Khrushchev's Cold War

by Aleksandr Fursenko

9. Ibid., pp. 128–31.

  10. Nick Cullather, Operation PBSUCCESS: The United States and Guatemala, 1952–1954 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 58.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Cited in Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 299.

  13. Richard Bissell, quoted in Cullather, op. cit., p. 52.

  14. Ibid., p. 61.

  15. Molotov to Soviet UN mission, June 24, 1954, 06 (Molotov Files) 129/250/289, MFA. We were unable to see any 1954 KGB materials on Guatemala, which would likely have come from the station in Mexico City. However, in a report distributed to the Presidium, the Foreign Ministry described its inability to establish reliable communications with the Guatemalan government. As we shall see elsewhere, the Presidium regularly used intelligence channels to communicate with foreign leaders, if necessary and available.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Foreign Minister Guillermo Toriello to Molotov, June 25, 1954, received 12:15 P.M., 06, 129/250/289, MFA.

  18. Ariel Sharon with David Chanoff, Warrior: The Autobiography of Ariel Sharon (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), pp. 102–9. Palestinian guerrillas and Egyptian military personnel had indeed been infiltrating into Israel from the Gaza Strip, but the Nasser government denied that these were authorized missions. Following this raid in February—which left thirty-eight Arabs dead—and another in the summer of 1955, the Egyptians later said that they formally authorized commando operations. Yaqub, op. cit., p. 39.

  19. Khrushchev and Nasser meeting, April 30, 1958, 10:00 A.M., MFA.

  20. Walter Z. Laqueur, The Soviet Union and the Middle East (New York: Praeger, 1959), pp. 199–200.

  21. Daniel Solod, memcon of meeting with Nasser, May 21, 1955, 087, 18/3/36, pp. 176–180, MFA.

  22. Khrushchev reported on this conversation to the Presidium. Protocol 125, June 6, 1955.

  23. Representative was the information received from the Romanian chargé d’affaires in Cairo, Ion Gheorgescu, who said in June 1954 that Nasser needed U.S. weapons to satisfy his own military. According to the Romanian diplomat, the Indian ambassador to Egypt was trying to convince Nasser that taking U.S. weapons would be a mistake. Memcon, Solod and Gheorgescu. June 16, 1954, 087 17/34/5, MFA.

  24. Peter Hahn, the United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945–1956: Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 184–85.

  25. Byroade to DOS, June 9, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 14, pp. 237–40.

  26. Byroade to DOS, June 17, 1955, ibid., pp. 255–56.

  27. Ibid., pp. 165–79.

  28. Ibid., pp. 188–92.

  29. Memcon, DOS, June 8, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 14, pp. 231–33.

  30. Telegram 2214, DOS to Egypt, June 17, 1955, ibid., p. 256, n. 2.

  31. Telegram, Cairo to DOS, July 2, 1955, ibid., p. 274.

  32. Memcon, San Francisco, June 24, 1955, ibid., pp. 265–66.

  33. The other two secretaries added in July 1955 were A. Aristov and Nikolai Belayev. They played important roles in the run-up to the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956.

  34. Shepilov, memcon, 1956, MFA.

  35. D. T. Shepilov, “Vospominaniia,” 1998, p. 171.

  36. Memcon, Solod and el-Kouni, July 18, 1955, 087, 18/4/37, pp. 4–5, MFA. Nasser had Ambassador Mohammed Awad el-Kouni who was back in Cairo, deliver this message to Solod.

  37. Jean Lacouture, Nasser: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1973), pp. 45–47.

  38. Laqueur, op. cit., pp. 199–200.

  39. Solod, memcon of meeting with Major Salach Salem, 087/18/3/36, pp. 201–7, MFA.

  40. Memcon, Solod and Ali Sabri, August 22, 1955, 087, 18/4/37, pp. 40–44, MFA.

  41. Eisenhower Oral History, interview with Andrew Goodpaster, [by Dr. Thomas Soapes], October 11, 1977.

  42. Dulles to Byroade, August 23, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 14, pp. 382–83.

  43. Byroade to DOS, August 24, 1955, ibid., pp. 387–88.

  44. Solod, memcon, meeting with Ali Sabri, September 4, 1955, 087/18/4/37, p. 6, MFA.

  45. DOS to Secretary of State, New York, September 19, 1955, FRUS 1955–1957, vol. 14, p. 481. Dulles’s staff repeated the Cairo cable to him and informed him of instructions for Byroade.

  46. DOS to Cairo, September 20, 1955, ibid., p. 482; Cairo to DOS, September 20, 1955, ibid., pp. 483–84.

  47. Editorial note, ibid., p. 483.

  48. Telephone conversation [hereafter telcon], Eisenhower and John Foster, Dulles [hereafter JFD] September 23, 1955, ibid., pp. 509–10; telcon, Allen W. Dulles [hereafter AWD] and JFD, Dulles, September 24, 1955, ibid., pp. 511–12.

