There were two Moscow meetings with Gorbachev in December 1989 prompted by the Soviet leader's immediately preceding meeting with President Bush at Malta - one with all Pact leaders and the other private. The Soviet Bloc active measures apparatus disseminated reports depicting
Ceauşescu’s exchange with Gorbachev in the more public meeting, in which the former refused to accept any
shared culpability for the 1968 invasion of
Czechoslovakia, as a renunciation of
Romania’s more than twenty-year policy of condemning the Brezhnev Doctrine and the practice of foreign military
intervention.
Gorbachev, at the time attempting to remove the last vestiges of the Brezhnev Doctrine from Soviet policy and struggling against conservative institutions led by the Soviet military in his attempt to do so, naturally wanted to get out
ahead of the popular pressure for the withdrawal of Soviet forces while gaining the USSR as much credit as possible. The Romanian
leader’s “reality check” threatened to undermine these efforts.
The brief report
on this meeting included in the CIA’s
National Intelligence Daily reflected nothing of the Romanian position
beyond its negation of Soviet initiatives. According to the CIA, while trying
“to secure Pact unanimity on key security issues, particularly opposition to
near-term movement on German reunification,” Gorbachev also “held a ‘frank
exchange of opinions’ with the Pact’s remaining maverick – Romanian President Ceauşescu
– presumably to prod Bucharest to undertake needed reforms.”[i]
U.S. intelligence analysts thus interpreted the clash as due to
Ceauşescu’s opposition to reform, a plausible explanation given the highly
publicized differences between Moscow and Bucharest over that issue. Pact authorities ‘spun’ the
obvious disagreement that surfaced at the December meeting as due to the Romanian
leader’s new-found sympathy for the 1968 invasion of
Czechoslovakia allegedly demonstrated by his refusal to join the other allies
in condemning it, thus reinforcing the earlier
allegations of Romanian advocacy of military intervention in Poland and preparations
for aggression against Hungary.
The success of
those active measures can be judged by the degree to which they were
reflected subsequently in the international press. Agence France-Presse (AFP), for example, reported that the
USSR, Bulgaria, Poland, the GDR, and Hungary had all “apologized for their action” of
invading Czechoslovakia in 1968, whereas “Ceauşescu, whose troops did
not take part in the intervention, did not condemn it,” thus implying Romanian
acceptance of the invasion of Czechoslovakia as
justified.[ii] Media reports tended to underscore the fact that Romania now balked at
condemning the earlier invasion, suggesting that this marked a change in
policy. Some American analysts outside the intelligence community fell into the same trap. One, for example, believed it ironic that Ceauşescu – the only one to denounce the invasion when it occurred –
now “did not agree to the statement about the 1968 Czech action.”[iii]
Western European analysts relying on the same sources arrived at very similar,
and similarly erroneous, conclusions.[iv]
The Romanian leader was accompanied to the December 1989 meeting in Moscow by his prime minister, Constantin Dascălescu, by the foreign minister, Ion Stoian, and by the former defense minister, General
Constantin Olteanu, attending in his new
position as the RCP Central Committee Secretary for Foreign
Relations.[v] As
of this writing the transcript of that meeting had not surfaced in the
archives. In keeping with standard Warsaw Pact practice the Hungarian report downplayed
the discordant Romanian position, in this case by excluding it altogether.[vi]
It is worth
bearing in mind that the CIA had reported the Gorbachev–Ceauşescu debate as one
of the main events of the December 4 meeting within a day of its occurrence,
even though still unaware of its content.[vii]
For that information, the separate recollections of Foreign Minister Stoian and
Foreign Relations Secretary Olteanu regarding that meeting, which agree in
their fundamental aspects, are worth considering. Particularly so since both accord with Ceauşescu’s comments during the Political Executive
Committee of November 27, 1989 that considered Gorbachev's invitation to Moscow
for a briefing on the Malta meeting in the first place. As Ceauşescu explained to the PolExCom:
They went into
Czechoslovakia in 1968 and forced them to approve the invasion. If they now
consider that what they did was a mistake, then why don’t they withdraw their
troops from there, but instead of withdrawing them they are reinforcing them.
