TOP-SECRET: The Velvet Revolution Declassified

Washington, D.C., August 20, 2011 – Fifteen years ago today, a modest, officially sanctioned student demonstration in Prague spontaneously grew into a major outburst of popular revulsion toward the ruling Communist regime. At that point the largest protest in 20 years, the demonstrations helped to spark the Velvet Revolution that brought down communism in Czechoslovakia and put dissident playwright Václav Havel in the Presidential Palace.

The November 17, 1989 march commemorated a student leader, Jan Opletal, who was killed by Nazi occupiers 50 years before, but quickly took on a starkly anti-regime character with calls of “Jakeš into the wastebasket,” referring to the communist party general secretary, and demands for free elections. The authorities used blunt force to disperse the students, injuring scores of people including several foreign journalists. Hundreds were arrested.

The result was more demonstrations over the next three days that completely exposed the bankruptcy of the regime. Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution soon joined the historic chain of events begun with Poland’s roundtable talks and elections, Hungary’s reintroduction of a multi-party system, and just a week before the Prague protests, the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Now a new joint English-Czech edition volume has been published in Prague which tells the extraordinary tale of the revolution. The volume is entitled Prague-Washington-Prague: Reports from the United States Embassy in Czechoslovakia, November-December 1989. What sets this volume apart from other accounts is that it is a compilation of recently declassified U.S. State Department cable traffic from the period. Released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the non-governmental National Security Archive, the cables not only provide quite accurate reporting of the unfolding events but offer insights into U.S. thinking at the time, including how the first demonstrations on this date in 1989 completely surprised American officials and forced them to dramatically revise their estimates on the survivability of the Communist regime in Prague.

Of particular note, this new volume is the first publication of the Václav Havel Library, which is still in the process of being formed. (Its website, currently being developed, offers further information about the book.)

The book’s editor, Vilém Precan, is a long-time partner of the National Security Archive who has been instrumental in bringing new documentation to light and organizing international conferences on the hidden history of Czechoslovakia and the Cold War. As indicated by Radio Prague, the international service of Czech Radio, Dr. Precan “worked untiringly with the National Security Archive … to have the documents released.”

From the book’s Introduction: “It is unusual for documents related to diplomacy to be published so soon after their having been written … That the set of documents published in this volume got into the hands of independent historians so soon after their having originated is thanks to an American nongovernmental institution with a name that will probably mean little to the layman and might even be confusing. That institution is the National Security Archive. It was established to gather and publish documents that have been declassified on the basis of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) …. The [Archive] has been more than successful in achieving this aim.”

From Vilém Precan’s Acknowledgements: “This volume is the result of the work of many people, whom I as Editor now wish to thank. First and foremost I express my gratitude to my friends and colleagues at the National Security Archive in Washington D.C.: Tom Blanton, Catherine Nielsen, Svetlana Savranskaya, and Sue Bechtel, owing to whose efforts the telegrams were made available to independent researchers and were passed on to Prague, and who were of great assistance to me while I was working in Washington. ”

Note about the book cover: Václav Bartuska, the director of the Havel Library, made the following comment: The photograph “is from the meeting where the transition of power from commies to Civic Forum was discussed … The back of the man you see at the bottom of the picture belongs to … guess whom … I liked this idea of having Václav Havel there right at the centre of all things, yet not visible at first. I think this had been his place for a long time.”

Why was the revolution non-violent? One of the many subplots of the new compilation is the fact that, despite the authorities’ initial use of force to break up the November demonstrations, the Velvet Revolution and similar events in other East European states (with the notable exception of Romania) were allowed to take place without Moscow resorting to bloody repression to keep its clients in power. An earlier National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book from 1999 also explores this topic in some detail, drawing on declassified records from a range of Russian and East European archives.

The spontaneous eruption of student protests in Prague instantly recalled to the minds of U.S. embassy staff (as indicated in cables included in this briefing book) earlier demonstrations in Eastern Europe, such as in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia on the first anniversary of the Soviet invasion of 1968. In that context, readers should note that some of the materials in the new Havel Library volume are also to become part of an acclaimed book series published by Central European University Press under the rubric, The National Security Archive Cold War Reader Series. This series comprises volumes of once-secret documentation from the former Soviet bloc and the West on each of the major upheavals in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The series will feature a special emphasis on the revolutions of 1989 with separate volumes on Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland. Titles already in print or at the publishers include:

The Prague Spring 1968, edited by Járomír Navrátil et al (1998)
“I am happy that the cooperation between the National Security Archive in Washington and the Czech foundation, Prague Spring 1968, has resulted in this voluminous collection of documents.” – Václav Havel

Uprising in East Germany, 1953, edited by Christian Ostermann (2001)
“This excellent collection of documents pulls together what’s been learned about [the uprising] since the Cold War … It is an indispensable new source for the study of Cold War history.” – John Lewis Gaddis

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, edited by Csaba Békés, Malcolm Byrne and János Rainer (2002)
“There is no publication, in any language, that would even approach the thoroughness, reliability, and novelty of this monumental work.” – István Deák

A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955-1991, edited by Vojtech Mastny and Malcolm Byrne (Forthcoming, 2005)

Documents
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.Document No. 1: Confidential Cable #08082 from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “Brutal Suppression of Czech Students’ Demonstration,” November 18, 1989, 14:18Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

Document No. 2: Unclassified Cable #08087 from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “Embassy Protest of Attack on American Journalists during November 17-19 Demonstrations in Prague,” November 20, 1989, 12:20Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

Document No. 3: Confidential Cable #08097 from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “Demonstrations Continue Over Weekend in Prague,” November 20, 1989, 12:42Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

Document No. 4: Unclassified Cable #08106 from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “Czechoslovak Press Coverage of Demonstration Aftermath Shows Contradictory Lines,” November 20, 1989, 16:48Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

Document No. 5: Limited Official Use Cable from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “Czechoslovak Independents Establish New Organization and List Agenda of Demands,” November 20, 1989, 16:52Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

Document No. 6: Confidential Cable #08109 from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “American Woman’s Account of November 17 Demonstration and the Death of a Czech Student,” November 20, 1989, 16:54Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

Document No. 7: Confidential Cable #08110 from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “Popular and Soviet Pressure for Reform Converge on the Jakes Leadership,” November 20, 1989, 16:57Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

Document No. 8: Confidential Cable #08144 from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “Demonstrations in Prague and Other Czechoslovak Cities November 20,” November 21, 1989, 15:20Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

Document No. 9: Confidential Cable #08153 from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “Student Strike Situation Report,” November 21, 1989, 18:59Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

Document No. 10: Confidential Cable #08155 from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “Morning Demonstration at Wenceslas Square: Overheard Conversations,” November 21, 1989, 19:01Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

TOP-SECRET: The Velvet Revolution Declassified

Washington, D.C., August 18, 2011 – Fifteen years ago today, a modest, officially sanctioned student demonstration in Prague spontaneously grew into a major outburst of popular revulsion toward the ruling Communist regime. At that point the largest protest in 20 years, the demonstrations helped to spark the Velvet Revolution that brought down communism in Czechoslovakia and put dissident playwright Václav Havel in the Presidential Palace.

The Prague Spring 1968, edited by Járomír Navrátil et al (1998)
“I am happy that the cooperation between the National Security Archive in Washington and the Czech foundation, Prague Spring 1968, has resulted in this voluminous collection of documents.” – Václav Havel

Uprising in East Germany, 1953, edited by Christian Ostermann (2001)
“This excellent collection of documents pulls together what’s been learned about [the uprising] since the Cold War … It is an indispensable new source for the study of Cold War history.” – John Lewis Gaddis

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, edited by Csaba Békés, Malcolm Byrne and János Rainer (2002)
“There is no publication, in any language, that would even approach the thoroughness, reliability, and novelty of this monumental work.” – István Deák

A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955-1991, edited by Vojtech Mastny and Malcolm Byrne (Forthcoming, 2005)

Document No. 9: Confidential Cable #08153 from U.S. Embassy Prague to the Department, “Student Strike Situation Report,” November 21, 1989, 18:59Z
Source: Freedom of Information Act

home | about | documents | new

TOP-SECRET: CIA HAD SINGLE OFFICER IN HUNGARY 1956

Washington D.C., August 9th, 2011 – Fifty years ago today the Soviet Presidium overturned its earlier decision to pull its troops out of Hungary in the face of a popular uprising, yet the CIA–with only one Hungarian-speaking officer stationed in Budapest at the time–failed to foresee either the uprising or the Soviet invasion to come, according to declassified CIA histories posted on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).

Describing the several days in early November 1956 when it seemed the Hungarian Revolution had succeeded (before the Soviet tanks rolled in on November 4), a CIA Clandestine Service History written in 1958 commented: “This breath-taking and undreamed-of state of affairs not only caught many Hungarians off-guard, it also caught us off-guard, for which we can hardly be blamed since we had no inside information, little outside information, and could not read the Russians’ minds.”

Through a Freedom of Information Act request and appeal, Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) professor Charles Gati obtained the heavily-censored extracts from two previously secret CIA histories in the Clandestine Service History series for his critically-praised new book Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt (Stanford University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2006).

The extracts come from a two-volume history of CIA operations in Hungary (dated May 1972 and only 2 copies made) and from a two-volume history titled “The Hungarian Revolution and Planning for the Future” (dated January 1958). Because of the extensive security deletions, it is impossible to determine the length of each document, but judging by the page numbers, the first pair of volumes totals at least 99 and 71 pages, and the second at least 106 pages.

The CIA histories show that the Agency had essentially only one Hungarian-speaking officer based in Hungary during the 1950-1957 period, and for several years that person spent “95 percent” of his time on “cover duties.” “He mailed letters, purchased stamps and stationery …,” among other “support tasks,” the history noted. At the time of the Revolution in fall 1956, he was preoccupied with official contacts and doing interviews with Hungarian visitors.

The name of the sole CIA officer in Budapest in 1956, Geza Katona, is censored from the CIA histories but included in Professor Gati’s book with Katona’s permission. Katona is also the subject of an extensive oral history interview in the Summer 2006 issue of Hungarian Quarterly (pp. 109-131), which repeats his cover story as a State Department official. According to the CIA histories, Katona took part in no operational activities because he had no time and was “constrained from so doing by the US policy of nonintervention.” In fact, the histories say, “At no time in the period 23 October – 4 November, if one looks at the situation realistically, did we have anything that could or should have been mistaken for an intelligence operation.”

The CIA documents admit that the bulk of the reports CIA received were from the border areas near Austria. The Agency had no steady information from Budapest (“the storm center”) or on a country-wide basis. The histories acknowledge this meant intelligence was “one-sided” and that therefore planning based on that intelligence was also “one-sided.”

On the issue of whether support from outside the country would have been useful or welcome (which may seem an obvious point, but until now the evidence has consisted only of memoir accounts and second-hand literature citing unnamed intelligence sources), the CIA histories reflect this lingering controversy, reporting with some feeling that, based on “the whole picture we now have of the mentality of the revolutionaries … almost anyone from the West, of whatever nationality, color or purpose would have been received with open arms by any of the revolutionary councils in the cities of Hungary during the period in question.”

Two related issues have remained open to debate since the revolution–whether the United States sent weapons or ammunition to the rebels or deployed specially trained émigré forces into Hungary. The CIA records appear to put both questions to rest.

A few days after the revolt broke out, Katona queried the agency on official policy regarding arms and ammunition. On October 28, Headquarters responded, “we must restrict ourselves to information collection only [and] not get involved in anything that would reveal U.S. interest or give cause to claim intervention.” The next day, Washington replied more specifically “that it was not permitted to send U.S. weapons in.” In fact, the implication in the histories is that transferring arms was never seriously contemplated: “At this date no one had checked precisely on the exact location and nature of U.S. or other weapons available to CIA. This was done finally in early December” of 1956.

Numerous published accounts have indicated the existence of secret U.S.-trained émigré groups in the 1950s identified under such rubrics as Red Sox/Red Cap or the Volunteer Freedom Corps. But it has never been officially confirmed whether any groups of this kind played a part in Hungary in 1956. From the Clandestine Service Histories, it seems clear they did not. Although the new documents confirm that small psychological warfare and paramilitary units came into being in the early 1950s, (including the Hungarian National Council headed by Bela Varga), and occasional reconnaissance missions took place at that time, the prospects for penetrating into Hungary deteriorated by 1953 when stepped up controls by Hungarian security forces and “the meager talent available” among potential agents made cross-border operations essentially untenable.

Thus, far from revealing the deployment of any organized contingents that may have existed, the new documents imply that something much more spur-of-the-moment took place: on October 31, “Headquarters seconded a scheme which had shortly before come out of [deleted] and which proposed that certain defectors [deleted] who had volunteered to go back into Hungary be allowed to go.”

The histories contain other interesting insights into CIA operations, including the complaint that another obstacle to their activities was the involvement of the U.S. military (presaging current conflicts between the two bureaucracies in Iraq). The authors sarcastically write that “If we [the CIA] were in no position to act efficiently … the military is, was, and always will be even worse off.” They recommend that in the future the CIA keep the military “at arm’s length” and only do what’s necessary “to keep them happy.”

Of course, according to Soviet documents previously published by the National Security Archive (click here for more selections from The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents, edited by Csaba Bekes, Malcolm Byrne, and Janos M. Rainer, from Central European University Press), the availability of an abundance of intelligence assets does not necessarily provide all the answers. Moscow was also taken by surprise by the Revolution despite the thousands of Soviet soldiers, KGB officers, and Party informants present in Hungary. Rather than understanding the sources of the discontent, it was easier for Soviet operatives and even the leadership to cast woefully misdirected blame on the CIA for the unrest. Klement Voroshilov remarked at the October 28 Presidium session: “The American Secret Services are more active in Hungary than Comrades Suslov and Mikoyan are,” referring to the two Party leaders sent to Budapest to negotiate a modus vivendi with the new Nagy government. At that moment, of course, the Soviet Presidium had more active members (2) in Budapest than the CIA had case officers (1).

Documents
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.

CIA Histories

Document 1: CIA Clandestine Services History, The Hungarian Revolution and Planning for the Future, 23 October – 4 November 1956, Volume I of II, January 1958

Document 2: CIA Historical Staff, The Clandestine Service Historical Series, Hungary, Volume I, [Deleted], May 1972

Document 3: CIA Historical Staff, The Clandestine Service Historical Series, Hungary, Volume II, External Operations, 1946 – 1965, May 1972

Soviet Documents

Document 4: Working Notes from the CPSU CC Presidium Session, October 28, 1956

Document 5: Working Notes from the Session of the CPSU CC Presidium on October 30, 1956 (Re: Point 1 of Protocol No. 49)

Document 6: Working Notes and Attached Extract from the Minutes of the CPSU CC Presidium Meeting, October 31, 1956

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this: