligence” garnered from agents andillegals—were many times greater than thoseof their American adversary. After a flurryof defectors following Stalin’s death, thepolitical and military intelligence apparatushad been reorganized, and its discipline andmorale seemed to be restored. But the lullproved short-lived. From the mid-fiftiesonward Khrushchev’s policies of reducingthe KGB empire and curbing its operatives’privileges produced a new spate of treason.The response was ruthless: a new head of theFirst Main Directorate (PGU), AlexanderSakharovsky, reportedly took draconianmeasures to root out a plague of “defecting”;he personally pushed for operations designedto eliminate post-Stalin “traitors” AleksandrOrlov, Vladimir Petrov, and Piotr Deriabinwho had fled to the West and cooperatedwith Western counterintelligence.23 (Evi-dently all three operations failed or wereabandoned, since none of the three defectorswas assassinated.)

Until the spring of 1960, Soviet foreignintelligence had reasons to believe it had asound edge over its American counterpart.During 1960, Soviet operatives, togetherwith “friends” from East European securityforces, reportedly penetrated Western em-bassies in Eastern Europe on 52 occasions.They succeeded in illegally smuggling to theUSSR five U.S. intelligence officers. Theyhad a high-placed mole in the British coun-terintelligence MI5—George Blake—an-other one in NATO headquarters in Brus-sels, and many lesser ones.

But Allen Dulles had struck back with anew technological breakthrough: U-2 planesand then reconnaissance satellites to overflyand photograph the USSR. Shelepin soundedthe alarm and in September 1959, duringKhrushchev’s visit to the United States, hesent a memo to the Department of DefenseIndustry of the Central Committee propos-ing a program to monitor the U.S. satellite“Discoverer.” He proposed to obtain “di-rectly and by agents” the data on frequencyranges used by transmitters on these satel-lites. Ivan Serbin, head of the Department,agreed that the issue was grave enough andsent Shelepin’s memo for consideration tothe Commission on military-industrial is-

sues at the Council of Ministers.24

In fact, the U.S. space reconnaissanceprogram produced a minor panic amongSoviet academics who consulted for theKGB. Two of them, Academician L.I. Sedovand doctor of physics and mathematics G.S.Narimanov, warned in September 1959 thatthe “Discoverer” satellites could be success-fully used by the Americans for military andintelligence purposes, “to put out of workour defense installations with electronicequipment over a large territory.” With thehelp of satellite equipment, Shelepin re-ported, from a height of 200-300 km it wouldbe possible efficiently to photograph stretchesof the Earth of 50-90 km in width and 150,000km in length.25

In other words, the KGB alerted theSoviet leaders in a timely fashion to thecoming intelligence revolution.Khrushchev’s reaction to the downing of anAmerican U-2 seven months later, in May1960, was, therefore, anything but surprise.The political slight, and even humiliation,that Khrushchev saw in this affair to himselfand his country provoked his furious re-sponse. He disrupted the summit in Parisand irreparably ruined his relations withEisenhower.26 But in his opinion the U.S.president, though he accepted responsibilityfor the intelligence flights, merely shieldedthe real culprit: Allen Dulles. So Khrushchev,his considerable venom concentrated on thedebonair socialite spymaster, evidently askedShelepin to prepare a plan to discredit theCIA chief. Three weeks after Khrushchev’sreturn from Paris, Shelepin’s plan was for-mally approved by the Secretariat of theCentral Committee.

The document,27 printed below, offersan extraordinary window into the state ofmind and the methods of Soviet intelligenceat the height of the Cold War confrontationwith the United States:

[Handwritten note across top: “To the Secretariat[for signatures] (round the clock28 among thesecretaries) [—] M. Suslov, N. Mukhitdinov, O.Kuusinen”29]

USSR Top SecretCommittee of State SecurityCouncil of Ministers of the USSR7 June 1960

CC CPSU30

The failure of the intelligence action pre-pared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)


with the plane “Lockheed U-2” caused an aggra-vation of existing tensions between the CIA andother USA intelligence services and the FederalBureau of Investigation (FBI), and also provokedprotests by the American public and certain mem-bers of the Congress, who are demanding inves-tigation of the CIA activities.

The Committee of state security considers itadvisable to make use of this newly complexsituation and to carry out the following measurestargeted at further discrediting CIA activity andcompromising its leader Allen DULLES:

1. In order to activate a campaign byDULLES’ political and personal opponents:

a) to mail to them anonymous letters usingthe names of CIA officials criticizing its activityand the authoritarian leadership of DULLES;

b) to prepare a dossier which will containpublications from the foreign press and declara-tions of officials who criticized the CIA andDULLES personally, and to send it, using thename of one of members of the Democratic Party,to the Fulbright Committee [the Senate Commit-tee on Foreign Relations] which is conducting aninvestigation into CIA activities in relation to thefailure of the summit;

c) to send to some members of Congress, tothe Fulbright Committee, and to the FBI speciallyprepared memos from two or three officials of theState Department with attached private letters,received (allegedly) from now deceased Ameri-can diplomats, which would demonstrate CIAinvolvement in domestic decision-making, thepersecution of foreign diplomats who took anobjective stand, and which also would point outthat, for narrow bureaucratic purposes, the CIAputs deliberately false data into information forthe State Department;

d) to study the possibility and, if the oppor-tunity presents itself, to prepare and disseminatethrough appropriate channels a document byformer USA Secretary of State F. DULLES,which would make it clear that he exploited theresources of A. DULLES as leader of the CIA tofabricate compromising materials on his privateand political adversaries;

e) to prepare, publish and disseminate abroada satirical pamphlet on A. DULLES, using theAmerican writer Albert KAHN who currentlystays in Moscow to write the pamphlet.31

2. With the aim of further exposing theactivities of American intelligence in the eyes ofthe public and to create preconditions with whichthe FBI and other USA intelligence servicescould substantiate their opinion about the CIA’sinability to conduct effective intelligence:

a) to fabricate the failure of an Americanagent “Fyodorov,” dropped in the Soviet Unionby plane in 1952 and used by organs of the KGBin an operational game with the adversary.

To publish in the Soviet press an announce-ment about the arrest of “Fyodorov” as an Ameri-can agent and, if necessary, to arrange a press-

conference about this affair;b) to agree with Polish friends about the

exposure of the operational game led by theorgans of the KGB along with the MSS PPR[Ministry of State Security of the Polish People’sRepublic] with a “conduit” on the payroll ofAmerican intelligence of the Organization ofUkrainian nationalists (OUN)- “Melnikovists.”To this end to bring back to Poland the PolishMSS agent “Boleslav,” planted in the course ofthis game on the OUN “conduit,” and to arrangefor him to speak to the press and radio aboutsubversive activity by American intelligenceagainst the USSR and PPR. To arrange, inaddition, for public appearances by six Americanintelligence agents dropped on USSR and PPRterritory as couriers of the “conduit” in the courseof the game;

c) to suggest to the security bodies of theGDR that they arrange public trials for the re-cently arrested agents of American intelligenceRAUE, KOLZENBURG, GLAND, USCH-INGER and others.

To arrange for wide coverage of the trials’materials in the media of the GDR and abroad;

d) to disclose the operational game “Link”that the KGB conducts with the adversary and toorganize public statements in the media aimed atforeign audiences by the agent “Maisky,” a formercommander of the “security service” of the For-eign [Zakordonnikh chastei] OUN (ZCh OUN),who had been transferred to Ukrainian territory in1951 and used by us for this game.

Along with revelations about the anti-peopleactivity of the ZCh OUN, “Maisky” will revealAmerican and British intelligence’s use of theanti-Soviet organizations of Ukrainian emigra-tion in subversive work in the Soviet Union;

e) Since about ten agents of the MSS of theGDR who “defected-in-place” to American in-telligence have accomplished their missions andcurrently there is no prospect of their being fur-ther utilized, it should be suggested to our Ger-man friends to stage their return on the basis ofdisagreement with USA aggressive policies. Inparticular, this measure should be carried outwith the participation of our friends’ agent“Edelhardt” who had been assigned by an affili-ate of American intelligence in West Berlin togather spy information during his tourist triparound the USSR. To organize one or two press-conferences on these affairs with a demonstrationof the spy equipment he received from Americanintelligence;

f) to discuss with our Polish and Albanianfriends the advisability of bringing to the atten-tion of governmental circles and of the public ofthe United States the fact that the security agen-cies of Poland and Albania for a number of yearshad been deluding American intelligence in theoperational games “Win” and “John” and hadobtained millions of dollars, weapons, equip-ment, etc. from it.

3. To utilize, provided our Hungarian friendsagree, the American intelligence documents theyobtained in the U.S. mission in Budapest [theunderlined words were inserted by hand—ed.] tocompromise the CIA and to aggravate the differ-ences between the CIA and other intelligenceservices by publicizing some of the documents orby sending them to the FBI.

If necessary, the necessary documents shouldbe forged using the existing samples.

4. In order to create mistrust in the USAgovernment toward the CIA and to produce anatmosphere of mutual suspicion within the CIAstaff, to work out and implement an operationcreating the impression of the presence in the CIAsystem of KGB agents recruited from amongrank-and-file American intelligence officers, who,following their recruitment, admit their guilt,allegedly on the order of Soviet intelligence. Tostage for this purpose a relevant conversationwithin range of a [CIA] listening device, as wellas the loss of an address book by a Soviet intelli-gence officer with the telephone number of a CIAofficial; to convey specially prepared materials tothe adversary’s attention through channels ex-posed to him, etc.

5. To work out and implement measures onblowing the cover of several scientific, commer-cial and other institutions, used by the CIA for itsspy activities. In particular, to carry out suchmeasures with regard to the “National Aeronau-tics and Space Administration” [NASA] and the“Informational Agency” of the USA [U.S. Infor-mation Agency (USIA)].

6. In order to disclose the subversive activi-ties of the CIA against some governments, politi-cal parties and public figures in capitalist coun-tries, and to foment mistrust toward Americans inthe government circles of these countries, tocarry out the following:

a) to stage in Indonesia the loss by Americanintelligence officer PALMER, who is personallyacquainted with President SUKARNO and ex-erts a negative influence on him, a briefcasecontaining documents jointly prepared by theMFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] of the USSRwhich apparently belong to the CIA station inJakarta and which provide evidence of USAplans to utilize American agents and rebel forcesto overthrow the government of SUKARNO;32

b) to carry out measures, with regard to thearrest in February of this year in the UAR [UnitedArab Republic] of a group of Israeli intelligenceagents, to persuade the public in the UAR andArab countries that American intelligence is linkedto the activities of those agents and coordinates itswork in the Arab East with Israeli intelligence.

To compromise, to this end, American intel-ligence officers KEMP and CONNOLLY whowork under cover of the UN commission observ-ing the armistice in Palestine;

c) to prepare and implement measures tomake public the fact that American intelligence


made use of the Iranian newspapers “Fahrman”and “Etelliat,” specifically mentioning the namesof their agents (Abbas SHAHENDEH, JalalNEMATOLLAKHI);

d) to publish articles in the foreign pressshowing the interference of American intelli-gence in the domestic affairs of other states,using as an example the illegal American policeorganization in Italy, found and liquidated at theend of 1959, that “worked on” Italian politicalparties under the direction of one of the diplo-mats at the American embassy;

e) to prepare and publicize a document byan American intelligence officer in Japan RobertEMMENSE in the form of a report to the USAambassador [to Japan Douglas] MACARTHUR[II] into which information will be inserted abouta decision allegedly taken by American intelli-gence to relocate “Lockheed U-2” planes tempo-rarily to Japan, and then, in secrecy from theJapanese government, to return them to their oldbases.

7. To work out measures which, upon imple-mentation, would demonstrate the failure of theCIA efforts to actively on a concrete factual basisuse various émigré centers for subversive workagainst countries in the socialist camp.

In particular, using the example of the anti-Soviet organization “The Union of the Strugglefor the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia”(SBONR), to discredit in the eyes of Americantaxpayers the activities of American intelligencein funding émigré organizations. To bring tolight, along with other measures, real or forgedAmerican intelligence documents on its financesand guidance of subversive activities of theSBONR.

8. With the means available of the KGB topromote inquiries in the parliaments of England,France and other countries of their governmentsabout their attitude to the hostile actions of USAintelligence intended to aggravate internationaltension.

9. To arrange public appearances by distin-guished public and political figures of the Eastand West with appropriate declarations denounc-ing the aggressive activity of American intelli-gence.

10. To prepare and publish in the bourgeoispress, through available means, a number ofarticles on the activities of the CIA and its leaderson the following questions:

a) about how A. DULLES used his positionto promote his own enrichment. In particular, todemonstrate that DULLES gets big bribes fromthe “Lockheed” corporation for allocating con-tracts to produce reconnaissance planes. Toindicate that the source of this information is thewife of a vice-president of “Lockheed” corpora-tion and well-known American pilot JacquelineCOCHRAN, who allegedly leaked it in Franceon her way to the USSR in 1959;

b) about the CIA’s violation of traditional

carrying out the plan.34 On 25 February1961, after the Kennedy Administration cameto power in Washington, the KGB againreturned to the operation against Dulles, anEisenhower holdover who for the time beingremained in his post. The KGB suggestedmeasures “to foment mistrust towards theleadership of American intelligence on thepart of the Kennedy administration and theintelligence services of the allies.” Amongother things, the KGB intended “to createamong Americans an opinion that documen-tary information leaks directly from the staffof the CIA.” It also plotted “to arrangethrough a ‘double’ channel, known to theadversary, a transmittal from Washington ofa real classified instruction signed byDULLES and obtained by the KGB.” Alsoproposed were measures “aimed at discred-iting the activities of American intelligencedirected at the removal from the politicalarena of politicians and governments, inparticular in India and Turkey, who are notwelcomed by the USA.”35

It would be tempting to try to trackdown all the “incidents” produced by thiselaborate planning. It is obvious, however,that the Kennedy administration was look-ing for a pretext to replace the old coldwarrior atop the CIA, and one presenteditself after the April 1961 failure of the CIA-trained expedition against the Castro regimeat the Bay of Pigs. Soviet intelligence hadknown about the preparation and evidentlyCastro’s border troops were all in readiness,tipped off by Moscow (and The New YorkTimes, for that matter) and ready to teachAmericans a bloody lesson. Broadly speak-ing, the KGB in this case won a considerablevictory over its overseas enemy. In lateSeptember 1961 Dulles announced his re-tirement, which went into effect two monthslater.

But the battle between the two intelli-gence giants continued, and between April1961 and October 1962 Soviet intelligencesuffered terrible blows from internal trea-son: senior GRU officer Oleg Penkovskyserved a precious 18 months as a source forthe Western intelligence community. InMay 1961, KGB officer Yuri Loginov be-came an agent for U.S. intelligence. InDecember 1961, Anatoly Golitsyn defectedfrom Helsinki. In June 1962, Yuri Nosenko,deputy head of the KGB Second Chief Di-rectorate, internal security and counterintel-ligence, began passing classified Soviet docu-

principles of non-partisanship on the part of theUSA intelligence service. To demonstrate that inreality the CIA is the tool of reactionary circles inthe Republican Party, that it ignores the Senate,the Congress and public opinion in the country;

c) about the unjustifiably large expendituresof the CIA on its staff and its multitudinous agentsand about the failure of its efforts to obtain infor-mation on the military-economic potential andscientific-technical achievements of the SovietUnion;

d) about the unprecedented fact that theAmerican embassy in Budapest is hosting Cardi-nal MINDSZENTY, furnishing evidence that theAmericans are flouting the sovereign rights of theHungarian People’s Republic and demonstratingthe sloppy work of American intelligence thatdamages American prestige in the eyes of worldpublic opinion;33

e) about the CIA’s flawed methods of prepa-ring spy cadres in the [training] schools at FortJersey (South Carolina) and in Monterey (Califor-nia). To draw special attention to futility of effortsby the CIA and by DULLES personally to build areliable intelligence [network] with emigrantsfrom the USSR and the countries of people’sdemocracies. To present a list of names of Ameri-can intelligence officers and agents who haverefused to work for DULLES on political, moraland other grounds;

f) about utilization by the CIA leadership ofsenior officials from the State Department, in-cluding ambassadors, for subversive and intelli-gence operations that cause great harm to USAprestige. In particular, to cite the example ofDULLES’ use of American ambassador [to SouthKorea Walter P.] MCCONAUGHY in subversiveplans in Cambodia and then in South Korea;

g) about the activities of American intelli-gence in West Berlin in covering officers of WestGerman intelligence services with documents ofAmerican citizens.

11. To approach the state security leadershipin countries of people’s democracy requestingthat they use available means to discredit the CIAand to compromise A. DULLES.

Asking for your agreement to aforemen-tioned measures,

CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE

[signature] (A. Shelepin)

The signatures of Mikhail Suslov,Nikolai Mukhitdinov, and Otto Kuusinenshowed that the responsible members of theSecretariat had approved the document—aprocess that could not have taken place with-out Khrushchev’s assent as well. On 3 No-vember 1960, Shelepin reported to the Cen-tral Committee on the KGB’s progress in


ments to the CIA (and in February 1964 he,too, would defect). The scale tilted abruptlyin the CIA’s favor.

The Crisis in Berlin...and in the KGB

The disastrous wave of betrayal anddefections in the KGB occurred at a momentof maximum international tension betweenthe Moscow and the West, marked by theBerlin and the Cuban crises. This was notsimply a coincidence. In the cases of somedouble-agents and defectors, among themPenkovsky and Nosenko, psychological andideological, not material motives, prevailed.As Khrushchev raised the ante, bluffingagainst Washington, some informed mem-bers of the Soviet post-Stalin elites felt acutelyuncomfortable. Khrushchev seemed unpre-dictable, mercurial, reckless, and just plaindangerous—not only to the West but tothose Soviets growing accustomed to peace-ful coexistence and the relative luxuries itallowed for the chosen members of thenomenklatura. The seemingly permanentstate of nerve-wracking crisis, coincidingwith a drastic expansion of cultural andhuman contacts across the Iron Curtain and

rate descriptions of the Paris talks, wellahead of its rival, the GRU. The intelligencematerials correctly noted that, in contrast tothe West Germans, U.S. Secretary of StateDean Rusk supported talks with the SovietUnion aimed at preservation of the statusquo ante. However, the KGB and GRUwarned that pressure in the alliance wasforcing the Americans to consider economicsanctions against the GDR and other social-ist countries, as well as to accelerate plansfor conventional and nuclear armament oftheir West European allies, including theWest German Bundeswehr.37

Another line of KGB involvement inthe crisis concerned strategic deception. On29 July 1961, KGB chief Shelepin sent amemorandum to Khrushchev containing amind-boggling array of proposals to create“a situation in various areas of the worldwhich would favor dispersion of attentionand forces by the USA and their satellites,and would tie them down during the settle-ment of the question of a German peacetreaty and West Berlin.” The multifaceteddeception campaign, Shelepin claimed,would “show to the ruling circles of Westernpowers that unleashing a military conflict

the weakening of Stalinist fundamentalismin the East, strained loyalty to and belief inthe regime and system, and in some casespushed individuals to switch sides.

The KGB’s foreign intelligence andother divisions were heavily involved invarious ways in the Berlin Crisis. Theytested the temperature of U.S. and NATOreactions to Khrushchev’s threat to sign aseparate treaty with the German DemocraticRepublic which would give the GDR controlover Western access routes to West Berlin.One scoop came when Khrushchev decidedto let the East German communists close thesectorial border between the East and WestBerlin, a decision resulting in the infamousWall. On 4-7 August 1961, the foreignministers of four Western countries (theUnited States, Great Britain, France andWest Germany) held secret consultations inParis. The only question on the agenda was:how to react to the Soviet provocations inBerlin? In the course of these meetingsWestern representatives expressed an un-derstanding of the defensive nature of Sovietcampaign in Germany, and unwillingness torisk a war.36 In less than three weeks theKGB laid on Khrushchev’s desk quite accu-

©E.C. Publications, Inc., 1961, 1989. Artist and writer: Antonio Prohias. SPY vs SPY is a registered trademark. TM and © E.C. Publications, Inc., 1994. Used with permission from MAD Magazine.


over West Berlin can lead to the loss of theirposition not only in Europe, but also in anumber of countries of Latin America, Asiaand Africa.”38 Khrushchev sent the memowith his approval to his deputy Frol Kozlov39

and on August 1 it was, with minor revi-sions, passed as a Central Committee direc-tive. The KGB and the Ministry of Defensewere instructed to work out more “specificmeasures and present them for consider-ation by the CC CPSU.”40

The first part of the deception plan musthave pleased Khrushchev, who in January1961 had pledged, before the communistsof the whole world, to assist “movements ofnational liberation.” Shelepin advocatedmeasures “to activate by the means avail-able to the KGB armed uprisings againstpro-Western reactionary governments.” Thedestabilizing activities started in Nicaraguawhere the KGB plotted an armed mutinythrough an “Internal revolutionary front ofresistance” in coordination with Castro’sCubans and with the “Revolutionary FrontSandino.” Shelepin proposed to “makeappropriations from KGB funds in additionto the previous assistance 10,000 Americandollars for purchase of arms.” Shelepinplanned also the instigation of an “armeduprising” in El Salvador, and a rebellion inGuatemala, where guerrilla forces would begiven $15,000 to buy weapons.