The first measure [to be taken] was precisely
that, the withdrawal of the troops, but they are not thinking about that. The
Czechs accepted the troops and they continue to maintain troops there. … In
fact, they realized an organized coup ďetat.[viii]
 |
| Gorbachev and Bush aboard the Maxim Gorky, Malta |
According to both
Stoian and Olteanu, Gorbachev was in the midst of presenting a very general,
and generally unsatisfying, account of his meetings at Malta with President
George Bush, Sr., when he launched into the problem of “revising
and re-evaluating the military occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Treaty troops in 1968.”[ix]
Ceauşescu immediately bristled at this, having repeatedly stressed that the
Soviet alliance could only undertake operations on the basis of unanimity. Not only had Romania not
been consulted, its vociferous condemnation of the invasion clearly signaled its
contemporaneous veto. Therefore, the Romanian leader insisted, the occupation
had been carried out by troops of the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany only, and not by the Warsaw
Pact, which implied Romanian involvement as a member of that alliance.
 |
| Ion Stoian |
We did not enter
because we appreciated that it was a serious transgression of the sovereignty
and independence of a state, an aggressive act, contrary to the norms and
principles of relations between states, which did much damage to socialism, and
to the Soviet Union.[x]
The Romanian stance was indeed familiar to the Soviet leadership. It corresponded almost exactly to the position that the Romanian leadership took in August 1968, on the day Soviet, Polish, Hungarian, East German and Bulgarian troops marched into Czechoslovakia.
"The intervention of the troops of the five socialist countries in Czechoslovakia is a great mistake and a serious danger to peace in Europe. It is inconceivable in today’s world, when peoples are rising up to defend their national independence and equal rights, that a socialist state, that socialist states, should violate the independence of another state. There is neither justification nor any possible motive for accepting, even for a moment, the idea of military intervention in the domestic affairs of a fraternal socialist state." l
 |
| Romania Condemns the Invasion of Czechoslovakia, August 21, 1968 [Fototeca online a comunismului romanesc, cota:175/1968] |
Stoian further reports that Hungarian Party leader Resző
Nyers “immediately approved” Ceauşescu’s remarks,
thus continuing the Hungarian practice of stalking and quickly associating itself with Romania’s
dissident positions as well as telegraphing Budapest's intentions to approach the same issue regarding Hungary in the near future. The subsequent discussion of the
text of the proposed communiqué then became a largely bilateral one between
Gorbachev and Ceauşescu, also a fairly common feature of Warsaw Pact leadership meetings. Finally, Gorbachev announced
that everyone could now agree on the text, since even Comrade Ceauşescu now
agreed, which prompted the following exchange:
Ceauşescu: Although, formally speaking, this does not
concern us – we have long expressed our point of view [against the invasion] –
nevertheless, we can agree with this text. I can say that if we had edited the
communiqué it would have been much better. For example, the withdrawal of
Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia should also be mentioned
in a clear phrase.
Gorbachev:
This is a problem that we will
resolve, bilaterally, with the Czechoslovak comrades. You know, I believe that
is an agreement between us and Czechoslovakia regarding the stationing of
Soviet troops there.
Ceauşescu: Yes, I know, there is a bilateral accord
concluded after the occupation of Czechoslovakia.
Gorbachev:
On this issue we will never reach an
understanding with you.
Ceauşescu: Yes, on that we
can agree.[xi]
 |
| General Constantin Olteanu |
General Olteanu similarly reports that Gorbachev’s proposal that all “sign the declaration condemning the intervention in Czechoslovakia,”
was met by Ceauşescu’s interjection that only “those who intervened should
sign,” and that “we have nothing to sign” because Romania had not only refused
to intervene, it had condemned the invasion then and there, and continually
thereafter.[xii]
The “visibly irritated” Gorbachev agreed, sarcastically asking the Romanian
leader if he was “happy” now, but did not get much further in his exposition
before Ceauşescu interrupted a second time:
Continuing to
speak, the Romanian leader recommended that the problem be followed to its
logical end in the sense that, if everyone now recognizes and condemns the 1968
act, and in order to repair the mistake, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia should be ordered
immediately. There was a slight agitation in the hall as the delegates
whispered amongst themselves. Because Mikhail Gorbachev was again
surprised and did not have a response prepared for this situation, a pause was
proposed for reflection and consultations.[xiii]
After the pause,
the Soviet leader stated his intention to discuss the matter separately with
the Czechoslovak delegation, which was staying on after the meeting.
