Khrushchev's Cold War

by Aleksandr Fursenko

  4. Hayter to London, “Mr. Molotov’s Speech on Foreign Affairs to the Supreme Soviet,” February 14, 1955, Prem 11/1015, National Archives—UK.

  5. Memorandum of discussion, 236th meeting of the NSC, Washington, February 10, 1955, Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS], 1955–1957 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1989), vol. 24, p. 27.

  6. “Harriman Terms News Disturbing; Governor, former U.S. Envoy to Moscow, Sees Return to Stalin Arms Policy,” New York Times, February 9, 1955.

  7. “Bedell Smith Worried; Ex-Envoy Says He Can Find No Comfort in Soviet Shake-up,” New York Times, February 9, 1955.

  8. “London Sees End of ‘Coexistence’ Malenkov’s Fall Viewed Also as Return to One-Man Rule—Bulganin called ‘Front’ Effect Held Domestic; Paris Feels Shift Is No Reply to Western Policy—Rome Fears ‘Tough Course,’” New York Times, February 9, 1955.

  9. Diary entry by the president’s press secretary (Hagerty), February 8, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 24, p. 24.

  10. Memorandum of discussion, 236th meeting, NSC, February 10, 1955, ibid., pp. 25, 27.

  11. James Reston, “Private memorandum, conversation with John Foster Dulles, July 6, 1955, Carlton Hotel, Washington, D.C.,” Dulles File, A. H. Sulzberger Papers, New York Times Archives.

  12. Steno, June 7, 1963, AOK. For full citation, see the Abbreviations section.

  13. Felix Chuev, ed., Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993), pp. 337–38.

  14. The other full members were Stalin, Lev Kamenev, Leon Trotsky, and Nikolai Krestinskii. G. E. Zinoviev, N. I. Bukharin, and M. I. Kalinin were the candidate members of the first Politburo. Richard Pipes, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 439; Leonard Shapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), p. 647.

  15. The Central Committee numbered fewer than one hundred people in 1919 and comprised representatives of local, regional, and republic Communist organizations as well as representatives from the Soviet armed services. Formally elected at the huge party congresses, the membership of the Central Committee could be changed between the congresses by the general secretary. By 1955 there were approximately three hundred people in the Central Committee. Shapiro, op. cit., pp. 587–93.

  16. Full members: Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, Bulganin, Anastas Mikoyan, Lazar Kaganovich, Maksim Z. Saburov, Mikhail Pervukhin, and Kliment Voroshilov. Ibid., p. 649.

  17. Protocol [104], January 22, 1955, AOK.

  18. These rumors were spread by Ralph Parker, the London Daily Worker correspondent, who was suspected of being a KGB agent by the CIA. See Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929–1969 (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 369.

  19. Protocol [104], January 22, 1955, AOK. Besides the nine full members, the Presidium in early 1955 included candidate members Aleksei Kirichenko, Nikolai Shvernik, and Mikhail Suslov.

  20. There are two reasons to believe this. First, just after Khrushchev made his recommendation, Voroshilov expressed some doubt about the arrangement—“I was for Comrade Bulganin, but a nonmilitary [may be necessary]”—implying that he had been party to earlier discussions. Second, Molotov is described as providing a set of arguments in support of Bulganin that may have been rehearsed.

  21. Hope Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 34–38.

  22. Besides the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy were charter members.

  23. Cited in William Taubman, Khrushchev (New York: Norton, 2003), p. 332.

  24. CIA, Berlin Handbook, December 27, 1961, NSF, Kissinger, Box 462, JFK Library.

  25. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield, The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (New York: Basic Books, 1999), p. 357.

  26. Ibid., p. 358.

  27. Interview (1963), Sir William Hayter, NBC Death of Stalin Collection, Hoover Institution.

  28. Bohlen to Department of State (DOS), November 8, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, vol. 8, p. 1260.

  29. Allen Dulles, “A Current Intelligence Appreciation of Soviet Policy,” April 30, 1954, CIA/Dulles—Freedom of Information Act Collection. Dulles’s mistaken reference to Khrushchev’s nationality indicates the limits of U.S. knowledge of major Soviet personalities. Khrushchev was not a Ukrainian. He grew up in a Russian-speaking family in the Ukraine. The authors wish to thank Max Holland for the opportunity to look through the vast amount of Dulles material released to him by the CIA through FOIA.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Oleg Troyanovsky, “Through Space and Time: History of One Family,” Moscow, 1997, p. 176. The Malin notes for the January 24, 1955, and February 7, 1955 (the last meeting before the new Austrian policy was announced), do not show any evidence of a debate between Molotov and Khrushchev over the new Austrian policy.

  33. This is the argument made by Vladislav Zubok in “The Case of Divided Germany, 1953–1964,” Nikita Khrushchev, ed. William Taubman, Sergei Khrushchev, and Abbott Gleason (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).

  34. Khrushchev’s memoirs are strong on the substance of debates and less good on the chronology of events. However, it seems from the Malin notes, the timing of Molotov’s introduction of the end of linkage, the date of the invitation to the Austrians to start negotiations, and the events later recounted by Khrushchev that he put pressure on Molotov to sign a treaty after the February 8 speech. See also Jerrold L. Schecter with Vyacheslav V. Luchkov, Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes (Boston: Little, Brown, 1990), pp. 72–80.

  35. Ibid., p. 76.

  36. Ibid., pp. 72–80. Although there is no reason to doubt Khrushchev’s recollection on this point, no minutes have been found for meetings 107 through 119, February 8–May 18, 1955. See AOK.

  37. This story of these negotiations and their immediate aftermath is narrated very well by Gunther Bischof in “The Making of the Austrian Treaty and the Road to Geneva,” Cold War Respite: The Geneva Summit of 1955, ed. Bischof and Saki Dockrill (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000).

  38. The Pravda article was cited in Documents Diplomatiques Français [hereafter DDF], 1955, vol. 1, note to Record No. 243, Ministère des Affairs Étrangères, Commission de Publication des Documents Français (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1987), p. 561.

  39. Harrison E. Salisbury, “Zhukov: Rising Star in the Kremlin,” New York Times Magazine, May 8, 1955.

  40. Record of the July plenum of 1995, Istoricheskii Archiv 1999, no. 5, S. 43. Cited in Protocol 120, May 19, 1955, note 4, AOK.

  41. Ibid.

  42. Protocol 120, May 19, 1955 note 3, AOK.

  43. Protocol 120, May 19, 1955, AOK.

  44. Schechter, ed., op. cit., p. 76.

  45. Protocol 120, May 19, 1955, AOK.

  46. Protocols 121 and 122, May 23 and 25, 1955, AOK.

  47. Strobe Talbot, ed., Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 379.

  48. Interview (1963), Edward Crankshaw, NBC Death of Stalin Collection, Hoover Institution.

  49. Interview (1963), Philippe Ben, NBC Death of Stalin Collection, Hoover Institution.

  50. Protocol 125, June 6, 1955, AOK.

  51. Protocol 121, May 23, 1955, AOK.

  52. Protocol 125, June 6, 1955, AOK.

  53. Protocol 126, June 8, 1955, AOK.

  54. Years later a retired Molotov pointed to the fight over Yugoslavia as the moment when Khrushchev turned Soviet policy upside down. Chuev, op. cit., p. 351.

  55. Record of the July plenum of 1995, Istoricheskii Archiv 1999, no. 5, S. 43. Cited in Protocol 120, May 19, 1955, note 4, AOK.

  CHAPTER 2: GENEVA

  1. Klaus Larres, Churchill’s Cold War: The Politics of Personal Diplomacy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), passim.

  2. “Reds Offer West Germany New Status,” Washington Pos
t and Times Herald, January 16, 1955.

  3. Hollis W. Barber et al., The United States in World Affairs, 1955 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), p. 35.

  4. Ibid., p. 37.

  5. Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Walter C. Clemens, Jr., and Franklyn Griffiths., Khrushchev and the Arms Race: Soviet Interests in Arms Control and Disarmament, 1954–1964 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1966), pp. 22–25.

  6. Oleg Bukharin et al., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), Table 8.1, pp. 485–87. The figure for U.S. testing is as of May 10, 1955. The Soviets issued their disarmament proposals during a U.S. test series.

  7. Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2000), p. 693.

  8. Robert Caro has written a brilliant discussion of the battle over the Bricker Amendment, as this legislative initiative was called. See Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (New York: Knopf, 2002), pp. 527–41.

  9. Robert A. Divine, The Sputnik Challenge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 18.

  10. In an off-the-record press briefing, Allen Dulles alluded to his brother’s estimate by way of saying that he was less sanguine about an early Soviet collapse. W. H. Lawrence, memorandum of conversation [hereafter memcon], July 14, 1955, A. W. Dulles File, A. H. Sulzberger Collection, New York Times Archives.

