British policy towards Eastern Europe and the impact of the ‘Prague Spring’, 1964–68

Abstract

This article analyzes Britain's role in East–West diplomacy during the mid-to-late 1960s, with particular reference to London's response to the Czechoslovak communist regime's abortive efforts at internal liberalization in 1968. British officials presumed that the USSR's East European clients were undergoing a process of internal ‘evolution’, and were adopting more autonomous domestic policies. Like other Western countries, Britain responded to the ‘Prague Spring’ with caution, avoiding any action which could provoke Soviet hostility and jeopardize détente. London also failed to predict the Warsaw Pact's invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. After briefly expressing outrage at the suppression of the ‘Prague Spring’, Britain and other Western powers soon reverted to a ‘business as usual’ approach to East–West relations, and continued to pursue policies intended to develop détente.

This article is based on research for my Ph.D. on British policy towards East–West détente from 1964 to 1968. I am indebted to Professor Saki Dockrill, from King's College London, who supervised me during my studies. I would also like to acknowledge the comments and criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper which I received from Professor Howell Harris, of the University of Durham, and the members of the International History Seminar Group at the Institute of Historical Research in London. Thanks are also due to Mr Keith Adams of the British Library Newspaper Depository at Colindale, London, and the staffs of the National Archives (TNA) in Kew, London, the National Security Archive in George Washington University (Washington DC), and the Lyndon B. Johnson Library (LBJLIB) in Austin, Texas, for assisting my research for both my thesis and this article.

Notes

1. Richard Crampton, Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge 1994), pp.318–19. For the ‘Action Programme’, see Jaromir Navratil et al. (eds.), The Prague Spring 1968. A National Security Archive Documents Reader (cited as 1968) (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998), 10 April 1968, pp.92–5.

2. Secondary accounts of the Czechoslovak crisis include Karen Dawisha, The Kremlin and the Prague Spring (Berkeley Ca.: University of California Press 1984); H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976); Jiri Valenta, Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia. Anatomy of a Decision (Baltimore MA: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979); and Kieran Williams,‘Political Loves’ Labours Lost: Negotiations between Prague and Moscow in 1968', Slovo 7/1 (1994), pp.72–87.

3. See, for example, Richard Crockatt, The Fifty Years War. The United States and the Soviet Union in World Politics, 1941–1991 (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.209–10; John Dunbabin, The Cold War: The Great Powers and their Allies (London: Longman 1994), pp.270–79; and Raymond Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation (Washington: Brookings, 2nd edn 1994), pp.123–45.

4. Documents on British Policy Overseas. Series 3. Volume I. Britain and the Soviet Union 1968–1972 (cited here as DBPO), Vol.II. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (London: HMSO, 1997); Vol.III. Détente in Europe, 1972–76 (London: Frank Cass, 2001).

5. Helene Sjursen, The United States, Western Europe and the Polish Crisis (London: Palgrave, 2003), p.15. See Sean Greenwood, Britain and the Cold War 1945–1991 (London: Macmillan, 2000); and Brian White, Britain, Détente and Changing East–West Relations (Routledge 1992).

6. White, Britain (and) Détente, pp.1–7; OPD(66)44, France and NATO, 1 April 1966, CAB148/27(TNA).

7. Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (Penguin 1989), p.178; Morley to Smith (ND), 6 July 1966, N1152/63, FO371/188510(TNA).

8. For British concerns over German nationalism, see MISC17/4th meeting, 22 Nov. 1964, CAB130/213(TNA); Palliser to MacLehose, 28 April 1967, PREM13/1455 (TNA).

9. From 1965 onwards the Foreign Office used the phrase ‘Soviet bloc’ (or ‘Eastern bloc’) to refer to the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies. The latter (in addition to Yugoslavia and Albania) were referred to simply as ‘East European countries’. Northern Department (ND) note, 11 June 1965, N1981/1; note by Youde, 16 June 1965, N1981/2, FO371/182529(TNA). I use the same terms in this article.

10. Martin Folly, Churchill, Whitehall and the Soviet Union, 1940–45 (London: Macmillan, 2000), pp.120–41.

11. Richard Aldrich, The Hidden Hand. Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London: John Murray, 2001), pp.142–59; John Prados, Presidents' Secret Wars (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), pp.30–60.