Apparently, Gorbachev could not resist goading his Romanian counterpart:
Then Mikhail
Gorbachev mockingly addressed Nicolae Ceauşescu: “It
that okay with you, Comrade Ceauşescu?” Nicolae Ceauşescu responded
affirmatively and added that it would be good if the withdrawal of Soviet
troops could be implemented in the shortest time
possible, not only from Czechoslovakia but from all of the other countries
where they were still deployed, which produced a powerful murmuring in the
hall. At that point, Egon Krenz, who had been “consulted”
during the break, took the floor, arguing that such an action is not opportune,
that they would be left defenseless against the imperialists, etc. Members of the other
delegations commented from their seats. Understanding the situation in which he
now found himself, Mikhail Gorbachev did not
reject the Romanian delegation’s proposal, but affirmed that it was a question
requiring discussion by the USSR with the respective countries and that it must
be addressed in an organized manner, as a problem for the future, on the basis
of a plan agreed between the countries, following bilateral discussions.[xiv]
According
to General Olteanu, Ceauşescu’s performance inspired awe among the rest of the
Romanian delegation – once again taking his Soviet interlocutors by surprise
and leaving them bewildered and exasperated. The Romanian leader, Olteanu reports, intentionally leapt into this
“extraordinarily dangerous question,” calling for the complete removal of
Soviet military forces from Central Europe “alone against everyone.”[xv]
This was indeed
heady stuff. The Soviet leader was barely mastering the process of change
within the bloc as it was. A couple of weeks earlier, the Romanian leader had
explicitly called upon Moscow to vacate the negative consequences of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Europe, including the stationing of
occupation forces on East European territories.[xvi] As Ceauşescu declared to the last RCP Plenum
at the end of November 1989:
Never to be
forgotten is the lesson of history and the fact that Hitler's Germany received encouragement to initiate the Second
World War as a result of a policy of concession to Nazi Germany… Never should we forget that the
agreement between Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Union did not abolish the threat of war…
Next
year will be 45 years since the termination of the Second World War. Hence Romania believes that we must take
steps for adopting the necessary measures for resolving all of the problems
left unresolved.
It appears necessary to adopt a clear and unequivocal
position condemning and annulling all agreements concluded with Hitler’s
Germany, drawing practical conclusions for annulling all of the consequences of
those agreements and diktats. It is abnormal that after 45 years from the
conclusion of the war no treaty of peace has been realized between all of the
states and no real peace has been installed in Europe. It thus appears
necessary to move towards negotiations between the interested states for the
conclusion of peace treaties and the complete elimination of the
consequences of the Second World War.[xvii]
Within a fortnight
of the December 1989 meeting a variety of Polish groups would begin calling
publicly for Soviet troops to leave their country.[xviii]
Likeiwse, the Hungarian parliament would be admonished by its own senior
military officers, including Defense Minister Kárpáti, “to hold talks with the
Soviet government on fully withdrawing Soviet troops”
since there were “no military or political reasons for the stationing of Soviet
troops in Hungary.”[xix]
And shortly thereafter, Czechoslovak authorities would announce discussions
regarding the continuing presence of Soviet troops in their country, describing
the “accord on Soviet presence” reached after the 1968 invasion as
“invalid.”[xx]
[i]
“Warsaw Pact: Condemning Invasion of Czechoslovakia”
in National Intelligence Daily, Tuesday, 5 December
1989, p. 10, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0000259069.pdf
. See also Walter Mayr,
Christian Neef and Jan Puhl, “How Poland and Hungary Led the Way in 1989,” Der Spiegel, 30 October 2009.
[ii]
“Ryzhkov – Sending Troops ‘Unacceptable’,” AFP in
English, 23 December 1989, 1500 GMT in Foreign
Broadcast Information Service, Soviet Union (FBIS-SOV-89-246), Washington,
D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 26 December 1989, p. 13.
[iii]
Don Oberdorfer, From the Cold War to the
New Era: The United States and
the Soviet Union, 1983-1991, Baltimore, The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1998, p. 386. Gorbachev stated that: “The illegal disruption of the
process of democratic renewal in Czechoslovakia had long-term consequences.
History showed how important it is, even in the most complex international
situations, to use political means for the solution of any problems, and to
observe strictly the principles of sovereignty, independence and
non-interference in internal affairs, which is in accordance with the tenets of
the Warsaw Pact.” The true irony was that
virtually all U.S. analysts believed the Romanians had renounced their
quarter-century-long policy, and that the hostile Soviet-Romanian relationship
was preserved intact only with both assuming diametrically opposite roles.
[iv]
According to one analyst, for example, Ceauşescu refused to sign the resolution
condemning the invasion and refused to repudiate the Brezhnev Doctrine, suggesting that the Romanian leader
now favored the use of military intervention. Ceauşescu’s argument that to
do so would have been to accept responsibility for an invasion that Romania had
always condemned was considered by the analyst to be a “lame excuse.” Tom
Gallagher, Outcast Europe: The Balkans
1789-1989: From the Ottomans to Milosevic, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic
Publishers, 2003, pp. 256-257.
[v] Dascălescu had been Prime Minister since 1982. Stoian had been CC Secretary for Foreign Relations from 1984 until the beginning of November 1989, when he was appointed Foreign Minister. Olteanu had been CC Secretary for Press and Propaganda since May 1988 before he became CC Secretary for Foreign Relations at the beginning of November 1989.
[vi] Report of the
Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs [F. Somogyi] for the Council of Ministers
about the Meeting of the leaders of the Warsaw Pact on 4 December, December 06, 1989, History and Public Policy Program
Digital Archive, Obtained by Béla Révész; translated and edited by Barnabás
Vajd, Laura Deal, and Karl P. Benziger. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/121893;
Rezső Nyers’s handwritten Notes on
Gorbachev’s Briefing on the Malta Summit at the Meeting of the Warsaw Pact
Leaders in Moscow on 4 December, December 04, 1989, History and Public
Policy Program Digital Archive, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/121884.
[vii] “Warsaw
Pact: Condemning Invasion of
Czechoslovakia” in National Intelligence
Daily,
Tuesday, 5 December 1989, p. 10, CIA.
[viii] Transcript of the Executive Political
Committee Meeting, November 27, 1989, Romanian National Archives (Arhivele Naţionale
ale României: ANR), Fond C.C. al P.C.R., Secţia
Cancelarie, dosar 66/1989, f. 22. This file contains both Gorbachev’s
announcement of the upcoming Malta meeting and the detailed agenda of what he
intended to discuss as well as Ceauşescu’s detailed response, which, unless
other Pact members gave the same advice, influenced the Soviet leaders
presentation to President Bush. See Ibid, f. 19-39.
[ix]
The account of former Foreign Minister Ion Stoian is reproduced in the Romanian Ministry of
Defense’s collection of documents related to the Romanian Revolution from a 1994 newspaper interview. See Costache
Codrescu, coordinator, Armata Română în
revoluţia din decembrie 1989: Studiu documentar [The Romanian Army in the
Revolution of December 1989: A Documentary Study], revised 2nd
edition, Bucharest, Editura Militară, 1998, pp.
41-42. Olteanu’s account is from a June 20,
2005 interview in Alex Mihai Stoenescu, Istoria
loviturilor de stat in România: “Revoluţia din
decembrie 1989” – o tragedie româneasca
[History of the Coup d’Etat in Romania – “The Revolution of December 1989” – A
Romanian Tragedy], vol. 4, part II, Bucharest, RAO, 2005, p. 695. As Olteanu later pointed out, Gorbachev did not condemn the act of invasion per se. He merely recognized it as “a
mistake” and called upon the other Pact members to admit so as well. Constantin
Olteanu, O viaţă de om: Dialog cu jurnalistul Dan Constantin [A Man’s Life:
Dialogue with Journalist Dan Constantinescu], Bucharest, Niculescu, 2013, p. 547.
[x]
Interview with former Foreign Minister Ion Stoian in Vocea
României, no. 202, 1 August 1994 and Codrescu et. al. (1998), pp. 41-42.
[xi]
Ibid.
[xii]
Interview of General Olteanu in Stoenescu (2005), p. 695; Constantin and
Olteanu (2013), pp. 547-548.
