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

Folder “Minutes, Secretary of Defense, Staff Meeting, March–September 1968,” Box 18, Papers of Clark Clifford, LBJ Library.

Political report of the Soviet ambassador to the United States, A. Dobrynin.

3 October 1968

Washington

Classified

Copy Nr. 3

American anti-Soviet and anticommunist propaganda on the occasion of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by alliance troops was directed from the start towards achieving a number of clearly defined goals in the ideological and political struggle with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. It was moreover a means used by reactionary forces to influence the US domestic situation and the mood prevailing in American society.

The question of the USA providing direct military “assistance” to Czechoslovakia arose neither on the spur of the moment nor later on. Even though for the purposes of propaganda the US administration does not support the “recognition of the attribution of spheres of influence” to the USA and the USSR respectively, both the United States’ first reaction and its subsequent behavior in regard to Czechoslovakia are based on the factual acknowledgement that the country belongs to the socialist camp, to the USSR’s sphere of interest and to the Warsaw Pact countries.

Against the backdrop of the weakening of U.S. positions abroad both in terms of ideology and foreign politics, which is mainly due to the Vietnam War and to the aggravation of racial and social conflicts in America, the US administration, its foreign policy and propaganda apparatus and diverse reactionary circles have attempted to initiate and to exploit a comprehensive campaign of anti-Soviet and anticommunist propaganda. […]

At present attempts are made in the US to present the events in Czechoslovakia and the circumstances surrounding them as “proof of the Soviet Union’s bellicosity” 1and of the doctrine that the US must build its relationship with the Soviet Union from a “position of strength,” while making sure at the same time that it does not fail to engage in a dialogue on important international problems that are of general interest. (The latter argument is proof that the irrelevance of former Cold War slogans has been generally recognized in the US and that the events in Czechoslovakia have not led to a backsliding into the pro-war sentiments of the past.)

Propaganda efforts in this direction are very much in evidence in the U.S. —people are toying in this context with the idea of making American policy “tougher” and of boosting the arms race. American propaganda has been making much of the effectiveness and the precision with which the troop invasion was carried out in Czechoslovakia and has emphasized that the U.S. had “underrated Russian military might. At the same time the idea is mooted that Soviet troops could invade Romania, Yugoslavia or the FRG at equally short notice . Diverse rumors are being propagated about the “amassing” of Soviet troops on the borders of this or that country adjacent to the USSR etc.

Measures that are being recommended in this context are the strengthening of NATO , the “implementation of defensive measures” in the Mediterranean, etc. […]

The Ambassador of the USSR in the USA

A. Dobrynin

1. The text italicized here is underlined in the original document.

RGANI, F. 5, op. 60, d. 469, S. 57–69. Translated from the German translation of the original Russian document (original Russian and German translation in Karner et al., Dokumente , #217).

Csaba Békésis founding director of the Cold War History Research Center ( www.coldwar.hu) and senior research fellow at the 1956 Institute, both in Budapest. His main fields of research are Cold War history, the history of East-West relations, Hungary’s international relations after World War II, and the role of the East Central European states in the Cold War. He is the author or editor of eleven books, including The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents (with Malcolm Byrne and János M. Rainer), and more than sixty major articles and chapters, and he has participated at some seventy international conferences. Békés was a visiting professor at New York University and at Columbia University. He is also a contributor of the forthcoming three-volume Cambridge History of the Cold War and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Cold War Studies and Cold War History .

Günter Bischofis the Marshall Plan Professor of History and director of CenterAustria ( www.centeraustria.org) at the University of New Orleans. He is the author of Austria in the First Cold War 1945–55 (1999). He is the editor (with Saki Ruth Dockrill) of Cold War Respite : The Geneva Summit of 1955 (2000) and many other books and coeditor of Contemporary Austrian Studies (seventeen volumes). Bischof was a guest professor at the Universities of Munich, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Vienna, the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, and Louisiana State University and serves on many boards.

Alessandro Brogiis associate professor at the University of Arkansas. His principal area of research is U.S. strategic and cultural relations with Western Europe during the Cold War. He is the author of three books: L’Italia e l’egemonia americana nel Mediterraneo (Acqui Storia prize runner up); A Question of Self-Esteem: The United States and the Cold War Choices in France and Italy, 1944–1958 ; and Confronting Anti-Americanism: America’s Cold War against the French and Italian Communists (forthcoming). Brogi was also at Yale University as lecturer and John Olin Fellow in International Security Studies (1999–2002), visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Bologna Center, Italy (2004), and research fellow at the Peace Nobel Institute of Oslo, Norway (2007).

Mark Carsonreceived his Ph.D. in history from the Louisiana State University. His master’s thesis, “F. Edward Hebert and the Congressional Investigation of the Vietnam War” was published in Louisiana History . Carson was a guest lecturer at Loyola University and recently a visiting assistant professor at Tulane University. He is presently revising his dissertation, “Beyond the Solid South: Southern Members of Congress and the Vietnam War” and serves as an adjunct instructor at the University of New Orleans.

Saki Ruth Dockrill†was a professor and chair of contemporary history and international security at King’s College, London. She was the author of many books and articles, including Eisenhower’s New Look National Security Policy, 1951–1961 ; Cold War Respite : The Geneva Summit of 1955 (with Günter Bischof); and The End of the Cold War Era .

Aleksei Filitovis a historian at the Russian Academy of Sciences and the author of many articles concerning Soviet foreign policy, especially toward Germany.

Tvrtko Jakovinais associate professor at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. He is the author of Socijalizam na američkoj pšenici [Socialism on the American Grain] (2002) and Američki komunistički saveznik: Hrvati, Titova Jugoslavija i Sjedinjene Američke Države 1945–1955 [The American Communist Ally: Croats, Tito’s Yugoslavia and the United States, 1945–1955] (2003) and has written many articles dealing with the foreign policy of Tito’s Yugoslavia and Croatian history in twentieth century. Jakovina is vice president of the Croatian Fulbright Alumni Association, lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy in Zagreb, and guest-lecturer at Instituti per l’Europa centro-orientale e balcanica, University of Bologna-Forli. He served as a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics.