Intelligence, warning, and policy: the Johnson administration and the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

ABSTRACT

This article examines the impact of intelligence on policymaking in the Johnson Administration during the 1968 Prague Spring. It argues that the US intelligence community was unable to provide policymakers with an accurate picture of Soviet priorities during the Prague Spring and did not effectively communicate the increasing potential for Soviet military action. Although intelligence warnings were issued prior to the invasion, these warnings were neither forceful enough to counteract the belief that the Soviet leadership would refrain from invasion nor convincing enough to alter pre-existing policy positions. Consequently, intelligence had little impact on decision-making throughout the Prague Spring.

KEYWORDS:

• Intelligence
• warning
• Czechoslovakia
• Prague Spring
• LBJ
• Cold War

Acknowledgements

My thanks go to Barbara Keys, Richard Immerman, Richard Aldrich and Michael S. Goodman for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Christopher Andrew and David Dilks made this influential claim in their 1984 work, The Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984).

² Robert Jervis, “Intelligence in the Cold War: What Difference Did It Make? ed. By Michael Herman and Gwilym Hughes (review),” Journal of Cold War Studies 18, no. 3 (2016): 190–2.

³ Richard Immerman, “Intelligence and Strategy: Historicizing Psychology, Policy and Politics,” Diplomatic History 32, no. 1 (2008): 5.

⁴ These declassifications include the 2015 release of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB); the 2008 release of the ‘top-secret Umbra’ study American Cryptology during the Cold War, written by NSA historian Thomas Johnson, which provided new insights into SIGINT activities during the Prague Spring; and a major release of 500 previously declassified documents by the CIA Historical Division and LBJ Library on intelligence during the crisis in 2010.

⁵ Cynthia M. Grabo, Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning (Washington, D.C.: Joint Military Intelligence College’s Centre for Strategic Intelligence Research, 2002), 4.

⁶ Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 143–5, 153, 195.

⁷ Grabo, Anticipating Surprise, 81.

⁸ Richard K. Betts, “Surprise Despite Warning: Why Sudden Attacks Succeed,” Political Science Quarterly 95, no. 4 (1980–1): 552.

⁹ Richard Immerman, “Intelligence and Strategy,” 6–7.

¹⁰ Michael Herman, “What Difference Did It Make?” Intelligence and National Security 26, no. 6 (2011): 891.

¹¹ Robert Jervis, “Why Intelligence and Policymakers Clash,” Political Science Quarterly 125, no. 2 (2010): 199.

¹² For recent interpretations of the Prague Spring see Gunter Bischof, Stefan Karner, and Peter Ruggenthaler, eds., The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010) and M. Mark Stolarik, ed., The ‘Prague Spring’ and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968: Forty Years Later (Mundelin, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2010).

¹³ Karen Dawisha, The Kremlin and the Prague Spring (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 17.

¹⁴ See Melanie Brand, “Mind Games: Cognitive Bias, US Intelligence and the 1968 Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia,” Intelligence and National Security 34, no. 5 (2019): 743–57 for an in-depth analysis of the impact of cognitive bias on intelligence analysis during the early months of the Prague Spring.

¹⁵ “Special Memorandum no. 1-68 – Czechoslovakia: A New Direction,” CIA Special Memorandum, 12 January 1968, in CIA Historical Collections Division and Lyndon Baines Johnson Library (LBJL), Strategic Warning and the Role of Intelligence: Lessons Learned from the 1968 Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia (Washington, D.C.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012) (hereinafter referred to as ‘CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning’); also at http://www.foia.cia.gov/collection/strategic-warning-and-role-intelligence-lessons-learned-1968-soviet-invasion.

¹⁶ CIA Intelligence memorandum, “The USSR: Problems, Policies and Prospects, 1967–68,” Document 260, 9 January 1968, in Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1964–68, Volume XIV, Soviet Union, ed. David C. Humphrey and Charles S. Sampson (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2001).

¹⁷ See “Special Memorandum no. 1-68 – Czechoslovakia: A New Direction,” CIA Special Memorandum, 12 January 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

¹⁸ “Soviet Reactions to the Changes in Czechoslovakia,” CIA Special Report, 3 May 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning; President’s Daily Brief (PDB), 19 April 1968, Document No. 0005974389, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room (hereinafter referred to as FOIA ERR) http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1827265/DOC_0005974389.pdf (accessed May 27, 2017) and “Czechoslovakia in Transition,” CIA Intelligence Memorandum, 23 April 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

¹⁹ “NSC Meeting on Eastern Europe, 24 April 1968,” Memorandum for the Record, Box 2, NSC Meeting Files, 1966–68, General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59 (hereinafter referred to as RG59), National Archives at College Park, MD (hereinafter referred to as NACP).

²⁰ “Czechoslovakia-USSR,” Central Intelligence Bulletin, 27 April 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning; “Czechoslovakia-USSR,” Central Intelligence Bulletin, 26 April 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning, and “Eastern Europe Contingencies,” Charles Bohlen memorandum to the Under Secretary, 29 April 1968, Box 2, Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG) Files, 1966–69, RG 59, NACP.

²¹ ‘The Russians are nevertheless uneasy over the prospect that Dubček may not be able to control the course of democratisation in Czechoslovakia. They and the other eastern Europeans, especially the Poles and the East Germans, are also worried that Czechoslovak ideas on democratisation will spread to and arouse their populations.’ “Eastern Europe Contingencies,” Charles Bohlen memorandum to the Under Secretary, 29 April 1968, Box 2, Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG) Files, 1966–69, RG 59, NACP.

²² Karen Dawisha, The Kremlin and the Prague Spring (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 72.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Mark Kramer, “The Kremlin, the Prague Spring, and the Brezhnev Doctrine,” in Vladimir Tismaneanu, ed., Promises of 1968: Crisis, Illusion and Utopia (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011), 318, and “Stenographic Account of the Soviet-Czechoslovak Summit Meeting in Moscow, May 4–5, 1968,” Document No. 28, in Navrátil, ed., The Prague Spring 1968, 125.

²⁵ Kramer, “The Kremlin, the Prague Spring, and the Brezhnev Doctrine,” 318–19.

²⁶ Kieran Williams, The Prague Spring and its Aftermath: Czechoslovak Politics, 1968–70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 116. Williams writes the war games included 80,000 men and 2800 tanks.

²⁷ As former Director of Intelligence Douglas MacEachin acknowledged: ‘You [didn’t] wait for policymakers to ask for information on Soviet military build-up.’ Douglas MacEachin, interview, Washington, DC, 17 July 2006.

²⁸ “The Situation in Czechoslovakia (As of 12.00 A.M. EDT),” CIA Intelligence memorandum, 9 May 1968, Record No. 87551, Soviet Flashpoints, National Security Archive, Washington DC (hereinafter referred to as NSArchive); “USSR-Czechoslovakia – Moscow meets with close allies on pressuring Prague,” Central Intelligence Bulletin, 9 May 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning and PDB, 10 May 1968, Document No. 0005976140, FOIA ERR, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1827265/DOC_0005976140.pdf (accessed December 16, 2015).

²⁹ “The Situation in Czechoslovakia (As of 12.00 A.M. EDT),” CIA Intelligence Memorandum, 9 May 1968, Record No. 87551, Soviet Flashpoints, NSArchive.

³⁰ “The Situation in Czechoslovakia (As of 10.00 A.M. EDT),” CIA Intelligence Memorandum, 10 May 1968, Record No. 87555, Soviet Flashpoints, NSArchive; “The Situation in Czechoslovakia (As of 5.00 P.M. EDT),” CIA Intelligence memorandum, 9 May 1968, Record No. 87553, Soviet Flashpoints, NSArchive, and PDB, 10 May 1968, Document No. 0005976140, FOIA ERR, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1827265/DOC_0005976140.pdf (accessed December 16, 2015). “The Situation in Czechoslovakia (As of 5.00 P.M. EDT),” CIA Intelligence Memorandum, 9 May 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning. Please note that the redactions in this version differ from those of the same report housed at the NSArchive.

³¹ “Your Luncheon meeting with the President Today,” Memorandum for the Secretary, 14 May 1968, Box 2, Agenda for the Secretary’s Luncheon Meetings with the President, Office of the Executive Secretariat, RG 59, NACP.

³² “Current Situation in Czechoslovakia,” CIA memorandum, 14 May 1968, Record No. 87563, Soviet Flashpoints, NSArchive.

³³ “Tuesday Lunch with Foreign Policy Advisors, 14 May 1968–1:10 p.m,” Tom Johnson’s notes of meetings, Box 3, LBJL, Austin, Texas.

³⁴ “Czechoslovakia-USSR,” Central Intelligence Bulletin, 15 May 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

³⁵ See “Czechoslovak Contingencies,” Memorandum by Nathaniel Davis to Walt Rostow, 12 July 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning; “The Situation in Czechoslovakia,” Memorandum by Nathaniel Davis to Walt Rostow, 11 July 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning; National Indications Centre Memorandum for the Chairman, Watch Committee, 12 July 1968, Document No. CIA-RDP79B00887A000500010046-1, CREST Collection, NACP, and “Czechoslovak Contingency Arrangements – INFORMATION MEMORANDUM,” Memorandum by George Springsteen to Dean Rusk, 27 July 1968, Box 3, CCF, Office of the Executive Secretariat, RG 59, NACP.

³⁶ PDB, 10 July 1968, Document no. 0005976243, FOIA ERR, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1827265/DOC_0005976243.pdf (accessed December 9, 2015).

³⁷ National Indications Centre memorandum for the Chairman, Watch Committee, 12 July 1968, Document No. CIA-RDP79B00887A000500010046-1, CREST Collection, NACP.

³⁸ “The Situation in Czechoslovakia,” Memorandum by Nathaniel Davis to Walt Rostow, 11 July 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

³⁹ “Czechoslovak Contingencies,” Memorandum by Nathaniel Davis to Walt Rostow, 12 July 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

⁴⁰ “The Crisis in Czechoslovakia,” CIA-Office of National Estimates (ONE) memorandum for the Director, 12 July 1968, Record no. 87550, Soviet Flashpoints, NSArchive.

⁴¹ “The Czechoslovak-Soviet Struggle,” CIA Intelligence memorandum, 12 July 1968, Record no. 87590, Soviet Flashpoints, NSArchive.

⁴² Ibid.

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ “Czechoslovakia Situation Report,” Memorandum by Walt Rostow for Lyndon Johnson, 13 July 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

⁴⁵ Embassy Prague telegram to the Secretary of State, 16 July 1968, #72a, “Czechoslovakia 8/68 Czech Crisis CIA Situation reports CODEWORD,” Country File, NSF, Box 181, LBJL.

⁴⁶ Kramer, “The Kremlin, the Prague Spring, and the Brezhnev Doctrine,” 335, 336–7.

⁴⁷ Prozumenshchikov confirms 19 July as the date that final military planning was undertaken by the Soviet leadership. See Mikhail Prozumenshchikov, “Politburo Decision-Making on the Czech Crisis in 1968,” in The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, ed. Gunter Bischof, Stefan Karner, and Peter Ruggenthaler (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010), 120.

⁴⁸ “Soviets Propose Bilateral Meeting with Czechoslovak Leaders, Increase Pressures,” Memorandum by Thomas L. Hughes to the Acting Secretary, 19 July 1968, Box 2032, POL CZECH 7/1/68 to POL CZECH 8/15/68, CFPF, RG 59, NACP.

⁴⁹ “Soviet Leaders Press for a Meeting with Czechoslovaks,” Memorandum by Thomas L. Hughes memorandum to Dean Rusk, 22 July 1968, Box 3, Czechoslovakia Crisis Files, RG 59, NACP.

⁵⁰ Gen. James H. Polk, “Reflections on the Invasion of Czechoslovakia,” Strategic Review 3 (Winter 1977): 32.

⁵¹ “Moscow Finds New Pressure Tactic as Soviet Forces Withdraw from Czechoslovakia,” Memorandum by Thomas L. Hughes to Dean Rusk, 26 July 1968, Box 2032, POL CZECH 7/1/68 to POL CZECH 8/15/68, CFPF, RG 59, NACP.

⁵² PDB, 24 July 1968, Document no. 0005976267, FOIA ERR, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005976267.pdf (accessed December 9, 2015).

⁵³ “The Situation in Czechoslovakia, July 23–2.30 P.M.,” Memorandum by Walt Rostow to Lyndon Johnson, 23 July 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning, and Central Intelligence Bulletin, 24 July 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

⁵⁴ “Czechoslovakia,” Dean Rusk outgoing telegram 207724, 24 July 1968, Box 2032, POL CZECH 7/1/68 to POL CZECH 8/15/68, CFPF, RG 59, NACP.

⁵⁵ Cynthia Grabo, interview, Washington DC, 15 June 2006.

⁵⁶ See, for example, Memorandum by Art McCafferty to Mr. Rostow, 25 July 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning. The specifics regarding sources have been redacted from the memorandum, but Art McCafferty advises Rostow that: ‘The intelligence people (and I) would tend, at this point, to lean more towards this being an exercise than an actual combat status.’

⁵⁷ Cynthia Grabo, interview, Washington DC, 10 May 2006.

⁵⁸ Cynthia M. Grabo, Handbook of Warning Intelligence: Assessing the Threat to National Security (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 161.

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ “24 July 1968–1:30 p.m. Tuesday Lunch with Foreign Policy Advisors,” Tom Johnson’s Notes of Meetings, Box 3, LBJL.

⁶¹ Transcript of Meeting with the President, Senator Dirksen and Secretary Rusk, Washington, 27 July 1968, 3–4.30 p.m., Document 74, FRUS, Vol. XVII, Eastern Europe, 1964–68; Bohlen quoted in Kenneth N. Skoug, Czechoslovakia’s Lost Fight for Freedom, 1967–69: An American Embassy Perspective (Westport: Praeger, 1999), 130.

⁶² “The Situation in Czechoslovakia (As of 1.00 P.M. EDT),” CIA intelligence memorandum, 1 August 1968, #49, “Czechoslovakia 8/68 Czech Crisis CIA Situation reports CODEWORD,” Country File, National Security File, Box 181, LBJL.

⁶³ “Czechoslovak Communique,” Memorandum by Nathaniel Davis to the President, 1 August 1968, CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

⁶⁴ Jervis, “Why Intelligence and Policymakers Clash,” 196.

⁶⁵ “Military Developments in the Soviet-Czech Confrontation,” CIA intelligence memorandum, Record no. 87589, Soviet Flashpoints, NSArchive.

⁶⁶ Ibid.

⁶⁷ Douglas MacEachin, interview, Washington DC, 17 July 2006. See also “Morning Meeting of 22 August 1968 [Details Redacted],” Memorandum for the Record, 22 August 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning. This document states: ‘The Director underscored his conviction that intelligence basically had done its job in this instance. In this connection, he referred in particular to OSR’s 2 August order-of-battle memorandum.’

⁶⁸ Richards J. Heuer is highly dismissive the use of such phrases in finished intelligence reports, branding them ‘empty shells’, because the reader ‘fills them with meaning though the context in which they are used and what is already in the [reader’s] mind.’ See Richards J. Heuer, Jr., Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (Washington, D.C.: Centre for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999), 87.

⁶⁹ Grabo, Anticipating Surprise, 14. Grabo warns: ‘Phrases suggesting ominous possibilities which are buried in the texts of long factual discussions do not provide much warning to the policymaker who may have had only time to read the first paragraph.’

⁷⁰ PDB, 3 August 1968, Document no. 0005976285, FOIA ERR, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005976285.pdf (accessed December 9, 2015).

⁷¹ Vladimir Lehovich, interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs History Project (hereinafter referred to as ADST), 25 March 1997, 51, 53. http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Lehovich,%20Vladimir.toc.pdf (accessed July 15, 2015).

⁷² Ibid. Walter J. Stoessel Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, quoted in Thomas Simons, interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, ASDT, 22 July 2004, p. 42.

⁷³ Kenneth N. Skoug, interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, ASDT, 22 August 2000, 73; and Charles Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929–69 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1973), 531.

⁷⁴ Vladimir Lehovich, interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, ASDT, 25 March 1997, 53.

⁷⁵ Helmut Sonnenfeldt, interview, Washington DC, 21 July 2006.

⁷⁶ “Notes of Briefing of Former Vice President Nixon and Governor Agnew,” Notes of Meeting, Document 74, FRUS, Vol. XVII, Eastern Europe, 1964–68; Matthew Aid, The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009), 143, and Central Intelligence Bulletin, 10 August 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

⁷⁷ “Czechoslovakia Wins Respite From the USSR,” CIA Weekly Summary, 9 August 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

⁷⁸ “The Czech Crisis and Soviet Regime Politics,” Memorandum by Thomas L. Hughes to Dean Rusk, 16 August 1968, Box 2032, POL CZECH 7/1/68 to POL CZECH 8/15/68, CFPF, RG 59, NACP.

⁷⁹ “USSR-Czechoslovakia,” Central Intelligence Bulletin, 7 August 1968, Document no. CIA-RDP79T00975A011800060001-4, CREST Collection, NACP and “Czechoslovakia,” Central Intelligence Bulletin, 12 August 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

⁸⁰ Cynthia M. Grabo, “The Watch Committee and National Indications Center: The Evolution of US Strategic Warning 1950–75,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 3, no. 3 (1989): 380; and Cynthia M. Grabo, Handbook of Warning Intelligence: Assessing the Threat to National Security (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 149.

⁸¹ Douglas MacEachin, “Analysis and Estimates: Professional Practices in Intelligence Production,” in Transforming US Intelligence, ed. Jennifer E. Sims and Burton Gerber (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005), 121.

⁸² PDB, 15 August 1968, Document no. 0005976305, FOIA ERR, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1827265/DOC_0005976305.pdf (accessed December 9, 2015).

⁸³ PDB, 12 August 1968, Document no. 0005976299, FOIA ERR, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1827265/DOC_0005976299.pdf (accessed December 9, 2015).

⁸⁴ Williams, The Prague Spring, 106 and Prozumenshchikov, “Politburo Decision-Making on the Czech Crisis in 1968,” 122.

⁸⁵ Mark Kramer, “The Kremlin, the Prague Spring, and the Brezhnev Doctrine,” in Promises of 1968, ed. Tismaneau, 346.

⁸⁶ PDB, 16 August 1968, Document no. 0005976307, FOIA ERR, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1827265/DOC_0005976307.pdf (accessed December 9, 2015).

⁸⁷ David Miller, The Cold War: A Military History (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999), 39.

⁸⁸ Aid, Secret Sentry, 144.

⁸⁹ Erik J. Dahl, Intelligence and Surprise Attack: Failure and Success from Pearl Harbour to 9/11 and Beyond (Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2013), 78.

⁹⁰ Jervis, Perception and Misperception, 123.

⁹¹ Cynthia Grabo confirmed the existence of at least one high placed Polish source, but there is no documentary evidence of any prior warning from this source. Cynthia Grabo, interview, Washington, DC, 15 June 2006.

⁹² Thomas R. Johnson, “American Cryptology During the Cold War, 1945–89: Book II: Centralization Wins, 1960–72,” (National Security Agency: Centre for Cryptological History, 1995), at http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB260/NSA-3.pdf, 458 (accessed July 30, 2014). See also Aid, Secret Sentry, 144.

⁹³ Ibid.

⁹⁴ “Czechoslovakia-USSR,” Central Intelligence Bulletin, 20 August 1968, Document no. CIA-RDP79T00975A011900050001-4, CREST Collection, NACP.

⁹⁵ Telegram by the Commander in Chief of United States Army Europe to the DIA, Daily Intelligence Summary, Cable no. 166/68, 20 August 1968, Box 3, CCF, RG 59, NACP.

⁹⁶ See Memorandum by Walt Rostow to Lyndon Johnson, Washington, 20 August 1968, Document 288, FRUS, Vol. XIV, Soviet Union, 1964–68.

⁹⁷ Richard Helms and William Hood, A Look over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency (New York: Random House, 2003), 341.

⁹⁸ Ibid.

⁹⁹ Erik J. Dahl, Intelligence and Surprise Attack, 77.

¹⁰⁰ “Post Mortem on Czech Crisis,” Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, 11 October 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

¹⁰¹ Cynthia Grabo, interview, Washington DC, 10 May and 15 June 2006.

¹⁰² Cynthia Grabo, interview, Washington DC, 10 May 2006.

¹⁰³ “Tuesday Luncheon with Foreign Policy Advisors, 20 August 1968–2:05 p.m,” Tom Johnson’s Notes of Meetings, Box 3, LBJL.

¹⁰⁴ Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), 201.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid., 203.

¹⁰⁶ “Notes on the Emergency Meeting of the National Security Council, 20 August 1968,” 20 August 1968, in CIA and LBJL, Strategic Warning.

¹⁰⁷ Memorandum by Walt Rostow to Lyndon Johnson, Washington, 20 August 1968, Document 288, FRUS, Vol. XIV, Soviet Union, 1964–68. Thomas R. Johnson writes that in a later interview Rostow recalled that Dobrynin’s afternoon call to the White House provided a warning to President: ‘The timing was almost unprecedented – the president knew immediately that the subject must be Czechoslovakia, and it must mean invasion.’ However, there is no evidence of this in the released documentary record. See Johnson, American Cryptology, 459.

¹⁰⁸ B. Drummond Ayres Jr., “Johnson Summons Security Council,” New York Times, 21 August 1968.

¹⁰⁹ Ambassador John Leddy, interview by Willis C. Armstrong, ADST, 31 January 1990, 52.

¹¹⁰ Richard K. Betts, Surprise Attack: Lessons for Defence Planning (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1982), 87–8.

¹¹¹ Douglas MacEachin, Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: The Intelligence Community’s Record (Washington DC: Centre for the Study of Intelligence, 2002), 46. Also available online at https://www.cia.gov/library/centre-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/predicting-the-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-the-intelligence-communitys-record/predicting-the-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-the-intelligence-communitys-record.html#link21.

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Melanie Brand

Melanie Brand is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne where she is currently researching intelligence oversight and accountability in Australia. She has previously published in Intelligence and National Security and has appeared in the Australian media commenting on aspects of intelligence.