  49. One of Nasser’s closest aides, Mohamed Heikal, later presented himself as Nasser’s biographer and the keeper of Nasser’s state papers after the Egyptian leader’s death in 1970. But time and again Heikal’s account differs so dramatically from the facts in Soviet, American, and British accounts that one must suspect it. Nowhere does the Heikal account diverge more from the truth of Nasser’s relations with the great powers than in 1955.

  50. Roosevelt sent two cables on this meeting, which CIA rerouted to the secretary of state in New York. See DOS (Washington) to U.S. UN mission, September 27, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 14, pp. 320–22. For information on the number of MiG-15s sold to Egypt, see memcon, Solod and Nasser, December 10, 1955, 087, 18/4/37, pp. 304–07, MFA.

  51. Allen Dulles’s cable to Kermit Roosevelt was repeated to Foster Dulles in New York as telegram, Hoover to JFD (NY), September 27, 1955, ibid., pp. 522–23.

  52. Memcon, Solod meeting with Ali Sabri, September 26, 1955, 087, 18/4/37, pp. 117–21.

  53. Ibid.

  54. Mohamed Heikal, The Cairo Documents: The Inside Story of Nasser and His Relationship with World Leaders, Rebels, and Statesman (New York: Doubleday, 1973), p. 51.

  55. Memcon, Solod and Nasser, September 29, 1955, 087, 18/4/37, pp. 124–28, MFA.

  56. Ibid.

  57. Ibid., October 1, 1955, pp. 135–41.

  58. Ibid., September 29, 1955, pp. 124–28.

  59. Ibid., October 5, 1955.

  60. Ibid., September 29, pp. 124–28, October 5, 1955.

  61. Solod, meeting with Nasser, October 18, 1955, 087/18/4/37, pp. 167–74, MFA.

  62. Memcon, Solod and Nasser, October 5, 1955, 087, 18/4/37, MFA.

  63. Solod told Nasser about the expected arrival of the Krasnodar on October 20 or 21 at their meeting on October 18. See memcon, Solod and Nasser, October 18, 1955, 087, 18/4/37, pp. 167–74, MFA.

  64. The Giulio Cesare with its ten 12.6-inch guns, was the largest ship awarded to the Soviet Union from the captured navies of Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan; the closest challenger, the damaged German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, could never be exploited by Moscow. See Donald W. Mitchell, A History of Russian and Soviet Sea Power (New York: Macmillan, 1974), p. 473.

  65. Ibid., p. 387.

  66. Protocol 169, November 16, 1955, AOK.

  67. Ibid.

  68. Robert Kerrick, “Soviet Naval Strategy and Missions, 1946–1960,” in The Sources of Soviet Naval Conduct, ed. Philip S. Gillette and Willard C. Frank, Jr., (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1990), p. 181.

  69. Mitchell, op. cit., p. 476.

  70. Solod, meeting with Nasser, December 10, 1955, 087/18/4/37, pp. 304–7, MFA. At this meeting the Soviets informed Nasser of their response to his request.

  71. Protocol 169, November 16, 1955, AOK. The Presidium first discussed sending additional arms to Egypt on November 7, after a telegram was received from Cairo. Protocol 168, November 7, 1955, AOK.

  72. Protocol 169, November 16, 1955, AOK.

  73. I. Turgarinov, August 2, 1956, “O Proyekte Stroitlstva Asuanskoy plotiny [Regarding the Aswan Dam Construction Project],” 087 19/14/40, pp. 48–65, MFA.

  74. Torgovoe soglashenie mezhdu SSSR i Egiptom,” March 24, 1954, MFA
.

  75. Turgarinov, op. cit.

  76. The Soviets were well aware that the Egyptians were doing this. Ibid.

  77. Editorial note, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 14, p. 797.

  78. Eden to Eisenhower, November 27, 1955, ibid., pp. 808–9.

  79. Kyle, op. cit., pp. 82–85.

  80. Zaitsev, Short report on Soviet proposals to Egypt to finance the building of the Aswan Dam, January 5, 1956, MFA.

  81. Protocol 175 (continuation), December 22, 1955, AOK.

  82. Ibid.

  83. Protocol 122, December 16, 1955, AOK.

  84. Protocol 122 (continuation), December 22, 1955, AOK.

  CHAPTER 4: SUEZ

  1. Abd Allah Imaam, “Ali Sabri Yatadhakir [Ali Sabri Remembers]” (Beirut: Dar al-Wahdah, 1988), p. 20, cited in Jon Alterman, “The View from Cairo, Developments to July 31, 1956,” in “The Suez Crisis and Its Teachings: Case Studies for a conference at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, February 15–16, 1997” [hereafter May and Zelikow Suez compilation].” The authors are grateful to Ernest May and Philip Zelikow, the conference directors, for the opportunity to consult this important compilation of excellent papers on the Suez crisis.

  2. Peter Hahn, The United States, Great Britain and Egypt: Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War, 1945–1956 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1991), pp. 202–4.

  3. Abd Allah Imaam, op. cit., p. 20.

  4. Zachary Karabell, Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal (New York: Knopf, 2003), p. 269; Goodpaster, memorandum of conversation with the president, July 27, 1956, Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS], 1955–1957, vol. 16, p. 6. On Nasser’s risk calculations, see Mohamed Heikal, cited in J. A. Sellers, “Military Lessons: The British Perspective,” in The Suez-Sinai Crisis 1956: Retrospective and Reappraisal, ed. S. Troen and M. Shemesh, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 24.

  5. Keith Kyle, Suez (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), pp. 132–34.

  6. Mohamed Haikal, “Milafaat al-Sulways,” pp. 460–63, cited in Alterman, op. cit.

  7. Kyle, op. cit., pp. 132–34.

  8. Nasser did not promise to let Israel use the canal.

  9. Memcon, Shepilov and Amer, June 18, 1956, 6/1956/1A/13/3, MFA. On behalf of the Kremlin, Shepilov explicitly turned down the Egyptian request for T-54 tanks and MiG-19s with the explanation that they were still undergoing testing in the USSR and could not be exported.

  10. Yevgeni Kiselev to MFA, July 26, 1956, MFA. Kiselev had replaced Daniel Solod as Soviet ambassador in the spring of 1956.

  11. Turgarinov, August 2, 1956, “O Proyekte Stroitlstva Asuanskoy plotiny [Regarding the Aswan Dam Construction Project],” 087 19/14/40, pp. 48–65, MFA.

  12. Memcon, Shepilov and Amer, June 18, 1956, 6/1956/1A/13/3, MFA. On behalf of the Kremlin, Shepilov explicitly turned down the Egyptian request for T-54 tanks and MiG-19s with the explanation that they were still undergoing testing in the USSR and could not be exported.

  13. [Protocol 185], February 1, 1956, AOK.

  14. Protocol 187, February 9, 1956, AOK.

  15. Ochab cited in William Taubman, Khrushchev (New York: Norton, 2003), p. 290.

  16. Ibid., pp. 288–89; William J. Thompson, Khrushchev: A Political Life (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997), pp. 166–67.

  17. Memcon, Shepilov and el-Kouni, July 27, 1956, 087 1956, 19/38/2, pp. 2–11, MFA.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Nuri al-Said quoted in David Nickles, “The View from London, Developments until August 1, 1956,” May and Zelikow Suez compilation. Selwyn Lloyd refers to this discussion in Suez 1956: A Personal Account (London: Coronet, 1980), p. 74.

  20. Diane Kunz, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), p. 130.

  21. Julian Amery, “The Suez Group: A Retrospective on Suez,” in Troen and Shemesh, op. cit., pp. 117–18.

  22. Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden: A Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987), pp. 456–57.

  23. This was not a formal meeting of Eden’s cabinet. It appears that only those cabinet ministers who happened to be at the state dinner for the Iraqis were invited. Ibid., p. 454.

  24. Foster [London] to DOS, July 27, 1956 [5:00 A.M.], FRUS, 1955–1957 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office), vol. 16, pp. 3–5.

  25. Mollet cited in Charles G. Cogan, “The View from Paris, Developments until July 31, 1956,” May and Zelikow Suez compilation.

  26. On the French investment in Algeria, see William Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945–2002 (New York: Doubleday, 2002), pp. 184–92.

  27. Ely, cited ibid.

  28. Jean Chauvel, French Embassy (London) to Joxe personally, July 28, 1956, Secretariat General, Suez 82, Suez Crisis 1956–1957, French Diplomatic Archives.

  29. Rhodes James, op. cit., p. 458; Sellers, op. cit., p. 24.

  30. Jean Chauvel, French Embassy, (London) to Joxe personally, July 28, 1956, Secretariat General, Suez 82, Suez Crisis 1956–1957, French Diplomatic Archives. On August 1 Albert Thomas, the director-general of the French Defense Ministry, told the Israeli Defense Ministry official (and later prime minister) Shimon Peres: “The English and the French have decided in principle on a joint military operation to conquer the Canal.” The operation was to occur in three weeks, and Britain had stipulated that Israel not be involved. David Ben Gurion’s Diary, August 3, 1956, ed. and trans. Selwyn Ilan Troen, in Troen and Shemesh, op. cit., pp. 291–92.

  31. Dulles cited in Robert R. Bowie, “Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Suez Crisis,” Suez 1956: The Crisis and Its Consequences, ed. Wm. Roger Louis and Roger Owen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 191.

  32. Ibid.

  33. Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years, Waging Peace: 1956–1961 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), p. 39.

  34. Telcon, JFD–DDE, July 29, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 16, pp. 38–39.

  35. Murphy [London] to DOS, July 29, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 16, pp. 35–36.

  36. June 28, 1956, on the basis of el-Kouni’s recommendations, Shepilov’s deputy Vladimir Semenov and the chief of the Near East Department, Grigorii, Zaitsev crafted a set of suggestions for the Presidium, 19/39/8, p. 1, MFA.

  37. Semenov and el-Kouni meeting, August 1, 1956, 19/13/7, MFA.

  38. Ibid.

  39. Bohlen to SecState, August 1, 1956, RG 89, State Department Decimal File 974.7301/8-156, NARA-II.

  40. Ibid.

  41. Semenov and el-Kouni meeting, August 1, 1956, 19/13/7, MFA.

  42. V. I. Afiani and N. S. Ivanov, “Sovetskii soyuz i Suetskii krizis 1956 g. (po mate-rialam TskSD) [The Soviet Union and the Suez Crisis 1956 (according to the materials at the TskSD)].” The authors are grateful for this remarkable work by two archivists, which refers to classified materials summarized on cards kept by the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. [This source will hereafter be referred to as Afiani-Ivanov, op. cit.] Although Afiani and Ivanov list several intercepted U.S. Embassy cables that were distributed to the Presidium, they do not claim that the KGB acquired all of the embassy’s cable traffic. The State Department, which discovered the Soviet surveillance system in the early 1960s, concluded that Soviet intelligence had the capability of acquiring all embassy cables until the system was removed. The damage assessment of this penetration can be found attached to: memo, Jacob Beam to Mr. Henry, May 27, 1964, in Records of Llewellyn E. Thompson, 1961–1970, State Department Records, Box 10, RG 59, NARA-II. The United States believed the penetration dated back to 1953, but the Afiani-Ivanov compilation suggests it started only in 1956.

  43. Semenov and El-Kouni meeting, August 1, 1956, 19/13/7, MFA.

  44. Ibid.

  45. Murphy [London] to DOS, July 31, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 16, p. 61.

  46. Memcon, July 31, 1956, ibid., p. 63.

  47. Memcon, August 1, 1956, ibid., p. 95.


  48. Ibid.

  49. Sellers, op. cit., pp. 28–29.

  50. Protocol 30, August 3, 1956, AOK.

  51. Ibid.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Ibid.

  54. “Aircraft Carriers Prepare to Sail; Merchant Ships Taken Over,” Times (of London), August 4, 1956.

  55. “Precautionary Army Measures,” Ibid., August 3, 1956.

  56. Meeting, Nasser and Kiselev, August 3, 1956, APRF.

  57. The reference to Kabul was puzzling. Afghanistan of course had no oil to sell. Nasser probably said Kuwait.

  58. Nasser was grandstanding to force the Soviets to act. He never threatened the United States with a reign of terror.

  59. Protocol 31, August 5, 1956, AOK.

  60. Ibid.

  61. Nehru had decided to attend the conference even before hearing from Moscow. Just after midnight, August 8, Moscow received a letter from Nehru, explaining India’s decision. India believed that participation would not symbolize approval of Western actions in this crisis. Nehru told the Soviets that though it was in India’s interest to attend the conference, he fully supported Nasser’s decision not to send anyone from Cairo. India also fully supported the nationalization of the canal. It was a matter of the sovereign right of Egypt. But Nehru added that India had its own interests too. In London, India’s approach reflected its support for the principle of free use of the canal, as enshrined in the 1888 convention. August 8, 1956, New Delhi to Moscow, 01/02/15, MFA.

  62. Protocol 31 (continuation), August 9, 1956, AOK; Protocol 32, August 11, 1956, AOK.

  63. Protocol 169, November 16, 1955, AOK.

  64. Protocol 32, August 11, 1956, AOK.

  65. Ibid. To ease the concerns of his colleagues, Khrushchev also suggested that in London Shepilov be quite open about Nasser’s mistakes. His Alexandria speech had been “provocative, excited.” Khrushchev also wanted Soviet diplomats to coordinate with their counterparts from India and Indonesia.

  66. Afiani and Ivanov, op. cit.

  67. KGB report, August 14, 1956, APRF. The authors were unable to corroborate in U.S. or Israeli state archives that this meeting took place.

  68. Memcon, August 14, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 16, pp. 198–99.

  69. “Shepilov Says ‘No,’ Too, but Not Harshly; His Manner Is Not So Stiff as Molotov’s,” New York Times, August 24, 1956.