12. Aldrich, Hidden Hand, pp.315–29; John Young, The British Foreign Office and Cold War Fighting in the Early 1950s: PUSC(51)16 and the 1952 ‘Sore Spots’ Memorandum (Leicester University Discussion Papers in Politics, No.195/2, 1995).

13. Aldrich, Hidden Hand, pp.160–79; Csaba Békés, The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and World Politics (Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) Working Paper No.16, 1996), pp.6–7.

14. JIC(56)123(Final)(Revise), Soviet Policy in the Light of the Situation in the Middle East and the Satellites, 6 Dec. 1956, CAB158/26(TNA). JIC(56)97th and 101st meetings, 25 Oct. 1956 and 9 Nov. 1956, CAB159/25(TNA).

15. Crampton, Eastern Europe, pp.283–303. See also Leszek Gluchowski and Edward Nalepa, The Soviet–Polish Confrontation of October 1956 (CWIHP Paper No.17, 1997); Norman Davies, Heart of Europe. A Short History of Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp.10–13.

16. SC(61)25, United Kingdom Policy towards the Satellites, 27 June 1961, emphasis added: and SC(64)1, Policy towards the East European Satellites, 27 Jan. 1964, PLA13/2, FO371/177821(TNA); Joseph Kronsten, ‘East–West Trade; Myth and Matter’, International Affairs 43/2 (1967), pp.265–81.

17. Jennifer See, ‘An Uneasy Truce: John F. Kennedy and Soviet–American Détente, 1963’, Cold War History 2/2 (2002), pp.161–94. Moscow to Foreign Office (FO), No.711, 17 April 1964, NS1072/23, FO371/177670(TNA).

18. Crampton, Eastern Europe, pp.311–14, 316–22; Vladimir Tismaneanu, Gheorghiu-Dej and the Romanian Workers Party: From De-Sovietization to the Emergence of National Communism (CWHIP Paper No.37, May 2002); Service, A History of Twentieth Century Russia, pp.379–80.

19. JIC(64)43, The Power Struggle in the Soviet Union and the Problem of Succession, 17 April 1964, CAB158/53(TNA); Geoffrey Hosking, A History of the Soviet Union (London: HarperCollins 1992), pp.358–60.

20. See the minutes of the Conference of Ambassadors on Eastern Europe, 27 April 1966–2 May 1966, N1152/55, FO371/188510(TNA); Smith, East–West Relations, 14 June 1966, N1075/66, FO371/188500(TNA); JIC(64)25(Final), Relations between the Soviet Union and Communist Countries in Eastern Europe, 17 July 1964, CAB158/52(TNA).

21. Memorandum by Trevelyan, 27 Feb. 1964, N1015/21, FO371/177405(TNA).

22. Clutton to Smith, 7 June 1966, N1152/56; 21 June 1966, N1152/63, FO371/188510(TNA).

23. Smith to Clutton, 23 June 1966, N1152/66; Rhodes' comment on Clutton's letter, 7 June 1966, N1152/62; Morley to Smith, N1152/63, FO371/188510(TNA).

24. Davies, Heart of Europe, pp.47–8; Hans Renner, A History of Czechoslovakia since 1945 (Routledge 1989), pp.37–38.

25. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson (London: HarperCollins 1993), pp.100, 111–12, 307–8.

26. ESC(O)(67)13; International Strategic Embargo – Review of Policy, 2 March 1967, CAB134/2799(TNA). For the strategic embargo, see Ian Jackson, The Economic Cold War. America, Britain and East–West Trade, 1948–63 (London: Palgrave, 2001).

27. Joseph Korbel, Détente in Europe (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), p.61.

28. Wilson to Stewart, 15 March 1966, CAB164/28(TNA), Stewart to Parrott, 17 March 1966, N1075/3, FO371/188497(TNA).OPD(66)76: East/West Relations; A Declaration, CAB148/28(TNA).

29. OPD(66)44, France and NATO, 1 April 1966, CAB148/27(TNA), FO to Prague, No.31, 17 Jan. 1967, FCO28/1(TNA).

30. Frederic Bozo, La France et l'OTAN (Paris: Masson 1991), pp.79–81; G. Soutou, ‘France and the Cold War, 1944–1963’, Diplomacy & Statecraft 12/4 (2001), pp.41, 48–9.