[xiii]
Stoenescu (2005), p. 695; Constantin and Olteanu (2013), p. 547. Gheorghe-Dej had provoked the
same response, astonishment followed by a sudden break in the proceedings, when
he recommended to Khrushchev that the Soviet Union withdraw all of its troops from Romania in
1955, and again, on several occasions during 1962-1964, when he recommended the
withdrawal of Soviet espionage networks from all of the socialist countries. See, for
example, Transcript of Conversations
Between Delegations of the RWP CC and
the CPSU CC,
Moscow, July 1964 (Excerpts), Meeting of 7 July 1964,
Document 7 in Larry L. Watts, Romanian
Security Policy and the Cuban Crisis, Cold War International History
Project e-Dossier No. 38, February 2013, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/e-dossier-no-38-romania-security-policy-and-the-cuban-missile-crisis;
ANR, Fond C.C. al P.C.R., Secţia Relaţii Externe, dosar 35/1964,
vol. II, filele 1-237; Document No. 4 in Vasile Buga, O vară fierbinte în relaţiile româno-sovietice: Convorbirile de la
Moscova din iulie 1964 [A Hot Summer in Romanian-Soviet Relations:
Conversations in Moscow during July 1964], Bucharest, Romanian Academy, National Institute
for the Study of Totalitarianism, 2012, pp. 194-197. Ceauşescu managed
to provoke this reaction on numerous occasions and his continuing ability to do
so, while prompting admiration in the CIA – and warning that to ponder what Romania
might do next was “often to consider the far-fetched” – in equal measure
prompted exasperation and fury in the Kremlin, since “only the devil” knew
what the Romanian leader might do next. Special
Memorandum 6-68: The USSR and
Eastern Europe (1968), pp. 8-11; Transcript, Meeting of East German leader Erich Honecker and
Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Crimea,
USSR, 25 July 1978, Document 8, “U.S.-Soviet Relations and the Turn Toward
Confrontation, 1977-1980 – New Russian & East German Documents,” Cold War International History Project
Bulletin, no. 8/9 (Winter 1996), p. 123.
[xiv]
Constantin and Olteanu (2013), p. 547. In an earlier interview, General
Olteanu recalled Ceauşescu as having proposed the
withdrawal of Soviet troops “from all of the Socialist countries.” Stoenescu (2005), p. 694.
[xv]
Ibid. Olteanu’s recollections of 2005
differ with those of 2013 in identifying the East German leader acting as
Moscow’s cat’s-paw in the discussion. In 2005 he
identified Hans Modrow as the speaker, while in 2013 he identified Egon Kreuz.
Both were present. Modrow, in particular, was the Gorbachev-designated
heir apparent at the time. On the grooming of Modrow by the KGB see Dirk Banse, “KGB Suchte Schon 1987 Nachfolger für Honecker” [The KGB Sought A Replacement For Honecker Since 1987], Berliner Morgenpost, 13 August 2009. Moscow, or at least the KGB, sought to run former Stasi foreign intelligence chief Markus Wolf in
tandem with Modrow as the new reformist leadership, but those hopes were dashed
when Wolf was overwhelmingly booed by the East German crowd during his first
public speaking attempt as a “reform communist.” See e.g. “Soviet Union Wanted
To Topple Honecker in 1987,” Association
of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO)
Intelligence Notes, no. 30-09, 18 August 2009, https://www.afio.com/sections/wins/2009/2009-30.htm#honecker; “Soviet Union Wanted Stasi Chief To Help To Topple Honecker of East Germany In 1987,” Eurasian Secret Services Daily Report, 13 August 2009. See also
Frank Sieren and Günther Schabowski, Wir
Haben Fast Alles Falsch Gemacht: Die Letzten Tage Der DDR [We Had Almost
Everything Wrong: The Last Days Of The GDR], Berlin, Econ Verlag, 2009.
[xvi]
See e.g. Yosef Govrin, Israeli-Romanian
Relations at the End of the Ceausescu Era, New York, Routledge, 2002, pp.
109, 115.
[xvii] See Ceauşescu’s
report to the 14th Party Congress, ANR, Fond C.C. al P.C.R., Sectia
Cancelarie, 76/1989, f. 115-116. See also Govrin (2002), pp. 109, 115. The
report was also published in Scânteia,
21 November 1989.
[xviii] “‘Soviets Go Home’ Slogans, Rallies Reported,” Zölnierz Wolnosci, 18 December 1989, p.
2 in FBIS-EEU-89-246, 26 December 1989.
[xix] “Kárpáti To Hold Talks
on Soviet Troop Withdrawal,” MTI [Hungarian Telegraph Agency] in English,
1855 GMT, 21 December in FBIS-EEU-89-245, 22 December 1989.
[xx]
“Calfa Interviewed on Talks With Gorbachev,”
Prague Domestic
Service, 1900 GMT, 20 December 1989 in FBIS-EEU-89-247, 27 December 1989;
“Dienstbier: Accord on Soviet Presence ‘Invalid’,” CTK [Czech News Agency] (Prague)
in English, 2042 GMT, 26 December 1989 in FBIS-EEU-89-247, 27 December 1989.