The campaign extended to Africa, tothe colonial and semi-colonial possessionsof the British and the Portuguese. The KGBpromised to help organize anti-colonial massuprisings of the African population in Brit-ish Kenya and Rhodesia and PortugueseGuinea, by arming rebels and training mili-tary cadres.

Nor did Shelepin forget the Far East.An ardent supporter of Sino-Soviet recon-ciliation, he played this “Chinese card” onceagain. He suggested “to bring to attention ofthe USA through KGB information chan-nels information about existing agreementamong the USSR, the PRC [People’s Re-public of China], the KPDR [KoreanPeople’s Democratic Republic; North Ko-rea] and the DRV [Democratic Republic ofVietnam; North Vietnam] about joint mili-tary actions to liberate South Korea, SouthVietnam, and Taiwan in case of the eruptionof armed conflict in Germany.” The SovietGeneral Staff, proposed Shelepin, togetherwith the KGB, “should work out the rel-evant disinformation materials” and reach

agreement “with Chinese, Korean, and Viet-namese friends about demonstration of mili-tary preparations in those areas.”

Next came the bubbling cauldron of theMiddle East. Shelepin planned “to causeuncertainty in government circles of the USA,England, Turkey, and Iran about the stabilityof their positions in the Middle and NearEast.” He offered to use old KGB connec-tions with the chairman of Democratic partyof Kurdistan, Mulla Mustafa Barzani, “toactivate the movement of the Kurdish popu-lation of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey for creationof an independent Kurdistan that would in-clude the provinces of aforementioned coun-tries.” Barzani was to be provided withnecessary aid in arms and money.41 “Givenpropitious developments,” noted Shelepinwith foresight, “it would become advisableto express the solidarity of Soviet peoplewith this movement of the Kurds.”

“The movement for the creation ofKurdistan,” he predicted, “will evoke seri-ous concern among Western powers and firstof all in England regarding [their access to]oil in Iraq and Iran, and in the United Statesregarding its military bases in Turkey. Allthat will create also difficulties for [IraqiPrime Minister Gen. Abdul Karim] KASSIMwho has begun to conduct a pro-Westernpolicy, especially in recent time.”42

The second component of the Shelepingrand plan was directed against NATO in-stallations in Western Europe and aimed “tocreate doubts in the ruling circles of Westernpowers regarding the effectiveness of mili-tary bases located on the territory of the FRGand other NATO countries, as well as in thereliability of their personnel.” To provokethe local population against foreign bases,Shelepin contemplated working with theGDR and Czechoslovakia secret services tocarry out “active measures...to demoralize”military servicemen in the FRG (by agents,leaflets, and brochures), and even terroristattacks on depot and logistics stations inWest Germany and France.43

One of the more imaginative strands inthe web of Soviet strategic deception con-cerned the number and even existence of newtypes of arms and missiles. Along with theGeneral Staff, the KGB long practiced adubious combination of super-secrecy andbluffing, thereby producing a series of pan-icky assessments in the West about a “bombergap” and then a “missile gap.” This timeShelepin asked Khrushchev to assign to his

organization and the military the task ofmaking the West believe that the Sovietswere absolutely prepared to launch an attackin retaliation for Western armed provoca-tions over West Berlin. The disinformationpackage included the following tasks:

— to convince the West that Soviet landforces were now armed with new typesof tanks “equipped with tactical nuclearweapons”;— to create a conviction among theenemy “about a considerable increaseof readiness of Rocket Forces and of theincreased number of launching pads—produced by the supply of solid liquidballistic missiles of medium range andby the transfer from stationary positionsto mobile launching positions on high-ways and railroads which secure highmaneuverability and survivability”;— to spread a false story about theconsiderable increase in the number ofnuclear submarines with solid-fuel “Po-laris” missiles;— to bring to Western attention “infor-mation about the strengthening of anti-aircraft defense”;— to disorient the enemy regarding theavailability in the Soviet Air Forces of“new types of combat-tactical aircraftwith ‘air-to-air’ and ‘air-to-ground’ mis-siles with a large operational range.”44

It is not clear when Shelepin learnedabout Khrushchev’s decision to close thesectoral border between East and West Ber-lin, but the Wall went up just two weeks afterhis letter. It seems that the Wall took someheat off the problem. But in October-No-vember 1961, the KGB and the militaryleadership evidently still believed that thesigning of a separate peace treaty with theGDR was possible and designed its “distrac-tion” measures anticipating that this treatywould be a source of serious tension with theWest. Indeed, sharp tension did arise in lateOctober when U.S. tanks confronted twoSoviet tank platoons in Berlin near Check-point Charlie.

On November 10, Soviet Defense Min-ister Rodion Malinovsky and KGB DeputyChief Peter Ivashutin asked the Central Com-mittee Secretariat to approve, in addition tothe crisis contingency planning by the mili-tary forces, deceptive steps “directed at pro-ducing in the adversary’s mind a profound


conviction that the Soviet Union firmly in-tends to use force in response to militaryprovocations of Western powers and has atits disposal all necessary combat means.”The KGB took upon itself the task “to in-form Western intelligence through unoffi-cial channels that the Soviet Union has takennecessary measures to strengthen its troopsin the GDR and to arm them with moremodern tactical missiles, newer tanks, andother armaments sufficient for the deliveryof a quick and crushing response strike onthe adversary.”

Through the same channels KGB in-tended “to increase the adversary’s belief inthe high maneuverability and mobility ofSoviet armed forces and their readiness, incase the West unleashes an armed conflict inGermany, to move within a minimal time upto the battle lines of the European theater. Toconvey as a proof thereof that this summer,during the exercises in the Near-Carpathianand other military districts, some divisionsdemonstrated an average speed of advance-ment of about 110-130 km per day.”

Along the lines of Shelepin’s proposal,the KGB’s military-industrial consultantssuggested other disinformation steps. Per-haps echoing Khrushchev’s boast that hismissiles could “hit a fly in the sky,” theCommittee proposed to convey to U.S. intel-ligence the information that during its recentseries of atomic tests—in Sept.-Oct. 1961—the Soviet Union successfully “tested a su-perpowerful thermonuclear warhead, alongwith a system of detecting and eliminatingthe adversary’s missiles in the air.”

The KGB laboratories fabricated “evi-dence” for U.S. intelligence about “ the solu-tion in the Soviet Union of the problem ofconstructing simple but powerful and user-convenient atomic engines for submarineswhich allow in the short run increasing con-siderably the number of atomic submarinesup to fifteen.” (The ever-vigilant Shelepindeleted the number from the text—the su-per-secretive Soviets excised numbers evenin disinformation!)

Finally, the KGB received instructions“to promote a legend about the invention inthe Soviet Union of an aircraft with a close-circuited nuclear engine and its successfulflight tests which demonstrated the engine’shigh technical capacities and its safety inexploitation.” “On the basis of the M-50‘Myasischev’ aircraft, with consideration ofthe results of those flight tests,” according to

this disinformation, “a strategic bomber withnuclear engines and unlimited range hasbeen designed.”45

Even now, reading those documentsgives one chills down the spine. Determinedto deal with their opponent from a positionof strength, and possessing the intoxicatingcapacity to hide or invent information, todeceive and to bluff, Kremlin leaders wenttoo far, to the very brink where the fine linebetween deterring an attack and preparingfor one blurred altogether. To make mattersworse, Khrushchev often held his cards soclose to his chest that even his closest subor-dinates could not guess his true intentions.Inside the KGB there were many levels ofknowledge, to be sure, but it seems, forinstance, that the famous “Bolshakov chan-nel” and the sensitive information that passedalong it to the Kennedy administration dur-ing the Berlin crisis were sometimes notreported even to the KGB’s highest hierar-chy, only to the CPSU General Secretary.46

No wonder that a great number of juniorand senior officials in the Soviet militaryand intelligence elites were scared to death.Some of them were convinced thatKhrushchev was crazy and had become avictim of his own “hare-brained schemes.”This scare still waits to be described by acreative quill. But one of its most tangibletraces was a stream of well-positioned de-fectors.

In his June 1960 plan to discredit AllenDulles and the CIA, quoted earlier, Shelepinhad envisioned fostering “an atmosphere ofmutual suspicion within the CIA staff” byfostering fears of KGB penetration withinthe agency. In fact, as Shelepin hoped, aparanoid “mole-hunt” in the Western intelli-gence community did occur, but apparentlyas a by-product of authentic defections fromSoviet intelligence rather than because ofShelepin’s deliberate deception campaign.Major Anatoliy Golitsyn became a pivotalfigure in this regard. He was the least in-formed of the new crop of KGB defectors,but the echoes of Shelepin’s grandiose plansreached his ear. It has been argued, withsome justification, that the harm that thisstocky Ukrainian defector caused to careersand environment in the CIA could have beendone only by a Soviet double-agent. Thealliance between Golitsyn and CIA counter-intelligence chief James Angleton was in-deed more ruinous for American operativeswho fell under suspicion in the frantic “mole-

hunt” than for real KGB agents.47

It is ironic that KGB leadership had nopremonition about this at all. There is,indeed, newly available evidence about howpainful Golitsyn’s defection was to the KGB.On 28 July 1962, a new KGB chief, VladimirSemichastny, wrote to Shelepin, now pro-moted to the Party Secretariat:

According to reliable evidence Ameri-can intelligence is preparing a broadcampaign of provocation against theSoviet Union that will involve a traitorof Motherland GOLITSYN and othertraitors, along with double-agents andprovocateurs.

“The Americans count on this provocation,”continued Semichastny while ignoring theirony of his words, “ to dispel to some extentthe impression among the public that theUSA is an organizer of world espionage, andto demonstrate that the Soviet Union is con-ducting active intelligence work in all coun-tries.”

The Committee proposed “measures todiscredit GOLITSYN” in the eyes of hisCIA debriefers by implicating him in a felony.According to the plan, the newspaper SovietRussia was to publish an article about a trialthat allegedly had been held in Leningrad ona case of hard currency smuggling. TheKGB would “ let Americans know, withoutmentioning GOLITSYN’s name, that thisarticle has something to so with him.” Incase Golitsyn came up “with slanderousdeclarations,” the KGB planned to arrangemore publications about his invented crimi-nal background and to demand, after that,from the U.S. government through officialchannels the “extradition of GOLITSYN asa criminal.”

As a last resort, Semichastny asked forParty sanction “ to carry out an operation onhis [GOLITSYN’S] removal.”48

Scorpions in a bottle

Glasnost on Soviet intelligence activi-ties has yet to reach the level achieved by theAmerican side during the congressional hear-ings of the Church and Pike committees inthe mid-1970s. But the documents foundrecently in the CC CPSU archives do shedconsiderable light on KGB operations andindicate, without mincing words, how ambi-tious, various and extensive were KGB ac-


tivities, especially against the “number oneenemy,” the United States. There is littledoubt that almost any document on the So-viet side has its U.S. counterpart in Langleystill hidden from public view.49 The processof mutual emulation started after the defec-tion of Soviet cypher clerk Igor Gouzenko inOttawa, Canada, in the summer of 1945.Ever since then the American intelligenceagencies and the FBI, seconded by Sovietdefectors, argued that they needed morediscretionary resources and rights to match awell-prepared and ruthless enemy.

The KGB documents prove that theenemy was, indeed, ingenious, resourceful,and prepared to go very far. The emphasison disinformation and on the use of variousgroups and movements in the “third world”had, of course, been a direct continuation ofthe OGPU-NKVD tradition in the 1920s-1940s.50 Back then, the Soviet intelligenceleaned extensively on the networks of theComintern and other individuals sympatheticto the Soviet “experiment.” This networksuffered from blows and defections as aresult of Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization cam-paign and its spectacular unveiling at theFebruary 1956 CPSU Twentieth Party Con-gress. But the collapse of colonial empiresand the surge of radicalism and nationalismin Africa, Asia, Latin America, and theMiddle East was a bonanza for Soviet intel-ligence, bent on expanding their contacts inthose parts of the world.

The KGB, no doubt, fulfilled ordersfrom the top. Khrushchev’s support of “warsof national liberation” was a big step towardthe globalization of Soviet foreign policy,and therefore of the Cold War. It is clearfrom the KGB documents, however, thateven at that time of escalating covert super-power rivalry in the Third World, the Krem-lin leadership retained clear Realpolitik pri-orities: with the exception of those posted inCuba, Soviet intelligence agents in ThirdWorld countries were used by the Sovietleadership and its external arm, the KGB’sFirst Directorate, as pawns in a geostrategicgame centered firmly on Berlin.

Yet, the KGB had its own distinctiveimpact on the Cold War. The documentspresented in this article challenge the myththat KGB officials (and some Americancounterparts as well) like to promulgate: thatthe intelligence services of both sides, byincreasing “transparency” about theadversary’s intentions and capabilities,

thereby contributed to stability and predict-ability in a dangerously polarized world.Some intelligence efforts that were genu-inely devoted to reconnaissance, and re-duced fears of a surprise attack, may wellhave done so.

But the games of deception,disinformation, and distraction designed bythe KGB masterminds had a deleteriouseffect on global stability. They certainlycontributed to the perception in Washingtonof expansive Soviet ambitions. In somecases they even exacerbated the danger ofarmed conflict. And the elaborate plots tosow the seeds of mistrust between the U.S.leadership and intelligence agencies wasdictated by anything but a clear comprehen-sion of how dangerous this kind of con-spiracy had become in the nuclear age.

The legacy of the covert activities un-dertaken by the KGB and CIA at this keyjuncture of the Cold War was ambiguous:besides the function of obtaining and relay-ing objective information to their respectiveleaderships, the two rival intelligence orga-nizations behaved, to borrow Oppenheimer’sclassic description of the nuclear predica-ment, like two scorpions in a bottle, pre-pared to sting each other until death.

The fact that the Cold War in the 1970sand the late 1980s looked more like a “longpeace” appeared to have limited impact onthe mentality of intelligence officials inWashington and Moscow.51 By then, theKGB’s First Directorate concentrated evenmore on technical-scientific espionage,which reflected, on the one hand, a long-standing symbiosis between the Soviet in-telligence services and the military-indus-trial nexus, and, on the other, a distancingfrom “cloak and dagger” covert activities.Vladimir Kryuchkov, later a KGB chief andconspirator in the August 1991 hardline coupattempt, was to a large extent a product ofthis specialization in scientific-technical es-pionage.

The paranoia of Kryuchkov, who to thisday believes that the West was nurturing a“fifth column” to demoralize and subvertSoviet society, as well as that of his CIAcounterpart Angleton, was underpinned and“substantiated” by the shady games andcounter-games in which the two intelligenceservices had engaged all during the ColdWar. The alleged existence of American“agents of influence” inside Soviet societyand even government—a key tenet of

Kryuchkov’s homilies for vigilance—hadbeen, indeed, a matter of pride for the CIAsince the 1970s and can now, to a verylimited extent, even be documented fromU.S. government sources.52

But the paranoia, even when it fed onrealities, remained for the most part a self-deception. The KGB’s methods and pro-clivity for Jesuitical twists of imaginationdistorted the minds of Kryuchkov and manyothers. While the whole atmosphere of theCold War existed, this mind-frame was con-tagious and spread like cancer.

There was always a sound and prag-matic side to intelligence: the collection andanalysis of information. There were failuresand errors in this work, but, in general, therecord shows considerable accuracy and con-sistent objectivity, at least as far as the spe-cific actions and motives were concerned.But the darker side of intelligence activity,linked to the Cold War mentality and ac-tions, always co-existed with the former,sometimes casting a long shadow. The re-sources spent on intelligence operations re-lated to psychological warfare and decep-tion had a dynamic of diminishing returns:the disruption caused by them in the enemy’scamp rarely justified the money and effortsspent on them.

1. [Ed. note: It is clear that the United States enjoyedmassive numerical superiority in strategic nuclear weap-ons over the USSR at the time of the October 1962Cuban Missile Crisis, but the precise ratio of deliver-able nuclear weapons has not been definitely ascer-tained. Several accounts have used a ratio of 17-1, e.g.,Robert S. McNamara, Blundering into Disaster: Sur-viving the First Century of the Nuclear Age (New York:Pantheon, 1986), 44-45. A recent accounting of U.S.and Soviet nuclear arsenals during the Cold War, basedin part on statistics recently declassified by the U.S.Department of Energy, implied a ratio of closer to nine-to-one at the time. It showed that in 1962 the UnitedStates had a total stockpile of 27,100 warheads, includ-ing 3,451 mounted on strategic delivery vehicles, andthe USSR possessed a total stockpile of 3,100 war-heads, including 481 strategic weapons. (Robert S.Norris and William M. Arkin, “Nuclear Notebook:Estimated U.S. and Soviet/Russian Nuclear Stockpiles,1945-94,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 50:6(Nov-Dec. 1994), 58-59.) However, the table did notreflect disparities in strategic delivery vehicles, such asintercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and subma-rine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), whichoverwhelmingly favored the United States.]2. See Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior: James JesusAngleton: The CIA’s Master Spy Hunter (New York:Simon and Schuster, 1991), and David Wise, Mole-Hunt: How the Search for a Phantom Traitor Shatteredthe CIA (New York: Random House, 1992; Avon,1994).3. See Oleg Kalugin with Fen Montaigne, The FirstDirectorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espio-


nage Against the West (New York: St. Martin’s Press,1994); Leonid Shebarshin, Ruka Moskvy [Arm of Mos-cow] (Moscow: Center-100, 1992), and Iz ZhizniNachalnika Razvedki [From the Life of the Head ofIntelligence] (Moscow: International Relations, 1994);and Vadim Kirpichenko, Iz arkhiva razvedchika [Fromthe Archive of an intelligence officer] (Moscow: Inter-national Relations, 1993).4. The author encountered the KGB documents used inthis article while conducting research in Moscow in late1992, for a book on Soviet leaders and the Cold War, inthe Center for the Storage of Contemporary Documen-tation (known by its Russian acronym, TsKhSD, forTsentr Khraneniya Sovremennoi Dokumentatsii), lo-cated at Il’inka 12 in Staraya Ploschad’ (Old Square).This is the archive containing the post-1952 records ofthe CPSU Central Committee. The author was also, atthe time, researching the 1960-62 period for his paperon U.S.-Soviet crises for the Conference on New Evi-dence on Cold War History organized by the Cold WarInternational History Project and held in Moscow inJanuary 1993 in cooperation with TsKhSD and theRussian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of UniversalHistory. At that conference, some of the KGB docu-ments cited in this article were described in a paper(“The Mentality of Soviet Society and the Cold War”)by Russian historian Vitaly S. Lelchuk (Institute ofRussian History, Russian Academy of Sciences), spark-ing a general discussion of the intelligence service’srole in the Kremlin’s handling of the U-2 affair.