31. Wolfram Hanrieder, Germany, America, Europe. Forty Years of German Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), pp.177–86, 350–51; D. Bark and D. Gress, A History of West Germany. Volume II (London: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp.90–112.

32. NSAM No.304, 3 June 1964, Foreign Relations of the United States 1964–1968. Volume XVII, Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1996), pp.128–9; Ilya Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Ivan R. Dee, 1996), pp.23–4, 29.

33. Frederic Bozo, ‘Détente versus Alliance; France, the United States and the Politics of the Harmel Report (1964–1968)’, Contemporary European History 7/3 (1998), pp.343–66.

34. Thomas Wolfe, Soviet Power and Europe, 1945–1970 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970), pp.285–7, 315–21; R. Craig Nation, Black Earth, Red Star (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), p.247.

35. Chadwick to Brown, 15 Jan. 1968, FCO28/271(TNA). For the Ceausescu regime, see Denis Deletant, Ceausescu and the Securitate (London: Hurst & Co., 1995), in particular pp.68–102; 166–293.

36. Parrott to Stewart, 2 April 1966, N1075/10, FO371/188497(TNA); M. Myant, Socialism and Democracy in Czechoslovakia 1945–1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp.200–208.

37. Barker to Brown, 9 Jan. 1968, FCO28/89(TNA); Barker to Hayman, 26 March 1968, FCO28/90(TNA).

38. Renner, Czechoslovakia, pp.41–50; Skilling, Interrupted Revolution, pp.161–79.

39. Williams, ‘Love's Labours Lost’, pp.76–7; Zdenek Mlynar, Night Frost in Prague, trans. Paul Wilson (London: C. Hurst, 1980), p.76.

40. Transcripts of Dresden and Moscow meetings in 1968, 23 March 1968, 8 May 1968, pp.64–72, 132–43.

41. John C. McGinn, ‘The Politics of Collective Inaction. NATO's Response to the Prague Spring’, Journal of Cold War Studies 1/3 (1999), pp.111–38; John Duffield, Power Rules. The Evolution of NATO's Conventional Force Posture (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp.179–81.

42. Barker to Hayman, 8 April 1968, Hayman to Barker, 17 April 1968, FCO28/98(TNA); Roberts to Stewart, 13 June 1968, FCO28/90(TNA).

43. Conference of HM Representatives in Eastern Europe, 9th meeting, 10 May 1968, DBPO, pp.42–8.

44. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive. The KGB in Europe and the West (London: Allen Lane 1999), pp.7–8, 333; Day to Palliser, 1 June 1968, PREM13/1993(TNA).

45. McGinn, ‘Collective Inaction’, pp.130–31, 134. Laskey to Stewart, 4 May 1968, FCO28/30(TNA); Action Programme in 1968, pp.92–5; Cernik's comments to CPCS Praesidium, in 1968, 27 July 1968, pp.281–3.

46. David Miller, The Cold War. A Military History (London: Pimlico, 2001), p.60; Percy Cradock, Know Your Enemy. How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World (London: John Murray, 2002), pp.243–4.

47. Excerpts from the Warsaw meeting and the ‘Warsaw Letter’ in 1968, 14–15 July 1968, pp.212–38.

48. FO to Washington, No.1948 (Saving), 22 July 1968, FCO28/99(TNA).

49. Tom Bower, The Perfect English Spy. Sir Dick White and the Secret War 1935–90 (Heinemann, 1995), pp.362–3; Cradock, Know Your Enemy, p.249; Tony Geraghty, BRIXMIS (HarperCollins, 1997), pp.159–62.

50. Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister. Volume III (Crossman III) (London: Hamish Hamilton/Jonathan Cape, 1977), 18 July 1968, pp.142–5; FO to Moscow, No.2026, 30 July 1968, PREM13/1993(TNA).

51. The Bratislava declaration is in 1968, 3 Aug. 1968, pp.328–329. Crampton, Eastern Europe, pp.334–6; James to Giffard (ND), 11 Oct. 1968, FCO28/57(TNA); DP219/68, British Defence Policy – The Impact of Recent Events in Czechoslovakia, 23 Sept. 1968, DEFE6/106(TNA).

52. Barker to Stewart, 12 Aug. 1968; Harrison to Stewart, 22 Aug. 1968, FCO28/49 (TNA).

53. Mlynar, Night Frost, pp.157, 173. Telephone conversations between Brezhnev and Dubcek, in 1968, 9 Aug. 1968; 13 Aug. 1968, pp.336–8, 345–56; ‘A Letter to Brezhnev: The Czech Hard-liners “Request” for Soviet Intervention, August 1968’, CWIHP Bulletin 2 (1992), p.6.

54. Commentary in 1968, p.312. Jiri Valenta, ‘From Prague to Kabul. The Soviet Style of Invasion’, International Security 5/2 (1980), pp.133–4.

55. For the American response, see the minutes of the 589th meeting of the National Security Council, 20 Aug. 1968, National Security Files (NSF), NSC meetings 1–2 (LBJLIB).

56. MISC(219(69)1st meeting at 10 Downing Street, 21 Aug. 1968, CAB130/134(TNA); FO to UK Delegation to NATO, No.991(Saving), 27 Aug. 1968, FCO28/49(TNA); ‘Worldwide sense of shock and outrage at Soviet invasion’, and ‘Parliament to be recalled Monday’, The Times, 22 Aug. 1968.

57. CC(68)38th Cabinet conclusions, 22 Aug. 1968, CAB128/43(TNA); Skilling, Interrupted Revolution, pp.753, 757.

58. Palliser to Maitland, 5 Sept. 1968, DEFE13/707(TNA); JIC to UKDelNATO, No.474, 24 Sept. 1968, DEFE13/741(TNA).

59. NSC590th meeting, 4 Sept. 1968, NSF, NSC meetings 1–2, LBJLIB; Anatolii Dobrynin, In Confidence (NY: Random House 1995), pp.180–83.

60. Garvey to Giffard, 12 Oct. 1968, FCO28/525(TNA).

61. Dalton to Stewart, 29 Sept. 1968, FCO28/69(TNA); Dalton to Stewart, 30 Sept. 1968, DBPO, pp.76–80 Harrison's affair with the maid, who was probably a KGB ‘swallow’, is referred to in his obituary in The Times, 14 April 1990.

62. Wilson to Stewart, 4 Nov. 1968; 9 Dec. 1968, DBPO, pp.100–110. On the ‘Brezhnev Doctrine’, see Service, Russia, pp.387–8.

63. Mark Kramer, ‘The Prague Spring and the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia: New Interpretations’ in CWIHP Bulletin, 3 (Autumn 1993), pp.2–12; and ‘Ukraine and the Soviet–Czechoslovak crisis of 1968 (Part 1): New Evidence from the diary of Petro Shelest’, in CWIHP Bulletin, 10 (1998), pp.234–44.

64. Dawisha, Prague Spring, pp.320–25. Prague to FO, No.562, 25 Aug. 1968, PREM13/1994(TNA).

65. Excerpts from Moscow meeting between Soviet & Czechoslovak leaderships, 23 Aug. 1968; Moscow protocol, 26 Aug. 1968, 1968, pp.465–80.

66. Smith to Hayman, 20 Sept. 1968; comments by Hayman, 20 Sept. 1968, and Greenhill, 23 Sept. 1968; Giffard to Hayman, 27 Sept. 1968, FCO28/69(TNA). JIC(68)54(Final), The Soviet Grip on Eastern Europe, 2 Dec. 1968, CAB158/71(TNA).

67. Barker to Hayman, 30 Aug. 1968, FCO28/91(TNA).

68. Renner, Czechoslovakia, pp.86–101; Text of Soviet–Czechoslovak treaty, 16 Oct. 1968, in 1968, pp.533–6.

69. Conference of HM Representatives in Eastern Europe 4–8 May 1970, 1st and 2nd meetings, 4 May 1970; 7th meeting, 7 May 1970, FCO28/918(TNA); Maitland to Youde, 18 April 1969, DEFE13/741(TNA).