  11. Cited in Richard Immerman, “Trust in the Lord but Keep Your Powder Dry,” Günter Bischof and Saki Dockrill, Cold War Respite: The Geneva Summit of 1955 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000), pp. 48–49.

  12. Ibid., p. 46.

  13. W. H. Lawrence, memcon, July 14, 1955, A. W. Dulles File, A. H. Sulzberger Collection, NYT.

  14. Memorandum of discussion, National Security Council, October 20, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 5, p. 618.b.

  15. Cited in David L. Snead, The Gaither Committee, Eisenhower and the Cold War (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999), p. 39.

  16. William Taubman, Khrushchev (New York: Norton, 2003), pp. 43–44.

  17. Protocol 99, December 20, 1954, AOK; Protocol 106, February 7, 1955, AOK.

  18. Gerald Haines and Robert E. Leggett, eds., Watching the Bear: Essays on the CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Union (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA, 2003), pp. 142–43.

  19. C. L. Sulzberger, “Molotov Proposes 4 Powers Reduce Forces in Germany,” New York Times, February 5, 1954; “East German Army Put at 80,000 in White Paper Issued in Britain,” New York Times, July 14, 1954; Hanson W. Baldwin, “Is Time on Our Side—or Russia’s?,” New York Times Magazine, August 1, 1954.

  20. Robert C. Albright, “Symington Seeks Aerial Arms Probe,” Washington Post and Times Herald, May 18, 1955.

  21. Lawrence Freedman, US Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 66–67; John G. Norris, “Red Warplanes Strides Revealed by Pentagon,” Washington Post and Times Herald, May 14, 1955.

  22. Protocol 120, May 19, 1955, AOK.

  23. Clifton Daniel, “Khrushchev Sees Fruitful Parley If West Is Honest; Attends U.S. Fete; Denies Any Weakness Calling Soviet Solid as Never Before,” New York Times, July 5, 1955,

  24. William Galbraith, “U.S. Accepts Soviet Offer to Pay Plane Damage,” Washington Post and Times Herald, July 8, 1955.

  25. Protocol 130, Meeting, July 12, 1955, AOK.

  26. Elie Abel, “Dulles to Insist on German Unity as Big Four Topic,” New York Times, June 29, 1955.

  27. “TASS Statement of Soviet Views on Big Four Parley,” New York Times, July 13, 1955.

  28. Sergei N. Khrushchev, Khrushchev and the Making of a Superpower (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), p. 83.

  29. Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 382.

  30. Strobe Talbott, ed., Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 397.

  31. Ibid., p. 398.

  32. The Soviet memcon of this meeting is in Fond 5 at RGANI; the U.S. memcon can be found in Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS], 1955–1957, vol. 5, pp. 408–18.

  33. Memcon, DDE and Zhukov, July 20, 1955, ibid., vol. 5, p. 409.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Ibid., pp. 412–13.

  38. Protocol 106, August 6, 1957, AOK.

  39. Bohlen, op. cit., pp. 384–85.

  40. Ibid.

  41. Clifton Daniel, “Russians See End of ‘Cold War’ and a Milder Line in Their Press,” New York Times, July 25, 1955.

  42. “Mikoyan Hails Parley; Says Result Was ‘Good,’ as It Changed Atmosphere,” New York Times, July 24, 1955.

  43. “Nixon Bans Umbrellas as Reminders of Munich,” New York Times, July 25, 1955.

  44. Harry Gabbett, “Found Evidence of New World Friendliness, Says President,” Washington Post and Times Herald, July 25, 1955.

  45. “Conference Views of U.S. Editors,” Washington Post and Times Herald, July 25, 1955.

  46. Ibid.

  47. “What Happened at Geneva,” New York Times, July 24, 1955.

  48. Gerald Haines and Robert E. Leggett, eds., Watching the Bear: Essays on CIA’s Analysis of The Soviet Union (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence CIA, 2003), pp. 142–43.

  49. Memcon, NSK and Berthold Beitz, January 1960, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (herafter MFA). A leading West-German industrialist, Beitz was chief executive of the Krupp business conglomerate.

  50. T. Kuprikov, chief, First Department, Committee of Information, MFA September 2, 1955, “Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (Political Characteristics).” V. Zdorov, chief, Information Bureau of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the KGB, “Spravka on the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer,” September 6, 1955. Both documents, SVR.

