Günter Bischof - The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968

59. Pauer, Prag 68 , 108–9.

60. Pauer, Prag 68 , 123–26.

61. Pauer, Prag 68 , 116–23; SAPMO-BA, DY 30/11836, pp. 1–116, stenographic transcript of the meeting of the interventionist coalition Warsaw, 14/15 July 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #82.

62. RGANI, F. 2, op. 3, d. 114, p. 118, stenographic transcript of the meeting of the plenum of the CC CPSU, closing speech of the general secretary of the CC CPSU, L. I. Brezhnev, 17 July 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #38; see also Pauer, Prag 68 , 127, partly reprinted in this volume as appendix 4.

63. See the Prozumenshchikov chapter in this volume.

64. It is not possible to go into further detail here; see the chapter by Günter Bischof in this volume.

65. RGANI, F. 3, op. 72, d. 189, pp. 2, 4, Politburo resolution of the CC CPSU p. 92 (II), “On the question of the situation in Czechoslovakia,” 20 July 1968. See also the chapter by Mark Kramer in this volume.

66. Brezhnev’s health began to suffer from the stress of the ongoing crisis; he feared that “losing Czechoslovakia” would leave him politically vulnerable to potential rivals; on this strain and Brezhnev’s continued hesitation, see the chapter by Mark Kramer in this volume and Zubok, Failed Empire , 208.

67. For details, see the chapter by Peter Ruggenthaler and Harald Knoll in this volume.

68. See the chapter by Peter Ruggenthaler and Harald Knoll in this volume.

69. See the chapter by Peter Ruggenthaler and Harald Knoll in this volume.

70. Brezhnev quoted in Zubok, Failed Empire , 208.

71. John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 17.

72. Pavlenko, “Der Informationsfluss an die Moskauer Machtzentrale,” and the chapter by Petrov in this volume.

73. Pavlenko, “Der Informationsfluss an die Moskauer Machtzentrale,” and the chapter by Petrov in this volume.

74. The background was the worsening situation in Vietnam after the Tet Offensive and the monumental struggle between his principal foreign policy advisers over launching a peace initiative vis-à-vis North Vietnam; see Thomas J. Schoenbaum, Waging Peace & War: Dean Rusk in the Truman, Kennedy & Johnson Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 465–91.

75. “Soviet threat to Czechoslovakia,” Rostow to Rusk, 10 May 1968, Folder “6/1/68,” Box 1558, POL-Czech, RG 59, NARA, reprinted as appendix 3 in this volume. See also the chapters by Günter Bischof and Donald P. Steury in this volume.

76. See Ouimet, Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine , 34, and the Bischof chapter in this volume. In the State Department minutes of the 22 July conversation with Dobrynin, Rusk’s message is less direct than Dobrynin’s dispatch sent to Moscow—the Warsaw Pact is not mentioned: “ He said we had not wished to involve ourselves directly in this matter, that the U.S. had been attempting to develop better relationships with Eastern European countries as well as with the Soviet Union ” (emphasis added), see Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968 , vol. 8, Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996), 212–14. In a 26 July resolution by the Politburo, reference is made to the 22 July Rusk-Dobrynin conversation, in which the secretary of state noted “that events in Czechoslovakia were a matter that concerned solely the Czechs and the other countries of the Warsaw Pact,” see RGANI, F. 3, op. 72, d. 191, pp. 84–85. Politburo resolution of the CC CPSU P 92 (82), 26 July 1968, partly reprinted in this volume as appendix 5.

77. “Notes of Emergency Meeting of the National Security Council,” 20 August 1968, 10:15 p.m., in FRUS, 1964–1968 , vol. 8, Eastern Europe , 236–41; also reprinted in Navrátil et al., Prague Spring ’68 , 445–48; see also the Bischof chapter in this volume. Mastny also noted this discrepancy in the U.S. and Soviet records and observes tongue in cheek that each side included the details they felt suitable “to embellish its own record,” surely a cautionary tale for diplomatic historians, see “Was 1968 a Strategic Watershed in the Cold War?” 162.

78. It may be good thing that Allen Dulles was no longer advising presidents in 1968, for during both the 1953 and 1956 crises, he had made disparaging remarks about the Czechs. During the National Security Council discussion following the East German uprising, he had observed that among the peoples of the satellites “the Czechs were certainly the most phlegmatic and the least likely to rise in revolt,” see Christian F. Ostermann, ed., Uprising in East Germany, 1953 , National Security Archives Cold War Readers (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2001), 227. When President Eisenhower asked Allen Dulles about the Czech reaction to the invasion of Hungary, Dulles answered that he did not know, but it did not matter much since “all the potential Gomułkas in Czechoslovakia had been pretty well slaughtered,” in Csaba Békés et al., eds., The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents , National Security Archive Cold War Readers (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002), 241. Incidentally, Dubček had survived the purges.

79. The Soviet ambassador to the United States, Dobrynin, also came to the same conclusion after the invasion of Czechoslovakia; see Dobrynin’s report, RGANI, F. 5, op. 60, d. 469, pp. 57–69, partly reprinted in this volume as appendix 10.

80. See also Bennett Kovrig, Of Walls and Bridges: The United Sates and Eastern Europe (New York: New York University Press, 1991) and Brands, Wages of Globalism . On the role of the Vietnam War, see the chapter by Mark Carson in this volume; see also George C. Herring, “Tet and the Crisis of Hegemony,” in Fink et al., 1968: The World Transformed , 31–53; Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe ; Hubert Zimmermann, “Who Paid for America’s War? Vietnam and the International Monetary System, 1960–1975,” in Daum et al., America, the Vietnam War, and the World , 151–73; Frank Costigliola, “Lyndon B. Johnson, Germany, and ‘the End of the Cold War,’” in Cohen and Tucker, Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World , 173–210; see also the chapter by Günter Bischof in this volume.

81. For details, see Pavlenko, “Der Informationsfluss an die Moskauer Machtzentrale,” and the chapter by Prozumenshchikov in this volume.

82. For details, see Pavlenko, “Der Informationsfluss an die Moskauer Machtzentrale,” and the chapter by Prozumenshchikov in this volume.

83. For further details on Kádár’s role, see the Békés chapter in this volume.

84. Hans Modrow, In historischer Mission: Als deutscher Politiker unterwegs (Berlin: Edition Ost, 2007), 173, writes: “On 4 December 1989 representatives of the states of the Warsaw Pact, who had assembled in Moscow for consultations, issued an apology to the Czechs and Slovaks for the military intervention in August 1968. The NVA did not take part in the operation. Walter Ulbricht was wise enough not to let a single German soldier cross the border. In view of the experiences of 1938/1939 the decision was perfectly justified. The GDR provided logistical support, that is correct. But this is where the matter ended.”

85. For details, see Wenzke, “Die Nationale Volksarmee der DDR: Kein Einsatz in Prag,” in Karner et al., Beiträge , 673–86. RGANI, F. 89, op. 38, d. 57, pp. 1–19, stenographic transcript of the meeting between the Soviet leadership and the state president of the ČSSR, L. Svoboda, and M. Klusák, 23 August 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #107. According to Gomułka, the NVA was kept back at the express request of the group around Bil’ak and Indra. On this, see Pauer, Prag 1968 , 229, partly reprinted in this volume as appendix 8.