70. Misha Glenny, The Rebirth of History (Penguin, 1993), pp.30–31. See also Timothy Garton Ash, The Uses of Adversity (Cambridge: Granta Books, 1989), pp.55–63, for a portrait of Czechoslovakia under Husak.

71. Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) to Missions, 29 Oct. 1968, DBPO, pp.85–6; CC(68)52nd conclusions, 17 Dec. 1968, CAB128/43(TNA); Crossman, III, 17 Dec. 1968, p.289.

72. PC(68)27, Trade with Eastern Europe in Relation to Events in Czechoslovakia, 3 Sept. 1968, FCO28/61(TNA); ESC(68)4th meeting, 8 Sept. 1968, CAB134/2796(TNA).

73. DP219/68, DEFE6/106(TNA); Miller, Cold War, pp.39, 60–61, 322–3; OPD(68)58, The Czechoslovak Crisis and British Defence Policy, 20 Sept. 1968, CAB148/38(TNA); OPD(68)17th meeting, 25 Sept. 1968, CAB148/35(TNA).

74. Burrows to Stewart, 16 Dec. 1968, DEFE13/741(TNA); Lawrence-Wilson to PM, 24 Sept. 1968, PREM13/1996(TNA).

75. Wilson to Stewart, 4 Nov.1968; 9 Dec. 1968, DBPO, pp.100–110; Ambassadors' Conference, 4 May 1970, FCO28/918(TNA).

76. Tony Benn, Office Without Power. Diaries 1968–72 (London: Hutchinson, 1988), 12 May 1969, 13 May 1969, 14 May 1969, pp.161–73; Moscow to FCO, No.464, 14 May 1969, PREM13/3429(TNA).

77. Stewart to Wilson, 7 Jan. 1969, DBPO, pp.111–15; Memorandum for Youde, 21 May 1969; Youde to Barrington, 27 May 1969, PREM13/3429(TNA).

78. OPD(68)45, Relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 17 June 1968, CAB148/37(TNA). M. Hopkins,‘“Worlds Apart”: The British Embassy in Moscow and the Search for East–West Understanding’, Contemporary British History 14/3 (2000), pp.143–4.

79. Andrew Shennan, De Gaulle (Longman, 1993), pp.124–6; Hanrieder, Germany, America, Europe, pp.191–4; Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation, pp.129–30, 141.

80. Wilson to Stewart, 28 Jan. 1969, PREM13/2959(TNA).

81. Paul Gore-Booth, With Great Truth and Respect (London: Constable, 1974), p.412.

82. Service, Russia, pp.379–80; John Willerton, Patronage and Politics in the USSR (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp.1–8, 11–13, 15, 19.

83. Andropov to Brezhnev, 6 May 1968, in R. Garthoff and A. Knight (eds.), ‘New Evidence on Soviet Intelligence. The KGB's 1967 Annual Report’, CWIHP Bulletin 10 (1998), pp.211–17; M.E. Sarotte, Dealing with the Devil. East Germany, Détente and Ostpolitik (University of North Carolina Press 2001), pp.4, 51–4.

84. Mlynar, Night Frost, pp.174–5; George Brown, ‘How we could have stopped the Russians’, The Evening Standard, 14 Nov. 1968.

85. Harlan Cleveland, ‘NATO after the Invasion’, Foreign Affairs 47/2 (1969), pp.251–65; McGinn, ‘Collective Inaction’, pp.136–7; Barker to Hayman, 15 Nov. 1968, FCO28/69(TNA).

86. Kramer, ‘Prague Spring’, p.12; M. Percival, ‘Britain's ‘Political Romance’ with Romania in the 1970s’, Contemporary European History 4/1 (1995), pp.67–87.

87. OPD(69)8, CAB148/91(TNA). Percival, ‘Romania’, pp.67–87. Ambassadors' Conference, 4 May 1970; 7 May 1970, FCO28/918(TNA).

88. Keith Hamilton, The Last Cold Warriors: Britain, Détente and the CSCE, 1972–1975 (St Antony's College, University of Oxford European Interdependence Research Unit, Discussion Paper EIRU/991, July 1999).

89. Clutton to Smith, 7 June 1966; 21 June 1966, FO371/188510(TNA); Mark Mazower, Dark Continent. Europe's Twentieth Century (Penguin, 1999), pp.368–9.