U.S. Intelligence and the Confrontation in Poland, 1980–1981

Sources

S o u r c e s The information available to U.S. policy officials on unfolding events leading to martial law in Poland begins with what was presented in the public media. This study draws on the contents of virtually all New York Times articles on Poland from the strike at the Gdansk shipyard in August 1980 through the end of December 1981. For consistency and continuity, the descriptions stay with the Times as the main public media source during the entire period covered, but for the high points of crisis, such as December 1980 and December 1981, articles from the Washington Post were also drawn on, largely because of its use as a public platform by the U.S. administration and as a depository for “officials speaking on background.” This is combined with the information received through special intelligence sources, laid out in more than five hundred pages of declassified documents . These declassified intelligence documents are now on deposit at the National Security Archive, Gelman Library, Suite 701, 2130 H Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 20037. • National Intelligence Daily (NID) reports on Poland from July 1980 through December 1981 (364 intelligence reports ranging from one to five pages in length) from the Intelligence Community’s daily reporting. Includes “Situation Reports,” and analytic commentary on unfolding events, and periodic “Special Analyses.” Also Alert Memoranda warning of potential crisis events usually appeared in the NID one day after they were disseminated to the President and a few top policy officials. • “Approaching the Brink: Moscow and the Polish Crisis, November– December 1980,” CIA Intelligence Memorandum (disseminated in late December 1980, specific date for document not given). • “Poland’s Prospects Over the Next Six Months,” National Intelligence Estimate 12.6–81 (date of information listed as 27 January 1981). • “Photographic Summary,” CIA Intelligence Memorandum, 30 March 1981. 247 248 Sources • “Implications of a Soviet Invasion of Poland,” Intelligence Memorandum [date blocked out, approximately late-May to mid-June]. • “Polish Reaction to a Soviet Invasion,” Intelligence Memorandum, 30 June 1981. Archival materials from the Soviet Union, Poland, and other Warsaw Pact states drawn on for this study include: Byrne, Malcom, Pavel Machcewicz, and Christian Ostermann, eds., Poland 1980–82: Internal Crisis, International Dimensions, A Compendium of Declassified Documents and Chronology of Events (Washington, D.C.: National Security Archive, 1997). Gutche, Reinhard, Michael Kubina, and Manfred Wilke. Die SED-Feuhrung und die Unterdrueckung der Polischen Oppositionbewegung [The German Socialist Workers Party Leadership and the Suppression of the Polish Opposition Movement] (Colonge: Bundesinstitute fuer Ostwisenschaftliche und Internationale Studien, 1994). (Collection of essays drawing on documents from the archives of the former DDR, in German.) Kubina, Michael, and Manfred Wilke. Hart und kompromisslos durchgreifen: Die SED contra Poland, 1980/81 [Tough and Uncompromising Crackdown: The German Socialist Unity Party Against Solidarity] (Berlin: Academie Verlag, 1994). (Compilation of East German documents in German language.) Kramer, Mark. Top Secret Documents of Soviet Deliberations During the Polish Crisis, 1980–81 [Documentary records of twenty-two meetings of top Soviet officials, from archives of former USSR, translated and annotated .] Special Working Paper 1 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center/Cold War International History Project, 1999). ———. “Declassified Soviet Documents on the Polish Crisis,” and “Warsaw Pact and the Polish Crisis of 1980–1981: Honecker’s Call for Military Intervention” [translations, annotations, and commentary], Cold War International History Project Bulletin 5 (spring 1995): 116–17, 122, and 129–39. ———. “Jaruzelski, the Soviet Union, and the Imposition of Martial Law in Poland: New Light on the Mystery of December 1981,” “Colonel Kuklinski and the Polish Crisis, 1980–1981,” and “In Case Military Assistance is Provided to Poland” [translations, annotations, and commentary ], Cold War International History Project Bulletin 11 (winter 1998): 5–31, 48–59, and 102–9. Sources 249 Paczkowskki, Andrzej, and Andrzej Werblan. On the Decision to Introduce Martial Law in Poland in 1981: Two Historians Report to the Commission of Constitutional Oversight of the SEJM of the Republic of Poland, CWIHP Working Paper 21 (1998). Woldek, Zbigniew, ed. Tajne Dokumenty Biura Politycznego: PZPR a “Solidarność” [Secret Documents of the Politburo: The PUWP vs. “Solidarity”] (London: Aneks, 1992). (Compilation of minutes of Polish Politburo meetings during 1980 to 1981, in Polish.) Books and Historical References: The following list is, obviously, not intended to represent a comprehensive bibliography, but rather the listing of the works drawn on for this study. Some, such as the Andrew-Mitrokhin book, are the source...