  51. V. Zdorov, chief, Information Bureau of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the KGB, “Spravka on the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer,” September 6, 1955, SVR.

  52. Ibid.

  53. T. Kuprikov, Chief, First Department, Committee of Information, MFA September 2, 1955, “Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (Political Characteristics),” SVR.

  54. Dulles to Adenauer, August 15, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 5, p. 548.

  55. Ibid., p. 550.

  56. Khrushchev’s statement to the East Germans of September 17, 1955, excerpted in Armstrong to Secretary of State, “Recent Communist Statements,” December 13, 1955, RG 59, INR, 1945–1960, Box 14, NARA-II.

  57. Drew Middleton, “Geneva Opening; A Pallid Revival; Lines Familiar, July’s Stars Have Left Cast and Famed ‘Spirit’ Seems Harsher,” New York Times, October 28, 1955.

  58. Protocol 168, November 6, 1955, note 2, AOK, citing document at Fond 3, Opis 8, Delo 327, pp. 2–5, RGANI.

  59. Protocol 168, November 6, 1955, AOK.

  60. Protocol 168 (continuation), November 7, 1955, AOK.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Welles Hangen, “Molotov Flying to Geneva, Carrying ‘Better Baggage,’ Remark Made in Moscow Held by Some to Mean He Will Offer Plan to End Stalemate on German Unity,” New York Times, November 8, 1955.

  63. Chalmers M. Roberts, “Closes Door on German Settlement; Unexpected Stand Could Reopen ‘Cold War’ Big 3 Recess Conference,” Washington Post and Times Herald, November 9, 1955. Drew Middleton, “Soviet Bars German Unity Except on Its Own Terms; West Is Shocked by Stand; Atmosphere Grim; Molotov’s Implications So Wide Dulles Halts the Sitting,” New York Times, November 9, 1955.

  64. Chalmers M. Roberts, “‘Geneva Spirit’ Broken, Dulles Tells Molotov,” Washington Post and Times Herald, November 10, 1955.

  65. Drew Middleton, “Big 4 Conference Drops Discussion of German Unity; Geneva Step Taken on West’s Insistence after Molotov Bars Negotiation of Issue; Soviet Stand Assailed; Macmillan Says Attitude May Gravely Affect Other Items—Dulles Sees Injustice,” New York Times, November 10, 1955.
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  66. Walter Lippmann, “The Geneva Gamble,” Washington Post and Times Herald, November 10, 1955.

  67. Walter Sullivan, “Soviet Says Rule in Berlin Is Over; Commandant Asserts City Is East German Capital Now—Rejects U.S. protest,” New York Times, November 30, 1955.

  68. M. S. Handler, “East Germans Put on West Frontier; Soviet Said to Withdraw Troops into Interior—Political Link Implied,” New York Times, November 23, 1955.

  CHAPTER 3: ARMS TO EGYPT

  1. The rumor appeared in the New York Times, June 3, 1955; Molotov’s “joking” was reported by the same newspaper, July 10, 1955.

  2. Excerpt of Khrushchev, November 26 speech, at Bangalore, in W. Park Armstrong to Secretary of State (hereafter), “Recent Communist Statements,” December 13, 1955, RG 59, INR 1945–1960, Box 14, NARA-II.

  3. Grigorii Zaitsev, “K Poyezde Tov. Shepilova v Egypte” [For Comrade Shepilov’s Visit to Egypt], July 18, 1955, 5/30/123, pp. 194–200, RGANI.

  4. Quoted in Keith Kyle, Suez (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 55.

  5. Salim Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), pp. 25–26.

  6. Memcon, Solod and Nasser, July 8, 1954, 087, 17/5/34, pp. 206–10, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When Moscow indicated that it might be willing to assist Egypt with the dam project and was not opposed to selling Nasser weapons, the Egyptian leader suddenly seemed to lose interest. In July 1954 he stopped talking with the Soviet ambassador about weapons.

  7. D Zhukov to Molotov, “Situation in Guatemala,” April 14, 1953, 06 (Molotov Files), 129/2050/284, MFA; “Chronicle of Events: June 1954—November 1954,” 110 (Mexican desk, Latin American department), 14/30/8, MFA. For evidence that Washington also knew this, see Zachary Karabell, Architects of Intervention: The United States and the Third World and the Cold War, 1946–1962 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), p. 103. See also Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1982).

  8. Cited in Karabell, op. cit., pp. 111–12.