Although the KGB archives for this period re-main closed to scholars, with the limited exception of anarrangement with Crown Publishers to publish a seriesof books on selected topics, scholars have been able toconduct research on an increasingly regular basis in thearchives of the CPSU CC (TsKhSD and the RussianCenter for the Storage and Study of Recent Documents(RTsKhIDNI)), the Russian Foreign Ministry (MID)archives, and the State Archive of the Russian Federa-tion (GARF). Moreover, the promulgation of severalRussian laws and regulations mandating a 30-year-rulefor most archival files, including Politburo records,inspires hope that a more thorough analysis ofKhrushchev’s foreign and intelligence policies is be-coming possible. For details on the Russian archivalscene, see Mark Kramer, “Archival Research in Mos-cow: Progress and Pitfalls,” Cold War InternationalHistory Project Bulletin 3 (Fall 1993), 1, 18-39. Formore on the KGB archives, see the report by ArsenyRoginski and Nikita Okhotin, circulated in 1992 andslated for publication as a CWIHP Working Paper;Amy Knight, “The Fate of the KGB Archives,” SlavicReview 52:3 (Fall 1993), 582-6; and Yevgenia Albats,The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold onRussia—Past, Present and Future (New York: Farrar,Straus Giroux, 1994).5. KGB to Nikita Khrushchev, “Report for 1960,” 14February 1961, in CC CPSU Secretariat’s “specialdossier” [osobaya papka], hereafter abbreviated as“St.”, protocol no. 179/42c, 21 March 1961, TsKhSD,fond 4, opis 13, delo 74, ll. [pages] 144-58.6. Ibid., 1.147.7. Ibid.8. Ibid., l. 154.9. KGB to CC CPSU, 10 March 1961, in St.-199/10c,3 October 1961, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13, delo 85, ll.133-142, esp. 141-142.10. KGB to Khrushchev, “Report for 1960,” 14 Febru-ary 1961, cited above.11. The 7 April 1960 directive was cited in KGB to CCCPSU, 10 March 1961, St.-199/10c, 3 October 1961,

TsKhSD, Fond 4, opis 13, delo 85, l. 133. The originaldirective was not located.12. KGB to CC CPSU, 10 March 1961, cited above.13. Ibid., ll. 136-137.14. Mangold, Cold Warrior, 107 ff.15. KGB to CC CPSU, 10 March 1961, cited above, 1.140.16. KGB to Khrushchev, “Report for 1960,” 14 Febru-ary 1961, St. 179/42c, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13, delo 74,1.149.17. KGB to CC CPSU, 10 March 1961, in St.-199/10c,3 October, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13, delo 85, 1.137.18. Ibid.19. Ibid.20. See Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky,KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations fromLenin to Gorbachev (New York: Harper Perennial,1991), 440.21. The above two paragraphs are based on KGB to CCCPSU, 10 March 1961, in St.-199/10c, 3 October 1961-TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13, delo 85, ll. 138-139. [Ed. note:Nelson Rockefeller, a member of the country’s wealthi-est families, Governor of New York State, and briefly acandidate for the Republican presidential nomination in1960, had been a Special Assistant to Eisenhower onCold War psychological warfare strategy; Gen. LaurisNorstad was the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe(SACEUR); A. Dulles headed the CIA and J. EdgarHoover was FBI director.]22. [Ed. note: On the career of Allen W. Dulles, see theprofile in H.W. Brands, Cold Warriors: Eisenhower’sGeneration and American Foreign Policy (New York:Columbia University Press, 1988), 48-68; the new biog-raphy by Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of AllenDulles (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994) and a forth-coming biography by James L. Srodes; and a five-volume internal CIA history of his tenure as Director ofCentral Intelligence: Wayne G. Jackson, Allen WelshDulles As Director of Central Intelligence, 26 February1953 - 29 November 1961, declassified with deletions in1994, copy available from the CIA History Office andon file at the National Security Archive, Washington,D.C.]23. Oleg Kalugin, “Vozhdi Razvedki” [“Chiefs ofIntelligence”], Moscow News 2 (10 January 1993), 9;see also Kalugin, The First Directorate, 93-98. [Ed.note: Orlov defected from the NKVD in 1938 and in1954 published an exposé that undoubtedly infuriatedMoscow: The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes (Lon-don: Jarrolds, 1954). Petrov and Deriabin both defectedin 1954. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB: The InsideStory, 164, 427, 675 n. 9.]24. Shelepin (KGB) to CC CPSU, 26 September 1959,and Serbin to Commission on Military-industrial issues,6 October 1959, both in St. 122/7, 14 October 1959, fond4, opis 13, delo 57, ll. 56-62.25. Shelepin to CC CPSU, 26 September 1959, in ibid.,ll. 60-61.26. See Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday: Eisenhower,Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair (New York: Harper,1986).27. Shelepin to CC CPSU, 7 June 1960, TsKhSD, fond4, opis 13, delo 65, ll. 12-37 in Special Dossier of theSecretariat of the Central Committee 153/30c from14.VI.60 (14 June 1960). The 7 June 1960 KGBdocument’s existence first became public knowledge inJanuary 1993 when it was described by Russian histo-rian Vitaly S. Lelchuk to the CWIHP Conference onNew Evidence on Cold War History; the document wasalso referred to in Vitaly S. Lelchuk and Yefim I.Pivovar, “Mentalitet Sovietskogo Obshchestva i

Kholodnaya Voina” [“The Mentality of Soviet Societyand the Cold War”], Otechestvennaya Istoria [Father-land History] 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1993), 70-71.28. That formula meant that the decision was alreadytaken at the top and an agreement of the rest of theCentral Committee Secretaries was just a mere formal-ity. In other cases, when no clear consensus existed ora leader was not sure himself, he put it to a vote of thePolitburo or the Secretariat.29. Mikhail Suslov, Nikolai Mukhitdinov, and OttoKuusinen were three full members (Secretaries) of theCC CPSU Secretariat.30. This document was sent by the KGB to the Secre-tariat, the technical body of the Central Committee ofthe CPSU, which usually dealt with more routine issuesthan the Politburo.31. [Ed. note: This evidently refers to the Americanwriter Albert E. Kahn (1912-1979), a journalist andauthor sympathetic to socialism who had been black-listed during the McCarthy era and who (after recover-ing his passport, which the government had taken fromhim for several years) spent the first half of 1960 inMoscow working on a book on the Bolshoi ballerinaGalina Ulanova (subsequently published as Days WithUlanova (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962). Con-tacted by CWIHP in Helena, Montana, where he is thestate director of the Montana Nature Conservancy,Kahn’s son Brian Kahn stated that to his knowledge hisfather was never approached to write a publicationridiculing Allen W. Dulles and never did so; and that,while sympathetic to socialism and the USSR, he wouldnot have written anything at the direction of Sovietintelligence. “[My father] would write a pamphlet on apolitical issue that he believed in; but he wouldn’t do itat the request of anybody,” said Brian Kahn. “He wouldnever do it if he were aware that he was being manipu-lated; that he would offend his sense of integrity as awriter.” Brian Kahn said his father once met in theKremlin with Nikita Khrushchev and proposed col-laborating with him on an autobiography, but that theSoviet leader did not pursue the idea, which Kahn laterimplemented with Pablo Casals (Joys and Sorrows(Simon & Schuster, 1970)). Albert Kahn also authored,among other books, Sabotage! The Secret War AgainstAmerica (Little, Brown, 1942), an expose of pro-fascistactivities in the United States; The Great Conspiracy:The Secret War Against the Soviet Union (Little, Brown,1946), an account of Western actions against the USSRhighly sympathetic to Moscow; High Treason (Lear,1950); Smetana and the Beetles (Random House, 1967),a satirical pamphlet about Stalin’s daughter, SvetlanaAlliluyeva; and The Matusow Affair (Moyer Bell Ltd.,1987), a posthumously-published account of aMcCarthy-era case.]32. The KGB in this case wanted to kill two birds withone stone. Fears that Americans could influence a“third world” communist leader were pervasive and notwithout foundation. In 1979 similar fears aboutHafizullah Amin, leader of the Afghan “revolution,”probably helped convince Politburo member YuriAndropov, former KGB chief, of the necessity of Sovietmilitary intervention to “save” this country.33. Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty, the Roman CatholicPrimate, was arrested by the Hungarian communistregime in 1948 and sentenced to life imprisonment ontreason and currency charges in 1949 (reduced to housearrest in 1955). During the Hungarian October revolu-tion of 1956 he was freed, but, after the Soviet interven-tion, the U.S. embassy in Budapest gave him politicalasylum until his death in 1971.34. Shelepin to CC CPSU, 3 November 1960, in St.-


199/10c, 3 October 1961, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13,delo 85, ll. 23-27.35. Shelepin to CC CPSU, 25 February 1961, in ibid.,ll.28-29.36. See memorandum of conversation, “TripartiteMeeting on Berlin and Germany” (D. Rusk, Lord Home,M. Couve de Murville), 5 August 1961, Berlin Crisiscollection, National Security Archive, Washington,DC.37. Lt.-Gen. A. Rogov to Marshal Malinovsky, 24August 1961, TsKhSD, fond 5, opis 30, delo 365, ll.142-153. The texts of preceding reports of the KGBwith parallel intelligence were not available in thearchives.38. Shelepin to Khrushchev, 29 July 1961, in St. - 191/75gc 1 August 1961, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13, delo 81,ll. 130-134, quoted passages on l. 130.39. Handwritten notation on cover letter from Shelepinto Khrushchev, 29 July 1961.40. CC CPSU directive, St.-191/75gc, 1 August 1961,TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13, delo 81, ll. 128-129.41. [Ed. note: U.S. officials had noted with concern thepossibility that Barzani might be useful to Moscow. Inan October 1958 cable to the State Department threemonths after a military coup brought Kassim to power,the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Waldemar J. Gallman,stated that “Communists also have potential for attack[on Iraqi Prime Minister Kassim-ed.] on another pointthrough returned Kurdish leader Mulla Mustafa Barzani.He spent last eleven years in exile in Soviet Union. Hisappeal to majority of Iraqi Kurds is strong and hisability [to] disrupt stability almost endless. Thus webelieve that today greatest potential threat to stabilityand even existence of Qassim’s [Kassim’s] regime liesin hands of Communists.” See Gallman to Departmentof State, 14 October 1958, in U.S. Department of State,Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960,Vol. XII (Washington, DC: Government Printing Of-fice, 1993), 344-46. Barzani’s alleged ties to the KGBare discussed in Pavel Sudoplatov and AnatoliiSudoplatov with Jerrold L. Schecter and Leona P.Schecter, Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an UnwantedWitness—A Soviet Spymaster (Boston: Little, Brown,and Co., 1994), 259-64.]42. Shelepin also proposed an initiative to enticeEgyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, a Third Worldleader avidly courted by both East and West, intothrowing his support behind the Kurds. Shelepin sug-gested informing Nasser “through unofficial channels”that, in the event of a Kurdish victory, Moscow “mighttake a benign look at the integration of the non-Kurdishpart of Iraqi territory with the UAR”—the United ArabRepublic, a short-lived union of Egypt and Syria re-flecting Nasser’s pan-Arab nationalism—“on the con-dition of NASSER’s support for the creation of anindependent Kurdistan.” Shelepin to Khrushchev, 29July 1961, in St.-191/75gc, 1 August 1961, TsKhSD,fond 4, opis 13, delo 81, ll. 131-32. When a Kurdishrebellion indeed broke out in northern Iraq in Septem-ber 1961, the KGB quickly responded with additionalproposals to exploit the situation. KGB Deputy Chair-man Peter Ivashutin proposed—“In accord with thedecision of the CC CPSU...of 1 August 1961 on theimplementation of measures favoring the distraction ofthe attention and forces of the USA and her allies fromWest Berlin, and in view of the armed uprisings of theKurdish tribes that have begun in the North of Iraq”—to: 1) use the KGB to organize pro-Kurdish and anti-Kassim protests in India, Indonesia, Afghanistan,Guinea, and other countries; 2) have the KGB meet withBarzani to urge him to “seize the leadership of the

Kurdish movements in his hands and to lead it along thedemocratic road,” and to advise him to “keep a lowprofile in the course of this activity so that the West didnot have a pretext to blame the USSR in meddling intothe internal affairs of Iraq”; and 3) assign the KGB torecruit and train a “special armed detachment (500-700men)” drawn from Kurds living in the USSR in theevent that Moscow might need to send Barzani “variousmilitary experts (Artillerymen, radio operators, demo-lition squads, etc.)” to support the Kurdish uprising. P.Ivashutin to CC CPSU, 27 September 1961, St.-199/10c, 3 October 1961, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13, delo 85,ll. 1-4. The uprising continued until a group of Ba’athistmilitary officers overthrew Kassim in spring 1963, andof course the Kurdish problem remains unresolvedmore than three decades later. For an overview ofKremlin policy on the Kurdish issue, written before theopening of Soviet archives, see Oles M. Smolandskywith Bettie M. Smolandsky, The USSR and Iraq: TheSoviet Quest for Influence (Durham, N.C.: Duke Uni-versity Press, 1991), 63-98.43. In particular, Shelepin envisioned operations to setablaze a British Air Force fuel depot near Arzberg inWest Germany, and to stage an explosion at a U.S.military-logistics base in Chinon, France. Ibid., 1.133.44. Ibid., ll. 133-134.45. The above five paragraphs are based on Ivashutinand Malinovsky to CC CPSU, 10 November 1961, inSt. 2/35c, 14 November 1961, TsKhSD, fond 14, opis14, delo 1, ll. 10-14.46. Georgi Bolshakov was a GRU officer who actedunder the cover of a press secretary at the SovietEmbassy in Washington in 1961-62. He often met withRobert Kennedy, the President’s brother, deliveringKhrushchev’s personal messages, mostly orally. SeeMichael Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy andKhrushchev, 1960-1963 (New York: HarperCollins,1991).47. See Mangold, Cold Warrior, and Wise, Mole-Hunt,passim.48. Semichastny to Shelepin, 28 July 1962, in St. 33/26c, 31 August 1962, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 14, delo 13,ll. 1-6.49. [Ed. note: Since 1991, CIA directors in the Bushand Clinton administrations have promised to declas-sify records pertaining to covert operations during theearly Cold War, including those relating to the Italianelections (1948), coups in Iran (1953) and Guatemala(1954), the Bay of Pigs (1961), and others. To date,only one recent large-scale declassification of a U.S.covert operation has become known: the release ofdocuments regarding operations in Indonesia againstthe Sukarno government, included in the Foreign Rela-tions of the United States (FRUS) volume for Indonesia,1958-1960, published by the Department of State in1994. (See Jim Mann, “CIA’s Covert IndonesianOperation in the 1950s Acknowledged by U.S.,” LosAngeles Times, 29 October 1994, 5.) Press reportsindicate that government officials have blocked thedeclassification (For publication in FRUS) of docu-ments disclosing two other CIA covert operations fromthis period, one to finance pro-American Japanesepoliticians and the other, during the Kennedy adminis-tration, to overthrow a leftist government in BritishGuyana. See Tim Weiner, “C.I.A. Spent Millions toSupport Japanese Right in 50’s and 60’s,” New YorkTimes, 9 October 1994; Tim Weiner, “A Kennedy-C.I.A. Plot Returns to Haunt Clinton,” New York Times,30 October 1994; and Tim Weiner, “Keeping the Se-crets That Everyone Knows,” New York Times (Week-in-Review section), 30 October 1994.]

50. The OGPU (Obyeddinenoye GosudarstvennoyePoliticheskoye Upravlenie, for Unified State PoliticalDirectorate), successor to the short-lived GPU, lastedfrom 1923 to 1934, when it was converted into theGUGB (Main Administration of State Security) andintegrated into the NKVD (People’s Commissariat forInternal Affairs). The NVKD in 1946 became theMinistry of Internal Affairs (MVD).51. On the mentality of Soviet leaders in the Cold War,see Vladislav M. Zubok and Constantine V. Pleshakov,Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, forthcoming in 1995). Forthe “long peace” thesis, including the argument thatintelligence activities contributed to stability during theCold War, see John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace:Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (New York:Oxford University Press, 1987), 215-45.52. In a December 1976 briefing, CIA representativesinformed the incoming Carter Administration NationalSecurity Council staff officials Zbigniew Brzezinskiand David Aaron of “current Soviet agents and thenature of the materials they provide us with. Brzezinskiand Aaron seemed quite impressed, though Brzezinskiwondered whether such agents could not be used to pulloff a rather massive disinformation operation againstthe U.S. [Bill] Wells [from the CIA] explained why thisis not likely.”

Brzezinski, soon to become Carter’s national se-curity advisor, “said he would like to be briefed in detailon ‘agents of influence’ that belong to us abroad.” Heexplained that “he did not want to be surprised inmeeting with or dealing with foreign VIPs, if in factthose VIPs were our agents of influence.” CIA, Memo-randum for the Record on a meeting with [prospective]National Security Adviser Brzezinski, 30 December1976. The document was declassified by the CIA inJanuary 1994 and is available on file at the NationalSecurity Archive, Washington, D.C.

Vladislav M. Zubok is a visiting scholar at the NationalSecurity Archive in Washington, D.C. He has writtennumerous articles on Cold War and nuclear history,and his book Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, co-authored with Constantine V. Pleshakov, will be pub-lished next year by Harvard University Press.

POLISH MILITARY DOCUMENTS

The Centralne Archiwum Wojskowe(Central Military Archive) in Warsaw intendsto publish during the first half of 1995 acollection of ten key documents, originallyclassified Top Secret, on Polish-Soviet mili-tary cooperation during the years 1950-1957.

The first document (an agreement of 29June 1950) provides for a credit to Poland topurchase Soviet arms and military equipmentduring the years 1951-1957. The last docu-ment (an agreement of 6 April 1957) regardsspecial military-technical supplies to be fur-nished by the Soviet Union to the Polisharmed forces and defense industry during theyears 1957-1960.

Only the main bodies of the texts, nottheir lengthy, detailed appendices, are beingpublished.


New Research on the GDR

by Christian F. Ostermann

The Germans, as the British historianMary Fulbrook recently pointed out, have“peculiarly vitriolic and problematic waysof ‘reckoning with the past.’”1 A case inpoint is the way in which Germans haveconfronted the archival remnants of theGerman Democratic Republic. The firstfour years after the collapse of the GDRwitnessed everything from the destructionand confiscation of historical records, in-cluding police raids on and calls for thecomplete closing of the East German com-munist party (SED) archives, to parliamen-tary investigating committees, to the estab-lishment of new research institutions, and—more recently—to the opening of almost allrecords of the former GDR.2 The followingessay covers some of the more recent devel-opments of interest to Cold War historians.3

The Ministry of State Security Records

Politically, the most controversiallegacy of the SED regime was the records ofthe former Ministry for State Security (MfS/

Stasi), many of them saved by citizens’ groupsfrom being destroyed by Stasi employees inthe GDR’s last days. Extremely sensitive forprivacy and security reasons, the MfS recordswere entrusted by the German UnificationTreaty of 1990 to the Sonderbeauftragte derBundesregierung für die Unterlagen desehemaligen Staatssicherheitsdienstes (Spe-cial Commissioner of the Federal Govern-ment for the Files of the former State Secu-rity Service, usually referred to as the “GauckAgency” after its director, Joachim Gauck).4

In December 1991, access to the recordswas granted on the basis of the “Stasi RecordsLaw” (StUG). The Stasi files are located inthe central archives of the former MfS inBerlin and in various regional (district) ar-chives. According to the StUG, the Stasirecords, encompassing more than 500,000feet of documents, are open to all interestedresearchers. Exemptions exist, however, fordocuments of supranational organizationsand foreign countries and files relating tointelligence gathering, counter-intelligence,


The Soviet Occupation: Moscow’s Man in (East) Berlin

by Norman M. Naimark

The Soviet Military Administration inGermany (SVAG in Russian, SMAD inGerman) ruled the eastern zone of the de-feated and occupied country from June 1945until the creation of the German DemocraticRepublic in the fall of 1949. Given SVAG’simportance to modern German and Soviethistory, it is surprising that there have beenso few scholarly studies of its policies, orga-nization, and actions. Yet when one recallsboth that Soviet and GDR historiographyrefused to recognize that Soviet activities inGermany were determined by an occupa-tion regime and that West German histori-ography, especially between the late 1960sand 1989, was often unwilling to ask hardquestions about the origins and legitimacyof the East German state, the lack of atten-tion to the Soviet Military Administration inGermany is easier to understand. Particu-larly in the West, the reticence of historianswas also reinforced by the paucity of pri-mary sources on SVAG’s activities. WithSoviet and GDR archives closed to research-

ers from both the West and East, there waslittle hope for a breakthrough in the histori-ography of the Soviet presence in Germany.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989and the collapse of the USSR in 1991, histo-rians have begun to come to terms withMoscow’s role in the development of EastGerman communism and the creation of theGDR. But despite the availability of impor-tant new sources in the archives ofthe formerEast German communist party, the SocialistUnity Party (SED), and access to individualswho took part in the building of the EastGerman state, very little progress has beenmade in advancing our understanding of theways in which the Soviet military govern-ment worked. Who determined Soviet poli-cies in the eastern zone of Germany? Howwere decisions reached? Who was respon-sible for implementing policies in Germanyitself? What did Soviet occupation officersthink they were doing in Germany? We haveknown generally what happened in the So-


Germany andNew Evidence from

by Jim

For much of the post-World War II era, from Berlin Wall, a divided Germany loomed as the Cold and most likely flashpoint for World War III. Butfading memory, historians are relishing the chance(and those of its former ally, the former Soviet UnioCold War events and issues that centered on Germ

This past summer, the Cold War Internationaconference on the “The Soviet Union, Germany, anEastern Archives,” to give U.S., German, RussianSoviet and GDR files a forum to debate the significansources. The conference’s first three days, on 28-3in northwestern Germany, supported by the KulturwGermany’s role in such international events as theproposing German reunification, the 1953 East GParticipants then traveled by train to Potsdam for twoGermany (both during the 1945-49 Soviet occupatGDR archives; these meetings were hosted by the(Center for Contemporary Studies, or FSP), an instituhistory. The holding of the conference was also facilProgram (NHP) and the Volkswagen Stiftung.

Throughout the sessions, and as has frequentlyin the former communist bloc, ostensibly “historicathe enduring interest in and controversy over the colegacy for the post-Cold War era. In Essen, th

continued o

GERMANY AND T

STALIN AND THE SED LE“YOU MUST ORGANIZE

Ed. note: One of the most intense controversies“Stalin Note” of 10 March 1952 in which the Soviresolving the division of Germany. In essence, Staliof foreign armies on the condition that the countryStalin’s proposals were seriously advanced in an attor whether they were simply part of a Kremlin propintegrate the Federal Republic of Germany into its

Western governments, including the United Stathe night of 7 April 1952, after his proposal had been delegation of East German communist leaders (Wilhto reassess strategy. Two versions of that conversatGerman archives. They show that Stalin, angry at tcommunists to “organize your own state” on the “daSince the German Democratic Republic (GDR) had and-a-half years earlier, it is unclear whether this inexisting state of affairs, or whether it signified thaGermany on Moscow’s terms, seriously intended o

The excerpt from the Soviet minutes of the convof the President of the Russian Federation (APRF),Narinsky, Deputy Director, Institute of Universal H

continued on


The GDR Oral History Projectby A. James McAdams

In November 1994, the Hoover Institu-tion for War, Revolution, and Peace atStanford University opens a major newarchive, a collection of over 80 oral historiesof leading politicians and policymakers fromthe former German Democratic Republic(GDR).1 The collection has been compiledby the GDR Oral History Project, whose aimwas to record on tape some of the still vividmemories of the former leaders of East Ger-many, so that in 50 or 100 years (the amountof time Socialist Unity Party [SED] generalsecretary Erich Honecker predicted the Ber-lin Wall would last) future students of Ger-man history would have a unique source forassessing the driving motivations of the in-dividuals who once made up the country’sdominant political culture. Of course, noseries of interviews alone can realisticallyrelate the entire history of a state. Neverthe-less, the researchers felt they could preservefor posterity a segment of that experience byinterviewing a select group of individualswho could reasonably be characterized asthe East German political elite.

In particular, the Oral History Projectchose to interview four types of politicallysignificant individuals. The first group in-cluded well-known SED representatives,such as former members of the ruling polit-buro and central committee, like Kurt Hager,Karl Schirdewan, Günther Kleiber, HerbertHäber, Werner Eberlein, Egon Krenz, andGerhard Schürer. The second, broader groupconsisted largely of members of the partyand state apparatus representing a sample ofpolicy implementors from diplomats to de-partment heads from key departments of theSED central committee (such as Agitationand Propaganda and International Affairs)and sections of state ministries (such as theforeign ministry department charged withEast German-Soviet relations). Our thirdgroup of interviewees comprised so-calledpolicymaking intellectuals. This disparategroup, with representatives ranging fromeconomist Jürgen Kuczynski to socialisttheoretician Otto Reinhold, primarily in-cluded individuals who had some tangential


New Evidence on Khrushchev’s 1958 Berlin Ultimatum

Translation and Commentary by Hope M. Harrison

The Berlin Crisis of 1958-1961 has longbeen seen as “Khrushchev’s crisis,” but atlast there is some documentation indicatingthat at least the initiation of the crisis reallywas the Soviet leader’s personal handiwork.Remaining in Berlin after the Cold WarInternational History Project’s conferenceon the “Soviet Union, Germany, and theCold War, 1945-1962: New Evidence fromEastern Archives” in Essen and Potsdam,Germany on 28 June-2 July 1994, I wasfortunate enough1 to be one of the first schol-ars to gain access to the freshly-openedarchives of the former East German Minis-try of Foreign Affairs.2 While working inthis archive, I found in the files of StateSecretary Otto Winzer a document, trans-lated below, written by the East Germanambassador to Moscow, Johannes König,and dated 4 December 1958. In the docu-ment, König summarized information hegleaned from various Soviet Foreign Minis-try officials about the process leading up toSoviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev’s

speech of 10 November 1958 and notes of 27November 1958, which launched the BerlinCrisis.

In Khrushchev’s November 10 speech,at a Soviet-Polish friendship meeting in theSports Palace in Moscow, he asserted thatthe Western powers were using West Berlinas an outpost from which to launch aggres-sive maneuvers against the German Demo-cratic Republic (GDR) and other countriesof the socialist camp, including Poland. Theimpending atomic armament of the FederalRepublic of Germany (FRG), he declared,threatened to further exacerbate this situa-tion. Khrushchev stated that the Westernpowers had broken all quadripartite agree-ments concerning Germany, particularly theagreement for the demilitarization of Ger-many, and that the only part of the PotsdamAgreement the West continued to honor wasthe part stipulating the four-power occupa-tion of Berlin. This situation, in which theWest used West Berlin for aggressive pur-


d the Cold War:m East-bloc Archives

Hershberg

m the Potsdam Conference to the crumbling of thed War’s symbol, greatest prize, covert battleground,t now, with the “German Democratic Republic” ae to explore East Germany’s once-secret archivesion) and thus better understand some of the crucial

many.al History Project (CWIHP) held an internationalnd the Cold War, 1945-1962: New Evidence fromn, and other scholars working in newly-available

ance of the new evidence that is emerging from these30 June 1994, took place at the University of Essenrwissenschaftliches Institut, and featured papers one 1948-49 Berlin Blockade, the 1952 Stalin NotesGerman uprising, and the 1958-62 Berlin Crisis.

wo days of discussions on the internal history of Eastation and the GDR period) and on the status of thee Forschungsschwerpunkt Zeithistorische Studientute created after 1989 to foster scholarship on GDRilitated by generous grants from the Nuclear History

y been the case in CWIHP-sponsored conferencesal” topics generated lively exchanges that reflectedonsequences of communist rule in Germany and itshere was particularly vigorous debate about theon page 49

THE COLD WAR

LEADERSHIP, 7 APRIL 1952:E YOUR OWN STATE”

s in Cold War historiography concerns the famousiet leader gave the Western Powers his terms forlin offered German unification and the withdrawalry remain neutral. Debate continues on whethertempt to reach a general settlement with the West,paganda campaign to hamper the West’s efforts tos military alliance.ates, immediately adopted the latter view. And on

n rebuffed, Stalin met in the Kremlin with a visitinghelm Pieck, Walter Ulbricht, and Otto Grotewohl)tion have now emerged from the Russian and Eastthe West, now firmly instructed the East Germanangerous” frontier dividing Germany and Europe.

d already been formally established more than two-instruction simply reaffirmed an already obvious

hat only now did Stalin understand that unifyingor not, was a non-negotiable proposition.versation printed below was located in the Archive, and translated into English, by Prof. Mikhail M.History, Russian Academy of Sciences:

on page 48


KHRUSHCHEV’S ULTIMATUMcontinued from page 35

poses against the East, could not go on anylonger, he declared, and the situation inBerlin, “the capital of the GDR,” must benormalized.3

In lengthy notes to the Western powerson November 27, Khrushchev elaboratedon what he had in mind to “normalize” thesituation in Berlin. Khrushchev’s proposalswere seen as an ultimatum in the West,especially because they set a six-month dead-line for negotiations. Khrushchev reiter-ated in stronger and more detailed languagewhat he had said on November 10 and thendeclared that he viewed the former agree-ments on Berlin as null and void. He in-sisted that a peace treaty be signed withGermany and that West Berlin be made intoa “free” and demilitarized city. If sufficientprogress on these issues had not beenachieved among the Soviet Union, the UnitedStates, Great Britain, and France within sixmonths, Moscow would sign a separatepeace treaty with the GDR and transfer to itcontrol over the access routes between WestBerlin (which was located 110 miles insideEast German territory) and West Germany.Khrushchev stressed that East Germany wasa sovereign country which deserved to con-trol its own territory. Preliminary talks hadalready been held with the East Germans onthis issue, and as soon as the free-city ofWest Berlin was created, the East Germanswould be ready to sign an agreement guar-anteeing free access into and out of WestBerlin, so long as there was no hostile activ-ity emanating from West Berlin eastwards.4

The Berlin Crisis, initiated byKhrushchev’s ultimatum, continued throughthe building of the Berlin Wall in August1961 and perhaps even through the CubanMissile Crisis of October 1962.Khrushchev’s motivations for starting theBerlin Crisis undoubtedly included the sta-bilization and strengthening of the GDR, aslowing or stopping of the process of thenuclearization of the West GermanBundeswehr, and a recognition by the West-ern powers of the Soviet Union as an equaland of the Soviet gains in Eastern Europeduring and after World War II as legiti-mate.5 Khrushchev’s aggressive tacticsprobably stemmed from a desire to avoidbeing outnumbered as the one socialist powerin four-power negotiations over the Ger-many and Berlin questions. As he wrote to

West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauerduring the crisis, four-power talks on Ger-man reunification would “leave this questionto be decided by a group of states wherecapitalist states have three voices, and thesocialists have only one. But what wouldyou say if it was proposed to submit thequestion of German reunification for deci-sion by a group of states of a different com-position, for example, composed of Poland,Czechoslovakia, China, and the Soviet Union.You, of course, would not be enthralled withthis proposal, since you would know for surethat these states would support the socialistdevelopment of all of Germany.”6

Khrushchev must have hoped that opening adiplomatic offensive against the West wouldgive him added leverage in four-power poli-cies on Germany.

The following document discloses thatKhrushchev dictated several pages of guide-lines for officials in the Third EuropeanDepartment (responsible for Germany) ofthe Soviet Foreign Ministry to follow informulating the November 27 ultimatum.He also met with several of these officials onNovember 19 to discuss his ideas in detail. Itseems that one of these ideas of Khrushchev’swas that of creating a “free-city” in WestBerlin. (The record of his 1 December 1958eight-hour conversation with visiting Sen.Hubert Humphrey also notes that Khrushchev“said he had given many months of thoughtto [the] Berlin situation and had finally comeup with his proposal of a so-called free city.”7)The document authored by König is the onlyone I have seen from an archive in Moscowor Berlin which points to the direct involve-ment in formulating a specific policy by aspecific leader. Unfortunately, I did not findaccompanying documents in the archivescontaining the actual dictated notesKhrushchev gave to the Foreign Ministryofficials or records from the November 19meeting he had with these officials. Clearly,it would be particularly revealing to havethese documents.

The document below not only confirmsKhrushchev’s central role in formulating theultimatum, but also the role of the ForeignMinistry’s Third European Department sinceat least 6 November 1958. Several times,König notes that officials of the Third Euro-pean Department were apprised of and deeplyinvolved in the preparations. If officials inthe Third European Department had advanceknowledge of critical parts of Khrushchev’s

November 10 speech, the information givento Raymond Garthoff by Sergo Mikoian(son of then-Presidium member AnastasMikoian) that “the speech had not beendiscussed and cleared with the other Sovietleaders” is probably erroneous.8

The document also illuminates the bu-reaucratic workings of the East German side.While the East German leaders had beendiscussing ideas about a “special note” to theWestern powers since September,9 the EastGerman leaders in Berlin told their ForeignMinistry officials, especially officials at theembassy in Moscow, very little, if anything,about this or much else, it seems. Thisobviously hampered the work of ForeignMinistry officials.10

Finally, the document indicates severaltimes that the Soviets were careful to pro-ceed gradually and cautiously in implement-ing the threats contained in the ultimatum soas to gauge the Western reaction. This istypical of Khrushchev. His diplomacy of1958-1962 showed that he liked to push theWest “to the brink,” but that just before thebrink, he would wait to see what the Westwould do and would generally adjust hispolicies accordingly. The Soviet emphasisseen in this document on acting graduallyand continually monitoring the West’s reac-tion would be repeated in the plans for build-ing the Berlin Wall in 1961.11

* * * * *Secret

Comments on the Preparation of the Steps of theSoviet Government Concerning a Change in theStatus of West Berlin

On the preparation of these actions (thecomposition of Comrade Khrushchev’s speechof 10 November and the notes of the Sovietgovernment to the governments of the three West-ern powers, the GDR and the Bonn government),in which the [Soviet] MID [ MinisterstvoInostrannykh Del, Ministry of Foreign Affairs]and especially its Third European Departmentplayed a critical part. Already several days be-fore Comrade Khrushchev’s appearance on 10November 1958 on the occasion of the Soviet-Polish friendship meeting, comrades from theMID let it drop on 6 November that ComradeKhrushchev’s speech of 10 November wouldbring “something new” with regard to the Ger-man question. The Soviet comrades would not,however, hint a word about the substance of the“news.”

On 10 November, a few hours before Com-rade Khrushchev’s appearance, I was still in the


[Soviet] Foreign Ministry and had a conversationwith Comrade [Ivan I.] Il’ichev, the head of theThird European Department. He also commented,when I turned the conversation to the insufficientcoverage of the GDR election campaign [for the16 November 1958 Volkskammer (parliament)and local government elections] by the Sovietpress, that Comrade Khrushchev’s speech wouldcontain important statements with regard to theGerman question. He told me nothing about whatit would deal with. It was, however, obvious thatthe comrades of the Third European Departmentwere informed excellently about the contents ofComrade Khrushchev’s speech.

After the speech was held and had calledforth the well-known echo in Bonn and the capi-tals of the three Western powers,12 the entireThird European Department of the MID wasoccupied exclusively with preparing the nextsteps. I think that I am not mistaken in theassumption that ideas about concrete steps devel-oped gradually at first and perhaps were subjectto certain changes.

We know from information from comradesof the Third European Department that the entireDepartment was occupied for days with studyingall agreements, arrangements, protocols, etc.,which were concluded or made between the oc-cupying powers with regard to West Berlin since1945 so as to prepare arguments for shatteringassertions made by Bonn and the governments ofthe Western powers and so as to make from these[i.e., old agreements, etc.—H.H.] concrete pro-posals for the next steps for carrying out themeasures announced in Comrade Khrushchev’sspeech.

The MID was essentially finished with thiswork on 19 November 1958.13 According toinformation from Soviet comrades, the work onthe comprehensive document was finished onthis day and the document was submitted to theCouncil of Ministers for ratification. On thisoccasion, we learned that this document wassupposed to comprise about 20 pages and wassupposed to be presented to the three WesternPowers, the GDR and West Germany soon. Thus,at this time we did not yet learn that there were 3different documents.14

The Soviet comrades who gave us this newsfor “personal information” emphasized that theyprobably would not be telling us anything new,since “Berlin is informed and surely the samepractice must exist with us as on the Soviet side,namely that the ambassador concerned abso-lutely must be informed about such issues regu-larly.”

This comment: “You have of course alreadybeen informed by Berlin” was made to me a fewother times so as to make clear that we should notexpect official information on the part of the local[i.e, Moscow] MID.

In the conversation we conducted with therelevant Soviet comrades, it was said that a com-

prehensive argumentation was provided in theplanned document for establishing the repeal ofthe agreements concerning Berlin (of September1944, May 1945, and the Bolz-Zorin15 exchangeof letters [of September 1955]) and that thesefunctions would be transferred to the competenceof the GDR. With this it was already mentionedthat it is planned to hold official negotiations withthe GDR on this. At the same time a hint wasmade that the Soviet Union would probably notbe averse if it should prove to be expedient andnecessary also to speak with the Western powersabout this issue.

In the negotiations with the GDR, the issueof the transfer or the taking over of the relevantfunctions will be discussed. The key question inthis is when, i.e., at which point in time and howthe whole thing should be carried out. Ourleading comrades, with whom consultations havetaken place, also expressed the view that in thisone must not place too much haste on the day, butmust go forward gradually, step by step.16

In this conversation the Soviet comrade inquestion thought [very realistically, as it turnedout—H.H.] that the Berlin issue would remain atthe center of attention for at least one year if noteven longer. On this issue hard conflicts with theWestern powers will arise.17

To my comment: “The Western powers willnot want to conduct a war for the sake of Berlin”followed the answer: “Our Presidium proceedsfrom the same assumption.” My comment thatultimately the issue would come to a crisis for theWest as a prestige issue and that therefore in myopinion everything must be done so as to facili-tate retreat for the Western powers on this issuewas acknowledged as correct.

In this connection it was noted by the Sovietcomrade that the issue of great significance iswhat should happen with West Berlin after aneventual withdrawal of the Western troops. Thisissue plays a large role in the considerations of theSoviet comrades.

Thus, in this conversation, the issue of thetransformation of West Berlin into a free city wasnot yet dealt with.

It was emphasized that in this connectionpublic opinion is also of great significance. Onecannot resolve this issue if one has not preparedthe basis for this within the population. A correctargumentation vis-à-vis the population so as towin them over for the planned steps is thus ofgreat importance.

In this connection, it was also mentionedthat Comrade Khrushchev personally gave ex-traordinarily great attention to the preparation ofthe new steps regarding the Berlin question. Hepersonally participated in the preparation of thedocuments. He submitted to the comrades of theThird European Department his thoughts on theentire problem on several type-written pageswhich he had personally dictated and asked thecomrades to observe this point of view in the

composition of the documents and the determina-tion of particular measures.

Comrade Khrushchev personally receivedon 19 November for a discussion several respon-sible officials of the Third European Departmentof the MID who were occupied with the Berlinissue and spoke with them in great detail aboutthe entire problem.

The first mention that the Soviet proposalswould include the demilitarization and neutral-ization of West Berlin was made to me by Com-rade Il’ichev on 22 November when I sought himout on another matter. He again emphasized thathe wanted to give me “exclusively for my per-sonal information” several hints about the con-tents of the planned documents. In this connec-tion he mentioned that it was planned to proposegiving West Berlin the status of a free city.

Comrade Il’ichev emphasized on this occa-sion that the Soviet side was ready to negotiatewith the three Western powers on the Berlinquestion, but only on the basis of the enforcementof the Potsdam Agreement in West Germany,[including] for example, demilitarization,denazification, decartellization, repeal of the pro-hibition of the KPD [Kommunistische ParteiDeutschlands], etc.

Concerning further actions regarding Ber-lin, Comrade Il’ichev also emphasized that thesewould proceed step by step.

To my question as to whether the planneddocuments would be given to all nations whichtook place in the war against Germany, ComradeIl’ichev answered that they would be given onlyto the three Western powers as well as to Berlinand Bonn. To my question as to whether thedelivery would occur in Moscow or Berlin andBonn, Comrade Il’ichev answered, “probably inBerlin.”

After the delivery of the documents, theywill wait 2-3 weeks so as to digest the reaction ofthe other side and then take a new step.18

Regarding the negotiations with the GDR orthe transfer to the GDR of the functions which arestill being exercised by the Soviet side, this willalso probably proceed gradually.

I asked Comrade Il’ichev again about thecontents of the talks between [Soviet Ambassa-dor to West Germany Andrei] Smirnov and [WestGerman Chancellor Konrad] Adenauer. Com-rade Il’ichev confirmed that Smirnov had soughtthis talk. He once again merely explained thepoint of view which was expressed in ComradeKhrushchev’s speech of 10 November 1958.Regarding this, Adenauer responded that he couldnot understand Soviet foreign policy. Preciselynow when the first signs of a détente were notice-able at the Geneva negotiations,19 the Sovietgovernment would create new tension with itsstatement concerning Berlin.

An explanation of why Smirnov conductedthis conversation at all in view of the fact that theSoviet government stands by the point of view


that Berlin is a matter which does not concernWest Germany but is a matter of the GDR wasnot given to me by Comrade Il’ichev.20

Since the publication of the document to theGDR, the 3 Western powers, and West Germanyon 27 November 1958, we have not had anotheropportunity to speak with Soviet comrades aboutthese questions.

From the above remarks, in my view onecan without doubt draw the conclusion that theSoviet comrades already have firm views aboutthe execution of the measures proposed in thedocuments mentioned.21 This applies especiallyin regard to the concrete steps concerning thetransfer of the functions still exercised by theSoviet side in Berlin and on the transit routesbetween West Germany and Berlin.

The concrete steps and forms for the execu-tion of the other measures in regard to WestBerlin [presumably meaning the free-city pro-posal—H.H.] will probably not remain uninflu-enced by the statements and responses by theWestern powers and by developments withinWest Berlin itself.

As far as the entire problem is concerned,immediately after Comrade Khrushchev’s speechof 10 November 1958 I remembered the conver-sation which took place at the end of 1957 inBerlin on the occasion of the negotiations for thesettlement of issues which were still open [inSoviet-East German relations—H.H.] and inwhich Deputy Foreign Minister Zorin and then-Ambassador Pushkin from the Soviet side andDeputy Ministers Comrade Winzer and Com-rade Schwab as well as Ambassador König tookpart.22 As is known, Ambassador Pushkin al-ready expressed the view then in the course ofthis free and open discussion that it is not impos-sible to resolve the Berlin question already be-fore the resolution of the German question.23

Moscow, 4 December 1958König

* * * * * *(Source: Political Archive of the Foreign Minis-try. Files of: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ofthe German Democratic Republic. Files of: theState Secretary. A17723)

1. Due to a tip from Doug Selvage, a Ph.D. student inhistory at Yale University, who is conducting exten-sive research in Polish and German archives for hisdissertation on Polish-German relations, 1956-70.2. For access to these archives, interested scholarsmust receive permission from the German ForeignMinistry: Dr. Hans Jochen Pretsch, Auswärtiges Amt,Referat 117, Adenauerallee 99-103, 53113 Bonn, BRD;tel.: 011-49-228-17-21 61; fax: 011-49-228-17-34 02.A letter of introduction sent to the German ForeignMinistry by the U.S. Embassy in Bonn may also benecessary. Once the German Foreign Ministry in Bonngrants permission, the contact information for theMfAA archives in Berlin is: Archiv der DienststelleBerlin des Auswärtigen Amts, Postfach 61 01 87,

10922 Berlin, BRD; tel.: 011-49-3020186-229; fax:011-49-30-20186-169. The person I dealt with there isHerr Gaier. When going in person to the reading roomof the MfAA archives, the address is Hinter demGiesshaus 1-2, 10177 Berlin. The reading room is openMonday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and sits six schol-ars at a time. There is a lot of demand now to use thearchive, so scholars must reserve space far in advance.There are no finding aids; scholars must rely on archi-vists to locate relevant documents.3. For a translation of most of Khrushchev’s speech, seeGeorge D. Embree, ed., The Soviet Union and theGerman Question, September 1958-June 1961 (TheHague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963), 14-20.4. For the English text of the Soviet note to the UnitedStates, see Embree, ed., The Soviet Union and theGerman Question, 23-40.5. For more on Khrushchev’s motivations in starting thecrisis, see Hope M. Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Con-crete ‘Rose’: New Archival Evidence on the Dynamicsof Soviet-East German Relations and the Berlin Crisis,1958-1961,” Cold War International History ProjectWorking Paper No. 5 (Washington, D.C.: WoodrowWilson International Center for Scholars, May 1993), 8-18; and Vladislav M. Zubok, “Khrushchev and theBerlin Crisis (1958-1962),” Cold War InternationalHistory Project Working Paper No. 6 (Washington,D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Schol-ars, May 1993).6. Khrushchev’s note to Adenauer on 18 August 1959,Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Russkoi Federatsii (AVP RF)[Archives of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation],Referentura po FRG (file group on the FRG), Opis (list)4, Portfel’ (portfolio) 9, Papka (file) 22.7. “Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union tothe Department of State,” Moscow, 3 December 1958,2:00 p.m., from Ambassador [Llewellyn] Thompson,Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, vol.VIII, Berlin Crisis 1958-1959 (Washington, D.C.: UnitedStates Government Printing Office, 1993), 149. ValentinFalin, then at the Department of Information of theCentral Committee of the Communist Party of theSoviet Union, has also stated that the free-city idea wasKhrushchev’s. Valentin Falin, Politische Erinnerungen(Munich: Droemer Knaur, 1993), 225, 336, cited inVladislav M. Zubok, “Khrushchev’s Motives and So-viet Diplomacy in the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1962,” paperprepared for conference, “Soviet Union, Germany, andthe Cold War, 1945-1962: New Evidence from EasternArchives,” Essen, Germany 28-30 June 1994, pp. 11,13.8. Raymond L. Garthoff, “Assessing the Adversary.Estimates by the Eisenhower Administration of SovietIntentions and Capabilities,” Brookings OccasionalPaper (Brookings Institution: Washington, D.C., 1991),n.98.9. On high-level Soviet-East German talks leading up tothe ultimatum, see Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete‘Rose,’” 18-20.10. On this lack of communication and the resultingfrustration of East German Foreign Ministry officials,see the letter from König to Winzer on 5 December1958, MfAA, Staatssekretär, A17723; and“Stenografische Niederschrift der Botschafterkonferenzim Grossen Sitzungssaal des ‘Hauses der Einheit’ am 1./2. Febuar 1956” (“Stenographic Protocol of the Ambas-sadors’ Conference in the Large Meeting Hall of the‘House of Unity” on 1-2 February 1956”), StiftungArchive der Parteien und Massenorganisationen imBundesarchiv, Zentrales Parteiarchiv [of the SED](SAPMO-BArch, ZPA) [Foundation of the Archives ofthe Parties and Mass Organizations in the Federal

Archive, Central Party Archive], J IV 2/201-429.11. Commenting on the process of building the wall ina letter to Ulbricht on 30 October 1961, Khrushchevpraised the decision of the 3-5 August 1961 WarsawPact meeting “to carry out the various measures gradu-ally” so as “not to come to serious complications.”SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, NL 182/1206.12. [Generally the Western powers declared that theSoviets did not have the right to change the situation inBerlin unilaterally and asserted that the Soviets wereobliged to safeguard the communications routes be-tween West Berlin and West Germany for the Westernpowers. At a news conference on 26 November 1958,however, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dullesperhaps opened a window for Soviet strategy by addingthat the United States might be prepared to treat EastGerman border officials as agents of the Soviet Union,although not as representatives of a sovereign state ofEast Germany. “News Conference Remarks by Secre-tary of State Dulles Reasserting the ‘Explicit Obliga-tion’ of the Soviet Union to Assure ‘Normal Access toand Egress From Berlin,’ November 26, 1958,” U.S.State Department, ed., Documents on Germany, 1944-1985 (Washington, D.C.: Department of State Publica-tion 9446), 546-52.—H.H.]13. [According to another document I have seen, twodays prior to this date, on November 17, Pervukhin“informed [Ulbricht] about the proposed measures ofthe Soviet government regarding the four-power statusof Berlin.” “Zapis’ besedy s tovarishchem V.Ul’brikhtom 17.11.58g” (“Memorandum of Conversa-tion with Comrade W. Ulbricht 17.11.58”), from thediary of M.G. Pervukhin on 24 November 1958, TsentrKhraneniia Sovremennoi Dokumentatsii (TsKhSD) [theCenter for the Preservation of Contemporary Docu-mentation—the post-1952 Central Committee Ar-chives], Rolik (microfilm reel) 8873, Fond 5, Opis 49,Delo (file) 77. Thus, either one of these dates is wrong,or Pervukhin was extremely confident that the “pro-posed measures” would be ratified by the Council ofMinisters.—H.H.]14. [It is not entirely clear what the three differentdocuments were. This may refer to the somewhatdifferent notes sent to the United States, Great Britain,and France, but there were also notes sent to bothGerman governments, making five different docu-ments.—H.H.]15. [East German Foreign Minister Lothar Bolz andSoviet Foreign Minister V.A. Zorin appended to the“Treaty on Relations between the German DemocraticRepublic and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”of 20 September 1955 an exchange of letters detailingrights of control over inter-German and inter-Berlinborders and the communications routes between Berlinand West Germany. See Ministerium für AuswärtigeAngelegenheiten der DDR und Ministerium fürAuswärtige Angelegenheiten der UdSSR, ed.,Beziehungen DDR-UdSSR, Vol. 2 (Berlin: Staatsverlagder Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1975), 996-8.—H.H.]16. [See “Zapis’ besedy s tovarishchem V. Ul’brikhtom17.11.58g” (“Record of Meeting with Comrade W.Ulbricht on 17 November 1958”), from the diary ofM.G. Pervukhin on 24 November 1958, TsKhSD, Rolik8873, Fond 5, Opis 49, Delo 77, in which Ulbricht toldSoviet Ambassador Mikhail Pervukhin: “Regardingconcrete steps towards implementing the Sovietgovernment’s proposals for transferring to GDR organsthe control functions which have been carried out bySoviet organs in Berlin, . . . perhaps we should not hurrywith this, since this would give us the opportunity to


keep the adversary under pressure for a certain period oftime.” Ulbricht’s justification for going slowly aside,this is a rare instance in which the East German leaderwas not pushing the Soviets to move faster on giving uptheir control functions in Berlin to the GDR.—H.H.]17. [It may be that the Soviet official in question herehad some reason to believe that Khrushchev’s declaredintention of transferring Soviet control functions inBerlin to the GDR was more of a threat to get theWestern powers to the bargaining table than a seriousintention. While it proved very useful as a threat,Khrushchev knew that carrying it out in practice wouldmean relinquishing some Soviet control over the situa-tion in Berlin to the GDR. As the crisis progressed,Khrushchev came to the conclusion, no doubt based inlarge part on Ulbricht’s obvious attempts to wrestcontrol from him and further exacerbate the situation inBerlin, that he did not want to do this. See the argumentmade in Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose’,”and idem., “The Dynamics of Soviet-East GermanRelations and the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1961,” paperpresented to the 35th Annual Convention of the Interna-tional Studies Association, Washington, D.C., 28 March-1 April 1994.—H.H.]18. [The next step was taken on 10 January 1959, whenthe Soviets submitted a draft German peace treatyaccompanied by a note to the three Western powers andsent copies of these to all of the countries that had foughtagainst Germany in World War II, as well as to bothGerman states. For the text of the note to the UnitedStates and the draft treaty, see Documents on Germany,585-607.—H.H.]19. [The reference is to the disarmament negotiationswhich began in Geneva on 31 October 1958 betweenthe United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.The negotiations ultimately resulted in a treaty on thepartial banning of nuclear testing which was signed bythe three powers in Moscow on 5 August 1963. Onthese negotiations, see Christer Jönsson, Soviet Bar-gaining Behavior. The Nuclear Test Ban Case (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1979).—H.H.]20. [The East Germans were often frustrated at Sovietattempts to maintain or improve relations with the WestGermans. The Soviets were always walking a finediplomatic line of trying to maintain good relations witheach part of Germany while not overly alienating theother part in the process. While Khrushchev’s primeconcern was the support, protection, and strengtheningof the GDR, he also had economic, military, and politi-cal reasons for maintaining good relations with theFRG.—H.H.]21. [Presumably, this refers to the Soviet intention tomove forward slowly and cautiously with the transfer ofsome Soviet responsibilities in Berlin to the GDR.—H.H.]22. [It is possible that König is actually referring to ameeting that took place on 12 December 1956 (asopposed to 1957) in which several remaining “openissues” in Soviet-East German relations were discussed.See König’s account of the meeting, “Bericht über eineUnterredung mit stellvertr. Aussenminister, Gen. Sorin”(“Report on a Conversation with Deputy Foreign Min-istry Comrade Zorin”), 14 December 1956, SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, NL 90/472.—H.H.]23. [Pushkin was not the only leading Soviet or EastGerman official who believed that the Berlin issuecould (and perhaps should) be resolved before theresolution of the entire German question. The nextSoviet Ambassador to East Germany after Pushkin,Mikhail Pervukhin, also believed this, as did Sovietcounselor Oleg Selianinov and Peter Florin, the head of

the International Department of the SED Central Com-mittee. See “O polozhenii v Zapadnom Berline” (“Onthe Situation in West Berlin), 24 February 1958, reportwritten by two diplomats at the Soviet embassy in theGDR, O. Selianinov, counselor, and A. Kazennov,second secretary, TsKhSD, Rolik 8875, Fond 5, Opis49, Delo 82; and “Zapis’ besedy s zav. mezhdunarodnymotdelom TsK SEPG P. Florinom” (“Record of Conver-sation with the Head of the International Department ofthe SED CC P. Florin), 12 May 1958, from Selianinov’sdiary, 16 May 1958, TsKhSD, Rolik 8873, Fond 5, Opis49, Delo 76. Both are cited in Harrison, “Ulbricht andthe Concrete ‘Rose,’” 5-6. Considering how this docu-ment concludes, it is ironic that as the crisis actuallyprogressed, it was the East German leadership far morethan the Soviet leadership that wanted to resolve theBerlin question separately from and before a generalGerman settlement.—H.H.]

The author is a Lecturer in the Department of Politicsat Brandeis University and a Fellow at the RussianResearch Center at Harvard University. She com-pleted her Ph.D. in Political Science at ColumbiaUniversity. After spending an extended period of timein Moscow and Berlin using the then-newly openedarchives of the former Soviet Foreign Ministry andCPSU Central Committee and of the former East Ger-man Socialist Unity Party (SED) and secret police(Stasi), she completed her dissertation, The BargainingPower of Weaker Allies in Bipolarity and Crisis: TheDynamics of Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961 (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms Interna-tional, 1994). She is currently revising her dissertationfor book publication.

GDR RESEARCHcontinued from page 34

terrorism, and secret West German records.All administrative, policy, and personalrecords are available in principle, some how-ever only in a sanitized form (e.g., namedeletions under the privacy exemption).

Due to the files’ sensitivity and time-consuming preparatory screening efforts in-volved, as well as the massive demand—1.8million private research applications regis-tered as of mid-1993—research at the GauckAgency requires researchers to plan wellahead (currently the waiting time is oneyear). Applications for scholarly researchwill only be accepted if they deal broadlywith MfS history. More than 1,200 aca-demic and 1,500 media research applica-tions have been received so far.

The agency’s “Education and ResearchDepartment,” established in 1993 with astaff of 83 and charged with facilitatingresearch, is also engaged in research projectsof its own, covering subjects central to MfShistory such as “The MfS and the SED,”“The Anatomy of the MfS” (eventually to bepublished as an MfS “handbook”), “TheSociology and Psychology of the ‘InformalInformants,’” and “The Potential and Struc-ture of Opposition in the GDR.” Severaluseful reference and historical works havebeen published, such as “Measure ‘Donau’and Operation ‘Recovery’: The Crushing ofthe Prague Spring 1968/69 as Reflected inthe Stasi Records” (Series B, No. 1/94). TheGauck Agency held a conference on “TheMfS Records and Contemporary History,”in March 1994, and plans a symposium on“The MfS and the Churches” for early 1995.5

Coming to Terms with the Historyand Legacy of the SED-Dictatorship

In an effort to expand beyond the nar-row public focus on the Stasi records, theGerman Parliament (Bundestag) decided tocreate a parliamentary committee for re-search on the history of the SED dictatorship(Enquete-Kommission “Aufarbeitung vonGeschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur inDeutschland,” [Study Commission “Com-ing to Terms with the History and Legacy ofthe SED-Dictatorship in Germany”]). Fol-lowing a parliamentary initiative of the So-cial Democratic Party (SPD) in February1992,6 the Bundestag established the EnqueteKommission in its 82nd session on 12 March

CWIHP Fellowships

The Cold War International History Projectoffers a limited number of fellowships to juniorscholars from the former Communist bloc toconduct from three months to one year of archivalresearch in the United States on topics related tothe history of the Cold War. Recipients are basedat the Institute for European, Russian, and Eur-asian Studies at George Washington Universityin Washington, D.C. Applicants should submit aCV, a statement of proposed research, a letter ofnomination, and three letters of recommenda-tion; writing samples (particularly in English) arewelcomed, though not required. Applicantsshould have a working ability in English. Prefer-ence will be given to scholars who have notpreviously had an opportunity to do research inthe United States.

For the 1994-95 academic year, CWIHPawarded fellowships to Milada Polisenska, In-stitute of International Studies, Prague (fourmonths); Victor Gobarev, Institute of MilitaryHistory, Moscow (four months); and SergeiKudryashov, History Editor of “Rodina” and“Istochnik”, Moscow (four months).

Send applications to: Jim Hershberg, Director,Cold War International History Project, WoodrowWilson International Center for Scholars, 1000Jefferson Drive, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20560,fax (202) 357-4439.


Similarly, the role of the former “bourgeois”political parties in the GDR, the LiberalDemocratic Party (LDPD) and the ChristianDemocratic Union (CDU), proved to behighly controversial. The report containsexcellent sections on the East German resis-tance movement, the MfS, and the earlyhistory of the GDR. In its final section, thereport gives a brief survey of the Germany-related holdings of various Russian archivesas well as criteria for the use of the SED andMfS records.

Of the 148 expert studies to be publishedalong with the hearings in 1995, the mostinteresting for Cold War historians includethe following (only short title given): WarDamages and Reparations (L. Baar/W.Matschke); Deutschlandpolitik of the SPD/FDP Coalition 1969-1982 (W. Bleek); Stateand Party Rule in the GDR (G. Brunner);War Damage and Reparations (Ch.Buchheim); Political Upheaval in EasternEurope and Its Significance for the Opposi-tion Movement in the GDR (G. Dalos); Onthe Use of the MfS Records (R. Engelmann);“Special Camps” of the Soviet OccupationPower, 1945-1950 (G. Finn); The Wall Syn-drome—Impact of the Wall on the GDRPopulation (H.-J. Fischbeck); Germany asan Object of Allied Policy, 1941-1949 (A.Fischer/M. Rissmann); Reports of the SovietHigh Commission in Germany 1953/1954:Documents from the Archives for ForeignPolicy of the Russian Federation (J. Foitzik);German Question and the Germans: Atti-tudes Among East German Youth (P. Förster);International Framework ofDeutschlandpolitik, 1949-1955 (H. Graml);Deutschlandpolitik of the SPD/FDP Coali-tion, 1969-1982 (J. Hacker); Case Study: 9November 1989 (H.-H. Hertle); The Self-Representation of the GDR in InternationalHuman Rights Organizations (K. Ipsen);Deutschlandpolitik of the CDU/CSU/FDPCoalition, 1982-1989 (W. Jäger);Deutschlandpolitik of the Adenauer Gov-ernments (C. Kleßmann); Opposition in theGDR, From the Honecker Era to the PolishRevolution 1980/81 (C. Kleßmann); WestGerman Political Parties and the GDR Oppo-sition (W. Knabe); Patriotism and NationalIdentity among East Germans (A. Köhler);NVA [the East German New People’s Army],1956-1990 (P.J. Lapp); Deutschland-politikof the Erhard Government and the GreatCoalition (W. Link); International Condi-tions of Deutschland-politik, 1961-1989 (W.

Loth); The Berlin Problem—the Berlin Cri-sis 1958-1961/62 (D. Mahncke); Coopera-tion between MfS and KGB (B. Marquardt);Political Upheaval in Eastern Europe and ItsSignificance for the Opposition Movementin the GDR (L. Mehlhorn); Alternative Cul-ture and State Security, 1976-1989 (K.Michael); Deutschlandpolitik of theAdenauer Governments (R. Morsey); West-ern Policy of the SED (H.-P. Müller); TheRole of the Bloc Parties (Ch. Nehrig); Oppo-sition Within the SED (W. Otto); Establish-ment of the GDR as a “Core Area of Ger-many” and the All-German Claims of KPDand SED (M. Overesch); Role and Signifi-cance of the Bloc Parties (G. Papcke); the“National” Policy of the KPD/SED (W.Pfeiler); Deutschlandpolitik of the CDU/CSU/FDP Coalition, 1982-1989 (H.Potthoff); Transformation of the Party Sys-tem 1945-1950 (M. Richter); Role and Sig-nificance of the Bloc Parties (M. Richter);Deutschlandpolitik of the SED (K.H.Schmidt); The Integration of the GDR intoCOMECON (A. Schüler); Influence of theSED on West German Political Parties (J.Staadt); Opposition within the LDPD (S.Suckut); Operation “Recovery”: The Crush-ing of the Prague Spring as Reflected in theMfS Records (M. Tantscher); The RoundTable and the Deposing of the SED: Impedi-ments on the Way to Free Elections (U.Thaysen); On the Function of Marxism-Leninism (H. Weber/L. Lange); The Ger-man Question: Continuity and Changes inWest German Public Opinion, 1945/49-1990(W. Weidenfeld). While the expert studiesare officially not yet available, transcripts ofthe hearings can be obtained from theBundestag.13

Stiftung Archiv der Parteien undMassenorganisationen der DDR im

Bundesarchiv

Next to the Stasi files, the records of theSozialistiche Einheitspartei Deutschlands(SED), comprising over 26,000 ft. of docu-ments, as well as the records of formerCommunist front organizations such as theFree German Youth (FDJ), the DemocraticWomen’s League (DFB), the CulturalLeague, the National Democratic Party(NDPD), the Foundation for Soviet-GermanFriendship, and the Free German Union Fed-eration (FDGB), constitute the most impor-tant sources for the history of the GDR.

