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

1. U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (hereafter NIE) 15–67, “The Yugoslav Experiment,” 13 April 1967.

2. NIE 15–67, “The Yugoslav Experiment,” 13 April 1967. Commercial exchange with the Lager countries was 33 percent, with Western Europe 38 percent, and 10 percent with the United States. A respectable 19 percent was foreign trade with the nonaligned countries. In 1966, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia signed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a move which emphasized Yugoslav dependence on Western markets.

3. NIE 15–67, “The Yugoslav Experiment,” 13 April 1967.

4. NIE Memo, “The Yugoslav Succession Problem,” 10 March 1969.

5. Blažo Mandić, Tito u dijalogu sa svijetom (Novi Sad: Agencija “MiR,” 2005), 193–202.

6. Vjesnik , 11 August 1965 (“Words of Comrade Tito”); “S Titovim drugom iz Čenkova” [“With Tito’s Comrade in Čenkov”], Borba , 11 April 1965.

7. NIE Memo, “The Yugoslav Succession Problem,” 10 March 1969.

8. R. J. Crampton, The Balkans since the Second World War (Harlow, UK: Longman, 2002), 131.

9. On Ranković and his fall many books were written, some with a visible bias. See, for example, Savka Dabčević-Kučar, ’ 71-hrvatski snovi i stvarnost (Zagreb: Interpublic, 1997), 82–85; Dennison Rusinow, The Yugoslav Experiment 1948–1974 (Berkeley: University of California Press and Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1977), 184–91.

10. Dušan Bilandžić, Propast Jugoslavije i stvaranje moderne Hrvatske (Zagreb: AGM, 2001), 227.

11. KPRI-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, bilateral cooperation between the Savez komunista Jugoslavije (League of Communists of Yugoslavia, LCY) and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KPČ) in 1968. Produced in the Central Committee of the League of the Communists of Yugoslavia (hereafter CK SKJ), 18 August 1968.

12. Julius Bartal et al., eds., Slovak History: Chronology and Lexicon (Bratislava: Slovenske Pedagogicke nakladitelsvo, 2002), 156; and Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (London: Pimlico, 2005), 439–40.

13. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, The KGB in Europe and the West (London: Penguin Books, 2000), 327. In February 1968, Mišo Pavićević, deputy state secretary for foreign affairs, was informed of the changes in Prague by Ladislav Šimovič, Czechoslovak ambassador in Belgrade. In the ambassador’s opinion, Novotný’s misunderstanding of the mentality of Czechs and Slovaks, his personality, and the methods he used, as well as his relationship with the Slovaks, caused the changes in Prague. KPR I-5-B Čehoslovačka (hereafter KPR) I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, from the note on the meeting between the deputy secretary on Foreign Affairs, Ambassador M. Pavićević, with the ambassador of the ČSSR, L. Šimovič, 17 February 1968.

14. See, for example, Mark Kramer’s discussion of this in his articles “Moldova, Romania, and the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 12, no. 13 (Fall/Winter 2001): 326–33 and “Ukraine and the SovietCzechoslovak Crisis of 1968 (Part 2): New Evidence from the Ukrainian Archives,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 14, no. 15 (Winter 2003/Spring 2004): 273–368.

15. John W. Young and John Kent, International Relations since 1945: A Global History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 310.

16. Rusinow, Yugoslav Experiment , 240.

17. Thomas Alan Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, in the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 218–22.

18. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, Kádár on Yugoslav and Romanian views regarding developments in the ČSSR.

19. Crampton, The Balkans , 172–73.

20. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, visit of the vice president of the Federal Executive Committee (SIV, Savezno izvršno vijeće, that is, the Yugoslav government) Comrade K. Gligorov to the Peoples Republic of Hungary. Kiro Gligorov later became the first president of an independent Macedonia; Roger Gough, A Good Comrade: János Kádár, Communism, and Hungary (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006), 153.

21. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, the Bulgarian military attaché in Belgrade was openly criticizing the changes in Prague, noting how revisionism was penetrating some Communist Party of Czechoslovakia members ( Komunistická strana Československa or KSČ).

22. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, bilateral cooperation SKJ-KPČ in 1968. Prepared in the Department for International Relations, 18 August 1968.

23. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, from the note on the talk between the advisor of the state secretary, Ljubo S. Babić, with the ambassador of the ČSSR, L. Šimovič, 9 May 1968.

24. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, visit of the State Secretary of Foreign Affairs M. Nikezić to Czechoslovakia.

25. Mandić, Tito u dijalogu sa svijetom , 290.

26. Dabčević-Kučar, ’ 71-hrvatski snovi i stvarnost , 97; Marko Vrhunec, Šest godina s Titom (1967–1973): Pogled s vrha i izbliza (Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Globus/Adamić, 2001), 57; Mandić, Tito u dijalogu sa svijetom , 291. Blažo Mandić, head of the press office in Tito’s cabinet, was less descriptive of Brezhnev’s comments on Dubček. Savka Dabčević-Kučar, at the time head of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, had also accompanied Tito to Japan and Moscow. She wrote how Brezhnev had used words like “putsch,” “attempt to destroy communism,” “wild counterrevolution,” and the like.

27. KPR 1.2. SSSR, Put Josipa Broza Tita u SSSR, 28–30, April 1968, minutes of the talk between the chairman of the SFRJ and the chairman of the SKJ, Comrade Josip Broz Tito, and the Yugoslav members of the state party delegation with the Soviet state and party leadership in Moscow, 29 April 1968. “Regarding the situation in Czechoslovakia, we think that their leadership, if fully supported, will manage to reduce the influence of the reactionaries, which are, and here I agree with you, numerous…. [our] Czech comrades need our full support to keep things developing in the right direction,” Tito said to Brezhnev. Dabčević-Kučar, ’ 71-hrvatski snovi i stvarnost , 96.

28. Dabčević-Kučar, ’ 71-hrvatski snovi i stvarnost , 96.

29. Vrhunec, Šest godina s Titom , 58.

30. Andrzej Paczkowski, Pola stoljeć a povijesti Poljske, 1939–1989 (Zagreb: Profil/Srednja Europa, 2001), 295.

31. Jakovlevski’s biography prior to his ambassadorial career was not especially exciting. He was a middle-ranked official in Macedonia. After his tour of duty in Prague, he became a member of the Federal Executive Council, the Yugoslav government in Belgrade. His conduct in Prague was, obviously, regarded as fair. Ranko Petković, Subjektivna istorija jugoslovenske diplomatije 1943–1991 (in cyrillic) (Belgrade: Službeni list SRJ, 1995), 175.

32. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, Sveska II, Information on some aspects of the situation in the ČSSR, 10 July 1968.

33. Gough, A Good Comrade , 166–67; Judt, Postwar , 443.

34. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, information on the situation in the ČSSR given by Minister Hajek to Ambassador Jakovlevski, 12 July 1968.

35. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, information on the situation in the ČSSR given by Minister Hajek to Ambassador Jakovlevski, 12 July 1968.

36. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, Sveska II, Information on several aspects of the situation in the ČSSR, 10 July 1968.