1992.7 The committee, headed by RainerEppelmann of the ruling Christian Demo-cratic Party (CDU), consisted of parliamentmembers and historians (among them BerndFaulenbach, Alexander Fischer, KarlWilhelm Fricke, Hans Adolf Jacobsen,Hermann Weber, and Manfred Wilke). Ac-cording to a motion passed by the Bundestagon 20 May 1992, the committee was to“make contributions to the political-histori-cal analysis and political-moral evaluation”of the SED-dictatorship.8

This was to include, in particular: (1)the structures, strategies, and instruments ofthe SED-dictatorship (e.g., the relationshipof SED and state, the structure of the statesecurity organs, the role of the “bourgeoisbloc parties,” and the militarization of EastGerman society); (2) the significance ofideology and integrating factors such asMarxism-Leninism and anti-fascism (as wellas the role of education, literature, and thearts); (3) human rights violations, acts andmechanisms of repression, and the possibil-ity for further restitution of victims; (4) thevariety and potential of resistance and oppo-sition movements; (5) the role of thechurches; (6) the impact of the internationalsystem and in particular of Soviet policy inGermany; (7) the impact of the FRG-GDRrelationship (e.g. Deutschlandpolitik, inner-German relations, influence of West Ger-man media on the GDR, and activities of theGDR in West Germany); and (8) the signifi-cance of historical continuity in Germanpolitical culture in the twentieth century.9

In over 27 months, the committee orga-nized 44 public hearings with more than 327historians and eyewitnesses and contracted148 expert studies, producing a massivecollection altogether of over 15,000 pagesof material on the SED-dictatorship.10 On17 June 1994, the committee presented afinal report of over 300 pages which sumsup some of the findings, reflecting politi-cally controversial issues through “minor-ity votes.”11 While the committee’s mainfocus, as reflected in the report, was theSED apparatus, the Ministry for State Secu-rity, and political persecution and repres-sion, much of the committee’s work becameheavily politicized, as the ensuing parlia-mentary debate over the validity and suc-cess of the various brands of“Deutschlandpolitik” (Konrad Adenauer’s“policy of strength” vs. Willy Brandt’s“policy of small steps”) demonstrated.12


These records are now in the custody of anindependent foundation within the FederalArchives system, the Stiftung “Archiv derParteien und Massenorganisationen[SAPMO] der DDR im Bundesarchiv,” cre-ated in April 1992 and fully established inJanuary 1993 according to an amendment tothe Federal Archives Law.14

Thus, in contrast, to the 1991-1992 pe-riod—when the SED records were by andlarge still in the hands of the successororganization to the SED empire, the Party ofDemocratic Socialism (PDS), and located inthe Central Party Archives in the former“Institute for Marxism-Leninism” (IML)—full access to the SED papers has now beenassured with the establishment of the foun-dation and its integration into the FederalArchives. Even the internal archive of theSED politburo is now accessible to research-ers. There are few restrictions on the use ofthe records, primarily those pertaining toprivacy exemptions. The Stiftung also housesthe huge holdings of the former IML librarywith its massive collection on internationaland German communism, international andGerman workers’ movements, and GDRhistory.15 The records of the former “bour-geois” political parties in the GDR, the Lib-eral Democratic Party (LDPD) and the Chris-tian Democratic Union (CDU), were takenover by the FDP-sponsored Archiv desDeutschen Liberalismus in Gummersbachand the Archiv für Christlich-DemokratischePolitik (affiliated with the CDU) in St.Augustin, respectively. Unclear as of now isthe fate of the files of the West GermanCommunist Party (KPD), currently in thecustody of the party leadership and not ac-cessible for research.16

Bundesarchiv, Abt. Potsdam

Consistent with its traditional task ascustodian of all central/federal German gov-ernment records, the Bundesarchiv was en-trusted with records of the former GDRgovernment. Since access to governmentrecords, according to the German ArchivalLaw, is granted on the basis of the 30-yearsrule, GDR government records are availablefor the 1949-1963 period at theBundesarchiv’s Potsdam branch, the formerCentral German Archives of the DeutschesReich.17 Since the corresponding SEDrecords (technically considered private ratherthan state) are open through 1989-90, East

German records differ considerably in theirdegree of accessibility.

Ministerium für AuswärtigeAngelegenheiten

The disparity in the treatment of recordsaccording to whether they are officially cat-egorized as state or private crucially affectedthe fate of the records of the former EastGerman foreign ministry (MfAA). In con-trast to the “open door” policy which gov-erned most SED records, the FRG ForeignMinistry, traditionally conservative in de-classifying records, until recently refused toallow access to the MfAA files which it hadseized upon unification. Political sensitivityon the part of the FDP-dominated foreignministry, rather than the need for meticulousreview and organization as the foreign min-istry claimed, explained the steadfast refusalof the Auswärtiges Amt (AA) to release theMfAA records, many scholars believe.However, due to parliamentary and publicpressure, the AA has now opened its ar-chives to researchers. As of August 1994,MfAA records for the period up to 1963 (30-years rule) are accessible,18 although priorapplication for research is required.19

The New Institutional Landscape

One of the new institutional experi-ments on the German research scene is the“Forschungsschwerpunkt ZeithistorischeStudien” (FSP)—Center for ContemporaryStudies—of the Förderungsgesellschaft fürwissenschaftliche Neuvorhaben, an affili-ate organization of the Max Planck Founda-tion.20 Funded by the Federal Governmentfor a transitional period (until 1995), at leastinitially, the institute, under the directorshipof Jürgen Kocka and Christoph Klessmann,has evolved into one of the leading centersfor GDR history. Research at the FSP fo-cuses on the history of the GDR “in a broadcontext and in comparative perspective,”emphasizing an understanding of East Ger-man history as “part of long-term historicalprocesses” and thus reaching back to the late19th and early 20th century. Rooted in thepeculiar German tradition of independentresearch institutes, the institute’s uniquecharacter derives from the fact that its fel-lows, for the most part East Germans, comefrom different political backgrounds, thusincluding ex-SED members as well as dissi-

dents. The institute stresses an interdiscipli-nary approach to GDR history and thereforeis comprised not only of historians but econo-mists, political scientists, and cultural ana-lysts as well as Germanists. With a growingnumber of Western Germans, the institute isa rare experiment in bridging the East-Westgap and expediting the professional reha-bilitation of scholars from the ex-GDR. In-terestingly, the scientific discourse at theFSP has usually not split along the East-West faultline. Criticism of the institute’spersonnel policy—and especially the inclu-sion of politically-compromised membersof the former East German academic elite—has been voiced by Armin Mitter and StefanWolle of the Independent Historians Leagueand is partly responsible for the founding ofthe Potsdam Office of the Munich-basedInstitute for Contemporary History.21 Cur-rent FSP research projects include industrialproblems in the GDR (J. Roesler, B. Ciesla);the legacy of Nazism and the tradition ofresistance in East and West Germany (J.Danyel, O. Groehler); SED Deutsch-landpolitik (M. Lemke); the SED’s conceptof a “Socialist nation GDR” (J. Reuter);reparations and Soviet policy towards Ger-many (J. Laufer); SED history (M. Kaiser);socialization and youth under the SED dic-tatorship (L. Ansorg, S. Häder, J. Petzold);agrarian reform and collectivization inMecklenburg-Vorpommern 1945-1960 (A.Bauernkämper); the SED’s policy towardsJews (M. Keßler); the social history of thePeople’s Police (T. Lindenberger); bureau-cracy and parties in the GDR (M. Kaiser, F.Dietze); and dissident traditions in the GDRand Poland (H. Fehr). In June 1993, the FSPmade its debut with a symposium on “TheGDR as History,” followed in October 1993by a conference on “The Divided Past: ThePost-War Treatment of National Socialismand Resistance in the Two German States.”Along with Essen University, the FSP co-hosted the June 28-July 2 conference on“New Evidence from the Eastern Archives.The Soviet Union, Germany and the ColdWar, 1945-1962,” sponsored by the ColdWar International History Project. The FSP’sfellowship program is open to foreign re-searchers.22

The Mannheimer Zentrum fürEuropäische Sozialforschung (MannheimCenter for European Social Research), Sec-tion “GDR” (Director: Hermann Weber),the leading research institution for the his-


tory of the GDR in Western Germany, orga-nized an international symposium in Febru-ary 1992 on “White Spots in the History ofthe World Communism: Stalinist Purgesand Terror in the European Communist Par-ties since the 1930s.”23 In 1993, theMannheim Center edited a systematic list-ing of current research projects pertaining toGDR history. Published by the DeutscherBundestag as “Forschungsprojekte zurDDR-Geschichte” in 1994, it lists 759 suchprojects, 51 of which fall into the categories“The German Question,” GDR foreign rela-tions, and GDR military history.24 Research-ers interested in registering their projectshould contact the Mannheim Center. TheCenter’s main current project is a six-vol-ume history of the GDR, 1945-1990, basedon the new sources. In 1993, the institutestarted publishing “Jahrbuch für HistorischeKommunismus-forschung” [Yearbook forHistorical Research on Communism] and iscontinuing a document collection on “Op-position and Resistance in the GDR.” Otherprojects include a history of the FDJ, 1945-1965 (U. Maehlert); a history of theDeutschlandpolitik of the bloc parties; and astudy of the role of anti-fascism in the earlyyears of the GDR.25

Another organization on the GDR re-search scene is the ForschungsverbundSED-Staat26 at the Free University of Ber-lin, a research association established in1992 under the energetic guidance ofManfred Wilke and Klaus Schroeder. TheForschungsverbund was a deliberate effortto break with the prevailing tradition ofWestern research on the GDR, a traditionwhich had come to de-emphasize the funda-mental difference in political values in favorof a reductionist understanding of the East-West German rivalry as the competition oftwo models of modern industrial societyboth determined by technological processes.In contrast, the Forschungsverbund concen-trates its research on the SED’s totalitarianrule. Current projects deal with the estab-lishment of the SED (M. Wilke); the rela-tionship of the SED and MfS (M.Görtemaker); the central SED apparatusand the establishment and stabilization ofthe GDR dictatorship (K. Schroeder, M.Wilke); the SED’s realtionship with thechurches (M. Wilke); Communist sciencepolicy in Berlin after 1945 (B. Rabehl, J.Staadt); the SED and August 21, 1968 (M.Wilke); the Deutschlandpolitik of the SED

(K. Schroeder, M. Wilke); opposition withinthe GDR since the 1980s (K. Schroeder); anda number of aspects of GDR industrial devel-opment. Most recently, the Forschungs-verbund published a documentary collectionon the plans of the Moscow-based KPDleadership27 and a collection of essays on“The History and Transformation of the SEDState.”28 The association is preparing majoreditions of the SED’s role in the 1968 CzechCrisis as well as in 1980-81 Polish Crisis andon the “crisis summits” of the Warsaw Pact.At the Federal Institute for Russian, EastEuropean and International Studies(BIOst) in Cologne, a federally-funded re-search institute, F. Oldenburg is engaged ina larger study on Soviet-GDR relations in the1980s, and G. Wettig is researching Sovietpolicy in Germany in the late 1940s and early1950s as well as the Soviet role during thecollapse of the GDR.29 The Archiv desdeutschen Liberalismus of the FriedrichNaumann Foundation in Gummersbach hascompleted a research project on the historyof the LDPD 1945-1952, and in December1993 hosted a colloquium on “BourgeoisParties in the GDR, 1945-1953.” Apart fromthe records of the (West) German Free Demo-cratic Party (FDP), the archives now housesthe records of the former LDPD, accessiblefor the years 1945-1990. The institute grantsdissertation fellowships.30

1. Mary Fulbrook, “New Historikerstreit, Missed Op-portunity or New Beginning,” German History 12:2(1994), 203.2. Hope M. Harrison, “Inside the SED Archives: AResearcher’s Diary,” Cold War International HistoryProject Bulletin 2 (Fall 1992), 20-21, 28-32.3. For the development prior to 1993 see Axel Frohn,“Archives in the New German Länder,” in Cold WarInternational History Project Bulletin 2 (Fall 1992), 20-21, 25-27, and Notes by Stephen Connors, ibid., 27.4. Klaus-Dietmar Henke, “Zur Nutzung und Auswertungder Stasi-Akten,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte41:4 (1993), 575-87.5. For the MfS archives, contact Der Bundesbeauftragtefür die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes derehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik,Projektgruppe Wissenschaft und Medien, Postfach 218,10106 Berlin, FRG, tel.: 30-2313-7895; fax: 30-23137800; for publications and conferences, contactAbteilung Bildung und Forschung, tel.: 30-2313-7801,fax: 30-2313-7800.6. Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 12/2152.7. Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 12/2230.8. Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 12/2597.9. Ibid.10. A list of the minutes of the hearings (Protokolle) canbe obtained from Deutscher Bundestag, Enquete-Kommission “Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgender SED-Diktatur in Deutschland, Sekretariat, Peter-Hensen-Str. 1-3, 53175 Bonn.

11. The report can be obtained by writing to DeutscherBundestag, Referat Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, Bundeshaus,53113 Bonn, FRG; tel.: 228-165287/88; fax: 228-167506.12. For the final debate on the committee report, seeDeutscher Bundestag, Stenographischer Bericht, 234thSession, 17 June 1994.13. For publication information contact the DeutscherBundestag, Referat Öffentlichkeitsarbeit.14. Hermann Weber, “Die aktuelle Situation in denArchiven für die Erforschung der DDR-Geschichte,”Deutschland Archiv 7 (1994), 690-93.15. SAPMO, Wilhelm-Pieck-Str. 1, 10119 Berlin,FRG, tel.: 30-4426837.16. Weber, “Die aktuelle Situation,” 692.17. Bundesarchiv, Abt. Potsdam, Tizianstr. 13, 14467Potsdam, FRG, tel.: 331-314331.18. Author’s correspondence with the AuswärtigesAmt, 3 August 1994 and 15 August 1994.19. The archives are open Mondays through Fridays8:30 am to 12.30 pm. To apply for permission to use theMfAA files and for information on the further proce-dure contact Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts,Postfach 1148, 53001 Bonn, FRG; tel.: 228-172161;Fax: 228-173402.20. The following based on Förderungsgeesellschaftfür wissenschaftliche Neuvorhaben, ed.,Tätigkeitsbericht 1993 der geisteswissenschaftlichenForschungsschwerpunkte (Munich: FGWN, 1994), andFulbrook, “New Historikerstreit,” 203-207.21. Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Außenstelle Potsdam,Baracke, c/o Bundesarchiv, Abt. Potsdam, Tizianstr.13, 14467 Potsdam, FRG, tel.: 331-314331.22. Further information on the institute can be obtainedfrom Forschungsschwerpunkt Zeithistorische Studien,Förderungsgesellschaft wissenschaftliche NeuvorhabenmbH, Am Kanal 4/4a, 14467 Potsdam, FRG, tel.: 331-2800512; fax: 331-2800516.23. The proceedings were published in 1993: HerrmannWeber and Dietrich Staritz, eds., Kommunisten verfolgenKommunisten [Communists Persecute Communists](Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993).24. The booklet can be obtained at no charge from theEnquete-Kommission (for address see above).25. For information contact Mannheimer Zentrum fürEuropäische Sozialforschung, Universität Mannheim,Arbeitsbereich IV: DDR-Geschichte, Postfach, 68131Mannheim, FRG, tel.: 621-2928592; fax: 621-2928435;e-mail: [email protected]. Freie Universität Berlin, Forschungsverbund SED-Staat, Ihnestr. 53, 14195 Berlin, FRG, tel.: 30-8382091;fax: 30-8385141.27. Peter Erler, Horst Laude, Manfred Wilke, eds.,“Nach Hitler kommen wir,” Dokumente zurProgrammatik der Moskauer KPD-Führung 1944/45für Nachkriegsdeutschland (Berlin: Akademie Verlag,1994).28. Edited by Klaus Schroeder (Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1994).29. BIOst, Lindenbornstr 22, 50823 Köln, FRG, tel.:221 5747129; fax: 221 5747 110.30. Archiv des Deutschen Liberalismus, Theodor-Heuss-Str. 25, 51645 Gummersbach, FRG, tel.: 2261-3002 170, fax: 2261-3002 21.

Christian F. Ostermann (University of Hamburg), win-ner of the 1994 Stull Holt Dissertation Fellowship of theSociety for Historians of American Foreign Relations,is currently engaged in a study of U.S. policy towardsthe East Germany, 1945-1989.


their own conclusions about the honesty andsincerity of each interview. Occasionally,we detected moments of outright dishon-esty. Sometimes our interviewees simplyrefused to talk about embarrassing momentsin their lives (e.g., association with the Stasi).There was also a recurring tendency foryounger individuals, or those lowest on theold hierarchy, to portray themselves as some-thing they were not before 1989—such ascloset reformists or enthusiastic Gorbachevsupporters. There were also frequent lapsesof memory; some older interviewees re-membered the “anti-fascist struggles” of thelate 1920s with absolute clarity, but couldnot recall the 1950s at all.

These sorts of problems afflict all oralhistories. Yet, there were many momentswhen we could not help but be struck by thecandor of our interviewees. Many showed asurprising readiness to talk about issues thatwe expected to be embarrassing to them.The best example of this was the BerlinWall, which they nearly always defended inanimated terms. From the first days of theinterview project, there was also a tellingrecognition among the leading representa-tives of the SED elite that they had lost thebattle with the West and that they werebeginning to accept this reality. Thus, therewas none of the crazed rambling and denialthat one found in previously published inter-views with Erich Honecker. Among severalinterviewees, there was even a notable re-spect for their former opponents, such as theEast German dissident Bärbel Bohley, andthe late West German Green Petra Kelly.Undoubtedly, there were many points whereone wanted more self-criticism from ourdiscussion partners. Yet, some of our inter-viewers wondered whether this same qualitywould have been available from comparablepoliticians in the West. As one easternGerman interviewer reflected: “Any politi-cal elite has to confront issues involvingmoral integrity in the daily course of itsactivities, and each individual must makehis peace with truth as he can.”

Our second preconception was that wecould use such interviews to uncover newfacts about the GDR. No doubt, anyonelistening to the hundreds of hours of tapes inthis collection will encounter a number ofinteresting facts about distinct events in theEast German past (for example, about themysterious death of planning minister ErichApel in 1965, about the lack of East German

GDR ORAL HISTORYcontinued from page 35

relationship to policymaking; we particu-larly emphasized former members of SEDpolicy institutes, such as the Academy ofSocial Sciences and the Institute of Politicsand Economics. Finally, as the Oral HistoryProject grew, we decided to develop a fourthgroup of interviewees in order to cast lightupon the transition from the GDR to unifiedGermany. This category was drawn fromformer dissidents who became politicians,including such wide-ranging personalitiesas Markus Meckel, Lothar de Maiziere, JensReich, and Wolfgang Ullmann.

From the outset, the project’s organiz-ers were confronted with a question that alloral historians face: how to find an appropri-ate balance between the competing norms of“richness” and “rigor.” Rigor involves thekind of rigidly-structured interviews thatlend themselves to social scientific generali-zation and even quantification; richness, incontrast, favors the unique political and per-sonal story of each individual to be inter-viewed. On the side of rigor, we provided allof our interviewers with a concrete set ofcore questions to guarantee that the inter-views would not be entirely random. Nearlyall those interviewed were asked previouslyformulated questions about their family back-ground and social class, particular path topolitical engagement, views on the Germannational question, perceptions of the outsideworld, and personal experience withpolicymaking in the GDR.

Yet, if we leaned in any particular direc-tion in developing the project, it was in favorof richness. Clearly, we did not have theresources to interview the number of repre-sentatives of the GDR elite that would havebeen required for quantitative social-sci-ence analysis. We also found that it was bestto tailor many of our questions to the indi-viduals’ own experiences, since we weredealing with very different sorts of people,with diverse backgrounds and perspectives.Some, for example, had worked closely withmajor figures like Walter Ulbricht; othershad been uniquely positioned to understandmajor events, such as the 1968 invasion ofCzechoslovakia. We did not want any ofthese memories, however idiosyncratic, tobe lost to future historians. Finally, webelieved that after the formal questions wereposed, it was crucial to let our discussionpartners speak for themselves about what

mattered most in their lives. Sometimesthey took the interviews in directions that wecould not have anticipated.

Not surprisingly, we initially approachedour interviews with certain guiding precon-ceptions about how our discussions mightprogress and what we might discover. Asthe Oral History Project developed, some ofthese assumptions were borne out; but pro-vocatively, others were not. In every case,however, our successes and failures turnedout to be enormously revealing about thenature of the project itself and about EastGerman history.

Our first preconception was that wemight have a hard time getting some of themost senior SED officials to talk openlyabout their past. This concern turned out tobe unfounded; in the majority of cases, theyseemed to speak freely about their experi-ences, particularly when we assured themthat we were not interested in “sensationalistjournalism.” With only a few exceptions—primarily, those facing criminal prosecu-tion—it was quite easy to gain access tothese former leaders, even to individualswho had granted no other interviews towesterners. We had an unexpected advan-tage: for the most part, we were Americans,indeed Americans from the well-knownHoover Institution. In the perception ofmany of our interviewees, we were worthyvictors. Many were actually thrilled to wel-come representatives of the “class enemy”into their living rooms, provided that wewould not turn over their interviews to oneof the “boulevard newspapers,” like theBildzeitung. Three eastern German socialscientists also conducted interviews for us.They had the advantage of knowing how tospeak the “language” of their former lead-ers. On balance, our main advantage seemedto be that no members of the Oral HistoryProject came from former West Germany,which was still regarded by our intervieweeswith suspicion.

In retrospect, the readiness of these in-dividuals to speak with us should probablynot have been so surprising. After all, bydepositing their thoughts in a major archive,we were assuring them that we were takingtheir experiences seriously, preserving theirviews for posterity, and perhaps even help-ing them to believe that their lives had notbeen lived in vain. This is no minor consid-eration in view of what happened to theGDR. Naturally, future scholars must reach


and all other expressions of political activitytook place on a highly informal and person-alized basis. Even the SED politburo had thecharacter of a rubber stamp; to the extent thatthere were differences among its members—and these did exist on some questions—theywere only expressed on a private basis overthe lunch table at the ruling body’s Tuesdaymeetings. It is striking that even those whomight have been considered personal croniesof SED General Secretary Erich Honeckerdid not feel that they controlled very much.They, too, felt like cogs in the socialist wheel.

In contrast to this image of a faceless,even amorphous policymaking culture, therewas also provocative agreement in many ofthe interviews that politics in the GDR hadnot always been so uniform and that it hadchanged over time, particularly since the1950s. Those individuals who were politi-cally active in East Germany’s first decadewere practically unanimous in conveying animage of policymaking during that periodthat is conspicuously more collegial thananything later experienced in the GDR.Among them, there was a consensus thatEast Germany’s first leader, Walter Ulbricht,was only a primus inter pares in the early1950s, and that those around him could anddid oppose his views on a regular basis.These findings seem to concur with the writ-ten records in the SED archives.

Finally, we came closest to meeting ourfourth preconception: that we could recordour interviewees’ views on the great issuesand great debates of the GDR past. In thiscase, we were listening to people’s memo-ries of their perceptions, regardless of howwell they knew the details of an issue. Theycould say what was important to them, andwhat was not. Many spoke passionatelyabout matters that had once been life or deathquestions for their country. This was, aboveall, true of the long-disputed German na-tional question. In contrast to some Westernscholarship which has held the GDR’s na-tional policy to be little more than a tacticaldiversion, all of the interviews conveyed astrong sense that, at least until the early1960s, if not later, the SED leadership genu-inely believed that it was offering a validGerman path to socialism. Ulbricht emergesas practically obsessed with the issue, andmuch of his downfall in 1970-1971 can beexplained in terms of this obsession.

Similarly, the Oral History Project of-fers a very nuanced perspective of the com-

plex relations that existed between the GDRand its superpower ally, the USSR. It willnot surprise anyone to hear that some differ-ences existed between East Berlin and Mos-cow. But future scholars may be impressedby the extent of these differences, as re-corded in the interviews, and by how farback they reach in East German history (e.g.,in Ulbricht’s efforts to push through theeconomic reforms of the New EconomicSystem in the 1960s, despite manifest Sovietopposition). Additionally, the Oral HistoryProject affords a unique perspective on theEast German-Soviet conflict that emergedin the 1980s with the rise of Gorbachev’sreformist leadership. StandardKremlinological approaches to the study ofcommunist leadership might lead one toexpect the GDR politburo to have been di-vided into factions of “Gorbachev oppo-nents” and “Gorbachev supporters,” withcomparable divisions existing within theSoviet leadership over policy to the GDR.But aside from a few slight exceptions, wewere surprised to find almost no evidence offactional divisions over the GDR’s relation-ship with Moscow.

Of all of the great issues of the EastGerman past, the interviews offer perhapsthe clearest picture of the evolution of EastBerlin’s relations with the Federal Republicof Germany. They depict an exceptionallyclose relationship between the two Germanstates, in fact, one which defies all assertionsthat the essence of West German policy wasto hold the German question open for somefuture resolution. With German reunifica-tion now an accepted fact, future scholarsmay be intrigued to hear, from the easternGerman perspective, how seriously Bonntook the GDR’s leaders and how much ofWest German policy was predicated uponthe assumption that the Berlin Wall wouldremain in place for “50 or even 100 years.”

In sum, while the GDR Oral HistoryProject does not presume to offer a completeor unbiased perspective on East Germany’shistory, we believe it is a valuable source ofinformation and interpretations for futurescholars to use as they seek to make sense ofthe GDR’s past. We are not aware of anycomparable, publicly accessible projects onthe GDR’s history, particularly in Germanyitself, although much smaller interview col-lections on the history of inter-German rela-tions in the 1960s and the roots of the EastGerman revolution of 1989 are being as-

involvement in the invasion of Czechoslo-vakia in 1968, and about the banning of theSoviet publication Sputnik in 1988). More-over, the interviews also serve to underminemany of the stereotypes that scholars havecultivated about some of East Germany’sbest-known politicians; sometimes the “goodguys” turn out to be not so good in therecollections of their former associates, andthe “bad guys” not nearly so bad.

Yet, one of our most interesting find-ings is how little most policymakers, in-cluding many members of the SED elite,actually knew about some of the most im-portant events and controversies of the EastGerman past. We feel that this says a lotabout the nature of politics in the GDR. Thisreally was a system which kept all politi-cally significant facts restricted to very fewpeople. We discovered that even at polit-buro meetings, leaders discussed very littleof substance. The most important decisionswere frequently made by two or three indi-viduals walking in the woods on a weekend.In these instances, expertise rarely played amajor role.

Even if we did not acquire the fullstories about some of the events in the GDRpast that interested us most, the opportunityto discuss such issues as the construction ofthe Berlin Wall or the SED’s opposition toGorbachev was unique. Indeed, future schol-ars may find that these interviews provide anatural complement to the mountains ofwritten documents that have recently be-come available to us in such collections asthe SED Central Party Archives in Berlin.For in the latter case, we have huge newreservoirs of historical facts, but frequentlylack the personal perspectives necessary tointerpret them.

A third preconception was that wewould learn much more about policymakingprocesses in the GDR. This turned out to betrue, although not for the reasons we envi-sioned. Initially, we thought that by inter-viewing individuals at different levels of theSED’s decision-making apparatus, we wouldbe able to construct a rough flow chart ofauthority, showing how decisions movedupward, downward, or outward in a com-plex hierarchy. Not only did we neverencounter such structures, but we receivedconstant affirmation that, by the 1980s, nowell-established hierarchies existed at all.As we have already suggested, absolutepower was concentrated in very few hands,


sembled. Nor do we know of any similarefforts to capture the memories of compa-rable political elites in other East Europeanstates, although the Hoover Institution isnow beginning a similar interview projecton the old Soviet elite. Therefore, we hopethat the Oral History Project will inspireresearchers seeking to lay the foundationsfor future scholarship on countries as di-verse as Poland, Romania, Hungary, and theformer Czechoslovakia.

Once the GDR Oral History Project isformally opened in November 1994, all in-terviews in the collection will be equallyaccessible to interested scholars, providedthat interviewees have not previously re-quested copyright restrictions on the use ofthe material. For further information on thecollection, contact:

Dr. Elena DanielsonHoover Institution for War, Revolution, and PeaceStanford UniversityStanford, CA 94305-6010Phone: 415-723-3428; Fax: 415-723-1687E-mail: [email protected]

Prof. A. James McAdamsHelen Kellogg Institute for International StudiesUniversity of Notre DameNotre Dame, IN 46556Phone: 219-631-7119; Fax: 219-631-6717E-mail: [email protected]

1. The GDR Oral History Project was initiated in 1990by Professor A. James McAdams of the Helen KelloggInstitute for International Studies at the University ofNotre Dame. It was made possible largely through thefinancial assistance of the National Council for Sovietand East European Research. Other supporters in-cluded the Center for German Studies at the Universityof California, Berkeley, and the John Foster DullesProgram in Leadership Studies at Princeton University.The Hoover Institution is currently supporting the tran-scription of all of the interviews in the collection. TheGDR Oral History Project would not have been pos-sible without the generous assistance of a number ofexperts on the history of the GDR. Aside from A. JamesMcAdams, interviewers for the project included Tho-mas Banchoff, Heinrich Bortfeldt, Catherine Epstein,Dan Hamilton, Gerd Kaiser, Jeffrey Kopstein, OlgaSandler, Matthew Siena, John Torpey, and KlausZechmeister. Elena Danielson of the Hoover Archivesplayed a central role in the project, cataloguing all of theinterviews and arranging for their transcription.

A. James McAdams is Associate Professor of Govern-ment and International Relations at the Helen KelloggInstitute for International Studies at the University ofNotre Dame and the author of Germany Divided: Fromthe Wall to Reunification (Princeton University Press,1993).

SOVIET OCCUPATIONcontinued from page 34

viet zone, but have been unable to documenthow and why these events occurred.

The career of Lieutenant Colonel (laterMajor General) S. I. Tiul’panov is central toany analysis of Soviet decisionmaking in theeastern zone. Tiul’panov was in charge ofthe Propaganda (later Information) Admin-istration of SVAG, and he dominated thepolitical life of the Soviet zone as no otherRussian (or for that matter East German)figure. One can argue about the extent of hispower and the reasons why he was able toexert so much influence on the course ofevents. But there can be little question thathis machinations can be detected behindvirtually every major political developmentin the zone. A clear understanding ofTiul’panov’s responsibilities and activitieswould go a long way towards elucidating thedynamics of Soviet influence in Germany inthe early postwar years.

The partial opening of the Russian ar-chives over the past three years has madepossible a much more reliable rendition ofTiul’panov’s work in the eastern zone. Inparticular, the former Central Party archivesin Moscow, now called the Russian StorageCenter for the Preservation of Contempo-rary Documents (RTsKhIDNI), which con-tain the records of the CPSU Central Com-mittee through 1952, contain important com-munications between Tiul’panov and hisCentral Committee bosses. We learn fromthese communications that Tiul’panov wasunder constant investigation by his superi-ors in Moscow and that his goals and meth-ods of work were repeatedly questioned byparty officials. His reports and those of hissuperiors make it possible to tear down themonolithic facade presented to the outsideworld (and to the Germans) by Soviet Mili-tary Headquarters in Karlshorst. Historianshave known that Tiul’panov fell into disfa-vor in the late summer of 1949 and that hewas removed from his position shortly be-fore the creation of the GDR in October. Butthey have been able only to speculate aboutthe reasons why this happened. With theopening of the Central Committee archivesand the willingness of the Tiul’panov familyto turn over documents related to S. I.Tiul’panov’s career to Russian historians,the puzzle associated with Tiul’panov’s re-moval can also be solved.

The following excerpts have been trans-

lated from a recent collection of documentson Tiul’panov and SVAG, published inMoscow and edited by Bernd Bonwetsch,Gennadii Bordiugov and Norman Naimark:SVAG: Upravlenie propagandy (informatsii)i S. I. Tiul’panov 1945-1949: Sbornikdokumentov [SVAG: The Propaganda (In-formation) Administration and S. I.Tiul’panov 1945-1949: A Document Col-lection] (Moscow: “Rossiia Molodaia,”1994), 255 pp. The collection comprisesprimarily materials from RTsKhIDNI, fond17, opis’ 128, but also contains several docu-ments from other opisy and from theTiul’panov family archive. The translatedexcerpts from the first document printedbelow provide a glimpse into Tiul’panov’sunderstanding of his political tasks in the fallof 1946. Here, Tiul’panov provides a frankassessment of the parties and personalitiesimportant to furthering the Soviet cause inGermany. The second document is a trans-lation of the 17 September 1949 report rec-ommending his removal and detailing thetrumped-up charges against him. As best weknow, Tiul’panov was recalled from Berlinto Moscow at the end of September, shortlybefore the GDR’s official creation.

I would like to thank Andrei Ustinov forhis help with the translation from the Rus-sian. As a rambling stenographic report, thetranslation of the first document requiredconsiderable editing.

Document I: From S. Tiul’panov’s Report atthe Meeting of the Commission of the CentralCommittee of the CPSU (b) to Evaluate theActivities of the Propaganda Administration ofSVAG — Stenographic Report, September 16,1946

. . . What is the situation in the party itselftoday?

— I believe that in no way should even theSED’s victory in the district elections be overes-timated. There are a number of obvious majorshortcomings that threaten the worker, Marxist,and pro-Soviet nature of the SED, which it strivedto attain at the outset and remain important in itswork [today].

Most importantly, since the unification [ofthe Communist Party of Germany (KPD) andSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) inthe SED in April 1946] there has been a notice-able decline in party work within the SED itself.There is a marked political passivity among theformer members of the SPD, which will long befelt among members of the SED. The SocialDemocrats still feel frustrated by the attitudes ofour apparat; the commandants have treated them


ism among some former Communists. This sec-tarianism is expressed in conversations, whichare held in private apartments and sometimesduring the course of [party] meetings. [They say]that we [Communists] have forfeited our revolu-tionary positions, that we alone would have suc-ceeded much better had there been no SED, andthat the Social Democrats are not to be trusted.Here is an example for you: once one of myinstructors came and said: “I am a Communist, soit’s not even worth talking to him [a SocialDemocrat], you can tell him by sight.” These arethe words of the Secretary of the most powerfulorganization [in Berlin] and this kind of attitudeis cultivated by [Hermann] Matern. This is not tomention [Waldemar] Schmidt, who has gone sofar as to invent the existence of a spy apparatusamong Communists [allegedly] to inform onSocial Democrats [in the SED]. This is over now,but serious problems remain.

At the moment, it is hard to evaluate thestrength of sectarianism among the [former] Com-munists, but one could estimate that in the Berlinorganization approximately 10 percent [of themembers] are so discontented that they are readyto join another group in order to break off with theSED. The problem is less serious in other re-gions. From the point of view of the Communists[in the SED] the party is considered to be moresolid [than among former Social Democrats].But there is the danger that these Social Demo-crats hold key positions, and their group hasmuch more power. It is impossible to evaluate thephenomenon of sectarianism in a simple manner,because, at the same time, the right wing [theSocial Democrats] dreams of the day when it willbe able to drop out of the SED. [They] haveestablished contacts with the Zehlendorf [SPD]organization (we even have names) and with the[Western] Allies.

Nothing is simple. The same [Otto]Buchwitz, who completely supported the unifi-cation, supervised the process in Saxony, and hadserved time in [Nazi] prisons, when he comeshere [to Berlin] he stays with those Social Demo-crats who are members of the Zehlendorf organi-zation. When he was confronted with this fact, heresponded: “But he is my old friend, and ourpolitical differences are not relevant.” Therefore,contacts between the Berlin Social Democrats [inthe SED] and this group [the Zehlendorf, anti-SED Social Democrats] sometimes have the char-acter of a party faction, and sometimes simply ofSocial Democrats getting together.... We shouldvery cautious with them.

Therefore, there are two wings [in the party.]There is another major shortcoming of the Cen-tral Committee of the SED and its district com-mittees. They do not seek out and develop newcadres who can work consistently with the partyaktiv.

In addition, the party is just beginning thetheoretical elucidation of all of our earlier dis-

agreements [with the Social Democrats]. Thejournal, “Einheit,” which has [Otto] Grotewohlamong its authors, as well as others, is still rarelyread by the regular members of the party, andmoreover, it is seldom read by [SED] functionar-ies.

There still remains in the party a whole listof major [unanswered] questions. The time hascome to ask these questions clearly. Otherwisethe party may become dominated by opportunis-tic and conciliatory members. Deviations fromMarxist positions pose a substantial danger forthe party. There is a significant percentage ofpetit-bourgeois members [in the SED]; 40 per-cent to 51 percent workers. Still, neither theCommunists nor the Social Democrats under-stand the new forms shaping the struggle forpower, the movement towards socialism. Theydo not understand that the SED is not a tacticalmaneuver, but the situation by which they canachieve [....] that which was accomplished in ourcountry by different means. They do not speakabout the dictatorship of the proletariat, but aboutdemocracy. [Still], they have no understandingof the nature of the struggle after World War II.

Then there is another issue; the party canvery easily retreat into nationalist positions. Mycomrades and I observed this even at the largemeetings. When Grotewohl spoke in Halle aboutsocial questions and equality between men andwomen, he was greeted very quietly. But as soonas he touched upon the national question, all 440thousand [sic] applauded.

Recently this issue was raised at the largeparty meeting in Chemnitz. They argued thatthey did not have to orient themselves either onthe Soviet Union or on Great Britain. Theyshould be oriented on Germany. That said thatRussian workers live badly and that they, theGermans, should think only about the Germanworking class.

And now I would say the following. I am notsure that for all that the party proclaims on itsbanners, [whether] they have managed to distin-guish between the correct national viewpoint onthis question and the nationalistic and chauvinis-tic [one]. In all the major addresses and reports inthe preelection period, in the speeches addressedto wider audiences, the contents diverged fromour censored versions. As a way of demonstrat-ing confidence in themselves, they carried this toextremes. This was the case, when, at Poland’sborder, Pieck stated that soon the other half[Polish-occupied Germany] would be theirs. Af-ter Molotov’s speech, they [the SED party lead-ers] were given permission to state that as aGerman party they welcomed any revision of theborders which would improve the situation ofGermany....

They are allowed to make this statement, butwe run the danger of allowing the party to revertto extreme nationalism. Despite this, the SED’spropaganda was unable to convince the popula-

with cautious distance; and they felt that theywere not trusted completely and that they weretreated inequitably. We have gotten past this bynow to a certain extent, but not completely.

Secondly, even the most farsighted Com-munists feel the need to discuss every issue withthe Social Democrats in order not to offend them,[and this] has led to a lessening of flexibilitywithin the party. We sensed this especiallyduring the elections and referendum. One canalso feel this in the Central Committee of theparty.

Full attention has been given to the techni-cal questions of the organization, but not to itspolitical character. Organizational questions ofthe party were considered, while issues having todo with the apparat and with the masses, espe-cially in Berlin, were obviously neglected. Thiswas demonstrated by the fact that there were no[SED] leaders at the biggest enterprises. TheSocial Democrats took advantage of this [fact]and strengthened their position in Berlin pre-cisely in the large enterprises and among thebasic [workers’] organizations.

Despite the merger of the parties, there isstill a sense that two distinct groups exist. Theresults of the elections, which were discussed inthe Saxon party organization, offer [only] themost recent example. The results of these elec-tions prompted extremely heated debates.* Firstof all, they [the Saxon party members] weredisconcerted by the results because they hadcounted on a much higher percentage of the vote,reflecting the extent to which they overestimatedtheir influence among the masses. They wereoverly complacent because they could count onour administrative support. They were reassuredby the fact that they had more paper, posters andother resources, and, if necessary, there wasalways the possibility to put some pressure [onthe population]. This led in Saxony to a majoroverestimation of their influence on the masses.It was immediately obvious at the Saxon partymeeting... that there was a group of Social Demo-crats talking on the one hand and a group ofearlier Communists on the other. One still no-tices this everywhere....

Organizationally the party is also still notfully formed, which can be seen in the fact thateven the exchange of party membership cardshas not yet been implemented, or, if it has beenimplemented it has been done in such a way thatthe individual’s files are processed but they keeptheir old membership cards. Both Social Demo-crats and Communists keep their cards. Andwhen you talk to them, they pull out their oldmembership cards and say: “I am a former Com-munist and member of the SED.” This showsthat the party is not fully accepted as a realMarxist party....

We have another dangerous problem here.—And I don’t even know whether it is the moredangerous... and that is the presence of sectarian-


tion that the party is a real German party, and notsimply the agents of the occupation authorities.There are still countless such shortcomings andfailures of [the SED’s] propaganda....

Here is the principal question — how shouldthe party develop? Those whom the Old SocialDemocrats call functionaries, understand theirconnection with the party in this struggle, and wefirmly count on them. They are the basic partyunit; they are those we call the party aktiv. All therest at best carry their membership cards and paytheir party dues, but do not view the party’sdecisions as binding. An example of this isLeipzig. Neither the provincial leadership [ofthe Saxon SED] nor Berlin understand the condi-tions in Leipzig. Twice they met and twice theyrejected the positions of the Central Committeeand the [provincial] committee. This is [notserious] under the conditions here, but in a differ-ent situation, such as during the Reichstag elec-tions, these questions will require great atten-tion.[...]

As for the situation in the [SED] CentralCommittee itself. Grotewohl is the central figureafter Pieck in the Central Committee; and heenjoys authority among and the respect of notonly Social Democrats but also Communists. (Iam still working especially closely with him. Ivisit him at his home. He has not visited me yet,but I would like to invite him to mine.) All of hisbehavior demonstrates that he sides with Marxistpositions quickly and firmly, and for him there isno problem of speaking up at any meeting, and ofspeaking up very strongly and saying: if we lookat the struggle in our social life, then we willcrush our enemies by force of arms. However, atthe beginning [of the occupation] he would havenever used this expression, but he [now] sees andfeels that these things are acceptable. Neverthe-less, he has a very well-known past as a SocialDemocrat. I remember how he hesitated beforehe came to [his present stance]. I remember his[hesitation] during his last discussion with theMarshal [Zhukov, in February 1946], when therewas only he [Grotewohl] and no one else, and theMarshal tackled the question of the politicalsituation — whether or not he [Grotewohl] wantedor did not want [to join with the Communists],this was the political choice. [Zhukov] pointedout the differences between us and the [Western]Allies. Nevertheless, [said Zhukov,] I am used tofighting for the interests of the working class, andwe, if necessary, will crush all [opponents].Grotewohl demanded permission to travel toanother zone. He went, reviewed [the situation],and said, I will go along with you [the Soviets].

In conjunction with a new [wave of] dis-mantling and with the fact that difficulties [in theeconomy] will not diminish but may even getmore serious, the danger exists that if we leavehere that we will leave behind only one suchfigure [as Grotewohl], that even in the CentralCommittee we don’t have prominent figures

who would be able to lead the masses during thetransition.

Fechner—the second Social Democrat, whowavers a great deal, a powerful parliamentaryagitator, activist, a member of the Reichstag.... Heappears to be a rather amorphous figure, not muchof a battler, though he has produced a number offine documents, denouncing [Kurt] Schumacher[of the SPD West].

Of the other Social Democrats who arethere—Lehmann, Gniffke: one can rely on themwith considerably less certainty. In the provinceswe have only one such figure — Buchwitz, onwhom one can rely, but he is the age of Pieck....

As for the Communists, Pieck is undoubt-edly the most acceptable figure for all party mem-bers. Pieck is the all-around favorite, but often hesays things that he should not; he too easilyaccepts compromising alliances and sometimesstates even more than the situation permits.

I do not see any sectarianism on Ulbricht’spart. Ulbricht understands organizational work,and he can secretly forge any political alliance andkeep it secret. But Ulbricht is not trusted as aperson. He speaks with greater precision and heunderstands [the political situation] better thananyone else. But they [members of the SED]don’t like Ulbricht; they do not like him for hisharshness. Moreover, relations betweenGrotewohl and Ulbricht are not satisfactory. Re-cently Grotewohl said [to Ulbricht]: you know,Pieck is the leader of the party, not you. However,at big meetings, Ulbricht always commands agreat deal of respect, and even more for his effi-ciency at the meetings of the Central Committee,of the district committees, of functionaries, andothers....

Now I will move to the characterization ofthe LDP [Liberal Democratic Party]. The LDPwas regarded by all of us as a counterweight to theCDU [Christian Democratic Union], which dur-ing the last year, from the beginning of the libera-tion though all of 1945 until the beginning of1946, constituted the major party (within theframework of democratic organizations), to whichwere attracted reactionaries [and] anti-Soviet ele-ments who were looking for outlets to expresstheir discontent.

I will begin with the CDU. We understandperfectly well that it is impossible to change theposition of the hostile classes and that it is impos-sible to make this party pro-Soviet. But we canaccomplish the goal of depriving [the CDU] of thepossibility of making anti-Soviet and ambiguousstatements; [we] can strengthen the scattereddemocratic elements in this party. Therefore,when this party turned out to be an obvious threatand synonymous with everything reactionary, weundertook to arrange the replacement of [Andreas]Hermes with [Jakob] Kaiser [in December 1945]....Currently, this party has a very diverse composi-tion, comprised of the following elements: first ofall, there is a significant group of workers and

Catholic peasants, but mainly [the CDU includes]those who belonged [before the war] to the CenterParty. Approximately 15 to 20 percent of theparty is comprised of office workers and bureau-crats....

For a long time, we thought of the LDP as acounterpoint to the CDU. I would even say thatwe promoted [the LDP] artificially. In Octoberand November of last year, we used [the LDP]every time we had to put pressure on the CDU. Inother words, we suckled a snake at our ownbreast. And in fact, before these elections thisparty never enjoyed any credit [among the popu-lation] or any authority....

[Now I will speak about] the leadership ofthe Kulturbund.** We have come to the firmconviction that it is now time to replace [JohannesR.] Becher. It is impossible to tolerate him anymore. I spoke against [his removal] for a longtime, and we had many reservations. But now,especially in connection with [the process of the]definition of classes and the intensification of thepolitical struggle, we must prevent the Kulturbundfrom becoming a gang of all the members of theintelligentsia. We need it to become the culturalagency of the democratic renewal of Germany, aswell as a society for [promoting] cultural rela-tions with the Soviet Union. The Kulturbund ...has to be changed and has to have its own leadingaktiv. Without them, it [the Kulturbund] can onlybe of harm and not of use, and Becher cannot anddoes not want to change it.

In his intellectual aspirations, Becher is notonly not a Marxist, but he is directly tied toWestern European democratic [thinking], if notto England and America. He is ashamed to saythat he is a member of the Central Committee ofthe SED. He hides this in every way. He evennever allows us to call him Comrade, and alwaysHerr Becher. [He] avoids any sharp politicalspeeches in the Kulturbund. Becher is wellknown enough; in the current situation he repre-sents the progressive intelligentsia. He wouldnot, and did not want to, let [Erich] Weinert intothe Kulturbund. He did not want to let [Friedrich]Wolf take part in it, and he despises all party work[....]

Source: RTsKhIDNI, fond 17, opis’ 128, delo149; SVAG Sbornik, pp. 155-176.)

* [Local (Gemeinde) elections were held in the Sovietzone on 1-15 September 1946; State Assembly (Landtag)and Regional Assembly (Kreistag) elections in theSoviet zone, as well as voting for the Berlin citygovernment, were conducted on 20 October 1946.—N.M.]** [Kulturbund refers to the Kulturbund fuerdemokratische Erneuverung—the Cultural Associationfor Democratic Renewal. See David Pike, The Politicsof Culture in Soviet-Occupied Germany, 1945-1949(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 80-88. —N.M.]


Document II: Report of the Deputy Chief of theGPU (Main Political Administration) of theArmed Forces of the USSR, S. Shatilov, toPolitburo member G. Malenkov on the Dis-missal of Tiul’panov

September 17, 1949Central Committee of the CPSU (b), ComradeMalenkov G.M.

I request permission to relieve Major Gen-eral TIUL’PANOV Sergei Ivanovich of his postas Chief of the Information Administration of theSoviet Military Administration in Germany, plac-ing him under the command of the Main PoliticalAdministration of the Armed Forces.

It has been established that the parents ofMajor General TIUL’PANOV were convicted ofespionage: the father in 1938, the mother in 1940.The wife of TIUL’PANOV’s brother was incontact with the Secretary of one of the embassiesin Moscow—an agent of English intelligence;her father was sentenced to be shot as a memberof the right-wing Trotskyist organization.TIUL’PANOV’s brother and his brother’s wifeare closely connected with the family of MajorGeneral TIUL’PANOV S.I.

At the end of 1948, organs of the MGB[Ministry for State Security] in Germany arrestedLUKIN — TIUL’PANOV’s driver — for traitor-ous intentions and for anti-Soviet agitation.LUKIN’s father betrayed his Motherland in 1928and fled to Iran.

Major General TIUL’PANOV concealedthe facts of the arrests and convictions of hisfather, mother, and relatives from the party, andhe did not indicate these in his biographicalinformation.

A number of employees of the InformationAdministration departments have been arrestedlately on suspicion of espionage, and severalwere recalled to the Soviet Union from Germanyfor the reason of political unreliability. MajorGeneral TIUL’PANOV took no initiative in in-stituting these measures against the politicallycompromised persons. He did not approve ofthese measures, although he expressed no openopposition to them.

The arrested LUKIN, TIUL’PANOV’sdriver, testified that TIUL’PANOV revealed hisnegative attitudes in the driver’s presence.Fel’dman, the former employee of the Informa-tion Administration who is now under arrest,testified that TIUL’PANOV made criminal bar-gains with his subordinates, engaged in extortion,and received illegal funds. There were 35 booksof a fascist nature seized from TIUL’PANOV’sapartment.

By his nature TIUL’PANOV is secretiveand not sincere. Over the last year he has behavedespecially nervously, taking different measuresto find out about the attitude of the leading organsin Moscow towards him.

I regard it as undesirable to keep MajorGeneral TIUL’PANOV in the Soviet MilitaryAdministration in Germany. I consider it neces-sary for the sake of the mission to relieve him ofhis post and not to let him reenter Germany. TheMain Political Administration contemplates us-ing TIUL’PANOV to work within our country.

Comrades Vasilevskii and Chuikov supportthe proposal to relieve Major GeneralTIUL’PANOV of his duties in the Soviet Mili-tary Administration in Germany.

17 September 1949SHATILOV

(Source: RTsKhIDNI, fond 17, opis’ 118, delo567; SVAG Sbornik, pp. 233-234.)

Norman M. Naimark is Professor of History at StanfordUniversity; his The Soviet Occupation of Germany,will be published by Harvard University Press in 1995.

Following are notes of the same meetingtaken by Pieck, discovered in the SED ar-chives in Berlin, in Rolf Badstubner andWilfried Loth, eds., Wilhelm Pieck—Aufzeichnungen zur Deutschlandpolitik,1945-1953 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1994),396-97 (translation by Stephen Connors):

Final Discussion on 7 April 1952—11:20 p.m.in Moscow

St[alin]: up to now all Proposals rejectedSituation:no CompromisesCreation of a European-Army—not against theSU [Soviet Union] but rather about Power inEurope

Atlantic Treaty—independent State in the WestDemarcation line dangerous Borders1st Line Germans (Stasi), behind [it] Soviet sol-diersWe must consider terrorist Acts.

Defense:Reinstate the liquidated Soviet garrisons3000Armaments must be furnished,immediately russian Arms with Rounds [of am-munition]Military Training for Inf[antry], Marine, Avia-tion, SubmarinesTanks—Artillery will be suppliedalso [a] Rifle divisionHoffmann—24 Units—5800Not Militia, but rather [a] well-trained Army.Everything without Clamour, but constant.

Village:Also Establishment of Productive-Associationsin Villages,in order to isolate Large-scale farmers.Clever to start in the Autumn.create Examples—ConcessionsSeed-corn, Machines.Instructors at their Disposal.force No one[Do] not scream Kolchosen [Soviet collectiveFarm]—Socialism.create Facts. In the Beginning the Action.—way to Socialism—state Prod[uction] is so-cialistic

Better Pay of the Engineers1 : 1,72-3 x more than workersApartment11-12000 Rbl [Rubles] to Academicspay qualified workers better than unqualified

Propositions not dealt withParty not dealt withParty conferenceKPD [Communist Party of Germany]Economic conferenceUnity, Peace treaty—agitate further

STALIN AND THE SEDcontinued from page 35

Minutes of conversation with com[rade]. Stalinof leaders of SED W. Pieck, W. Ulbricht, and

O. Grotewohl

Present: Comr[ade]s. Molotov, Malenkov,Bulganin, Semyonov (ACC [Allied Control Com-mission])

7 April 1952

Com[rade]. Stalin said that the last time W. Pieckraised the question about the prospects for thedevelopment of Germany in connection with theSoviet proposals on a peace treaty and the policyof the Americans and British in Germany. Com-rade Stalin considers that irrespective of any pro-posals that we can make on the German questionthe Western powers will not agree with them andwill not withdraw from Germany in any case. Itwould be a mistake to think that a compromisemight emerge or that the Americans will agreewith the draft of the peace treaty. The Americansneed their army in West Germany to hold WesternEurope in their hands. They say that they havethere their army [to defend] against us. But thereal goal of this army is to control Europe. TheAmericans will draw West Germany into theAtlantic Pact. They will create West Germantroops. Adenauer is in the pocket of the Ameri-cans. All ex-fascists and generals also are there. Inreality there is an independent state being formedin West Germany. And you must organize yourown state. The line of demarcation between Eastand West Germany must be seen as a frontier andnot as a simple border but a dangerous one. Onemust strengthen the protection of this frontier.

(Source: APRF, Fond 45, opis 1, delo 303, list 179.)


“Archival and Recent Research on the EarlyHistory of the Soviet Occupied Zone and theGerman Democratic Republic,” 1-2 July 1994,Forschungsschwerpunkt ZeithistorischeStudien (FSP), Potsdam

Panel 1: Details of the Internal Develop-ment of the Soviet Occupied Zone in EastGermany.(Chair: Jurgen Kocka, Director, FSP);Papers: David Pike (U. of North Carolina/ChapelHill), “The Politics of Culture in Soviet-Occu-pied and Early East Germany, 1945-1954”; N.Naimark (Stanford U.), “‘About the Russians andabout Us’: Russian-German relations in the So-viet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949" ; IanLipinsky (Bonn U.), “Soviet Special Camps inGermany, 1945-49: a Model for Allied Intern-ment Practice or for the Soviet Gulag System?”;Jurgen Danyel (FSP), “The Soviet OccupiedZone’s Connection with the Nazi Past—Decreedanti-Fascism as the Basis of Legitimacy for theGerman Democratic Republic’s Founding Gen-eration”; Peter Walther (FSP), “The GermanAcademy of Sciences in Berlin as the CollectiveScholarly Society and National Research Orga-nization of the Soviet Occupied Zone in theGerman Democratic Republic, 1946-1955”

Panel 2: “The Archives and Research on theHistory of the Soviet Occupied Zone and theEarly German Democratic Republic. Chair: Prof.Kahlenberg, President of the Bundesarchivs,Koblenz; Papers: Hermann Schreyer, Bundes-archiv, Abtig. Potsdam: Zentrale Uberlieferungender staatlichen Ebene; Hans-JoachimSchreckenbach, Potsdam: Staatliche Uber-lieferungen der Lander unter besondererBerucksichtigung des Landes Brandenburg;Renate Schwarzel, Berlin: Uberlieferungen derBetriebsarchive (angefragt); Sigrun Muhl-Benninghaus, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien undMassenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv,Berlin: Zentrale Uberlieferungen der Parteienund Massenorganisationen; Hartmund Sander,Evangelische Zentralarchiv, Berlin: KirchlicheQuellenuberlieferungen am Beispiel derEvangelischen Kirche; Jochen Hecht(Referatsleiter AR 1, Abt. Archivbestande beimBundesbeauftragten fur die Unterlagen desStaatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR):“Die archivalische Hinterlassenschaft desStaatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR,Sicherung, Erschliessung, Nutzbarmachung”

Panel 3: The Cold War and the Develop-ment of the Early GDR. Chair: J. Hershberg(CWIHP); Papers: Jeffrey Herf (Seminar furwissenschaftliche Politik, Freiburg U., and Inst.for Advanced Study, Princeton), “East GermanCommunists and the Jewish Question: The Caseof Paul Merker”; Mario Kessler (FSP),“Responsiblity for Guilt and Restitution. TheSED Policy and the Jews in the Soviet Occupa-tion Zone, 1945-1949”; Catherine Epstein (Ctr.for European Studies, Harvard U.), “‘Esteemed


CWIHP CONFERENCEcontinued from page 35

significance of Soviet overtures toward theWest to resolve the German Question bothbefore and after Stalin’s death in 1953. Somescholars (such as Prof. Dr. Wilfried Loth ofEssen University) contended that new evi-dence from the GDR archives, such as thenotes of SED leader Wilhelm Pieck, suggestthat Moscow’s proposals constituted a seri-ous opportunity to unify Germany on ac-ceptable terms—and, by implication, to endthe division of Europe and the Cold Waritself—but others argued that recent disclo-sures from Soviet archives confirmed theopposite, that they were advanced as a pro-paganda tactic to undermine the WesternAlliance’s plans to arm West Germany.

At Potsdam, U.S. and German scholarsaddressed topics that were virtually tabooduring the GDR era, such as the regime’sattitudes toward Jews and the legacies of theNazi era, and the misdeeds of Soviet occu-pying forces, including widespread instancesof rape. In addition, representatives of vari-ous German archives containing GDR mate-rials discussed the status of their holdings.The conference program follows:

“The Soviet Union, Germany, and the ColdWar, 1945-1962: New Evidence from EasternArchives,” 28-30 June 1994, Kultur-wissenschaftliches Institut, Essen University

Panel 1: Foundations of Postwar SovietPolicy on Germany. Chair: Alexander Chubarian(Inst. of Universal History, Moscow); Papers:Wilfried Loth (Essen U.), “Stalin’s Plans forPostwar Germany”; Jochen Laufer (FSP), “TheSoviet Union and the Division of Germany intoZones”; Jan Foitzik (Mannheim U.), “Polish andCzech Interest in the German Question, 1943-1949”; Comment: R.C. Raack (Calif. St. U.)

Panel 2: Soviet Policy and the Division ofGermany.

Session One: The Occupation, 1945-1948.Chair: Klaus Schwabe (Technische U., Aachen);Papers: Gerhard Wettig (BIOst, Cologne), “All-German Unity and East German Separation inSoviet Policy, 1947-1949”; Stefan Creuzberger(Bonn U.), “Opportunism or Tactics? ErnstLemmer, the Soviet Occupying Power, and theHandling of New ‘Key Documents’”; GennadiiBordiugov (Moscow State U.), “The Riddle ofColonel Tjulpanov”; Comment: Norman Naimark(Stanford U.)

Session Two: The First Berlin Crisis, 1948-1949. Chair: Robert S. Litwak (Wilson Ctr.);Papers: Victor Gobarev (Inst. of Military His-tory, Moscow), “Soviet Military Plans and Ac-tivities during the Berlin Crisis, 1948-1949”;Mikhail Narinsky (Inst. for Universal History,

Moscow), “Soviet Policy and the Berlin Block-ade, 1948-1949”; Chuck Pennachio (U. of Colo-rado), “Origins of the 1948-49 Berlin AirliftCrisis: New Evidence from East German Com-munist Party Archives”; Comment: Melvyn P.Leffler (U. of Virginia)

Panel 3: The Early Years of the GDR. Chair:Samuel F. Wells, Jr. (Wilson Ctr.); Papers: AlexeiFilitov (Inst. for General History, Moscow), “So-viet Policy and the Early Years of Two GermanStates, 1949-1961”; Michael Lemke (FSP), “AGerman Chance? The Inner-German DiscussionRegarding the Grotewohl Letter of November1950”; Comment: Rolf Badstubner

Panel 4: Roundtable on the Stalin Notes.Chair: Rolf Steininger (Inst. for ContemporaryHist., Innsbruck); Papers: W. Loth (Essen U.); A.Chubarian (Inst. of Universal History, Moscow);Vojtech Mastny (SAIS Bologna Ctr.); G. Wettig(BIOst); Ruud van Dijk (Contemporary Hist.Inst., Ohio U./Athens)

Panel 5: Stalin’s Successors and the GermanQuestion. Chair: Bernd Bonwetsch (Ruhr-Univ.Bochum); Papers: Mark Kramer (Harvard, BrownU.), “Soviet Policy, the June 1953 GDR Upris-ing, and the Post-Stalin Succession Struggle”;Vladislav Zubok (National Security Archive(NSA)), “Soviet Foreign Policy in Germany andAustria and the Post-Stalin Succession Struggle,1953-1955”; Christian Ostermann (Hamburg U.),“The United States, East Germany, and the Lim-its of Roll-back in Germany, 1953”; Commenta-tors: William Taubman (Amherst Coll.) and JimHershberg (CWIHP)

Panel 6: Soviet Policy Toward Germany1955-58. Chair: Otmar Haberl (Essen U.); Karl-Heinz Schlarp (Hamburg U.): “Adenauer’s Tripto Moscow and the Establishment of Soviet-WestGerman Relations, 1955"; Eduard Gloeckner,“Khrushchev, Ulbricht, and Schirdewan: TheStory of an Abortive Reform Option in the GDR,1956-1958”; Beate Ihme-Truchel (Free U., Ber-lin), “The Soviet Union and the Politics of theRapacki Plan”; Commentator: Ron Pruessen (U.of Toronto)

Panel 7: The Berlin Crisis, 1958-62: Viewsfrom Moscow and East Berlin. Chair: W. Taubman(Amherst); Papers: Hope Harrison (Harvard [nowBrandeis] U.), “New Evidence on Soviet-GDRRelations and the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1961”; V.Zubok (NSA), “Khrushchev’s Motives and So-viet Diplomacy in the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1962";James Richter (Bates Coll.), “Khrushchev, Do-mestic Politics and the Origins of the BerlinCrisis, 1958”; Bruce Menning (US Army Com-mand & General Staff Coll.), “The Berlin Crisis1961 from the Perspective of the Soviet GeneralStaff”; Commentators: W. Burr (NSA/NHP);Wolfgang Krieger (Stiftung Wissenschaft undPolitik/NHP); and David Alan Rosenberg (TempleU./NHP)Closing Remarks: Charles Maier (Ctr. for Euro-pean Studies, Harvard U.)