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Document No. 39: Memorandum of the Conference of Defense Ministers, May 27–28, 1966 ——————————————————————————————————————————— After two earlier meetings of Warsaw Pact deputy defense ministers and deputy foreign ministers had ended in deadlock (Document Nos. 36 and 37), Moscow communicated informally with some of its allies, particularly the Poles, to make them come up with generally acceptable proposals for reorganizing the alliance. The main obstacle , of course, was the Romanians, who had previously raised a variety of challenges to the Soviet position. This document records a subsequent meeting of the Pact’s defense ministers where the new proposals were discussed in an attempt to find a compromise. Among other points of interest, it gives a more detailed sense of the differing perspectives of the East European partners. The Poles had helped draft the proposals. The Hungarians for the most part agreed to them, while the East German, Bulgarian and Czechoslovak ministers had little of substance to add. However, the Romanians refused to budge. Although some progress was eventually made, the participants failed to come up with a final resolution. The dispute over reorganization of the alliance continued through the late 1960s. ____________________ […] On May 27–28, 1966, a conference of army representatives from the memberstates of the Warsaw Treaty was held, at the level of Defense Ministers, in Moscow. It was dedicated to jurisdictional and organizational matters and enhancement of the work of military institutions of the Warsaw Treaty. […] […] Basically all comments made by the Polish side during both the period preceding it and during the conference deserve emphasis, but especially: – currently accepting as fundamental the organizational structure of the main military institutions of the Unified Armed Forces with a reduced number of participants (about 200 people); – establishing an appropriate share for each country in the composition of the main military institutions of the Unified Armed Forces and their budget (with 13.5 percent of Polish contribution it will be approximately 500,000–600,000 rubles annually); – accepting the formulation which grants the General Staff of the Soviet Army the power, to present appropriate proposals for planning the operational use of forces instead of giving recommendations to defense ministers and general staffs; – from the decision about the deployment of national forces to the Unified Armed Forces, removing the formulation [which states] that it covers the entire force of every country. […] 217 The Bulgarian, German, and Czechoslovak delegations, while fully approving the draft documents, basically did not make remarks of substantial significance. Also the Hungarian delegation, in general, approved the discussed drafts. However, by raising quite numerous, but not very precise observations on details during the first phase of the conference, it introduced non-constructive elements to the discussion , and by doing so made it easier for the Romanian delegation to increase the number of its reservations. […] In a sense it was to the surprise of the Soviet hosts, who as a result of talks held recently at the highest political level and working contacts, expected much fewer objections of the Romanian side. The Romanian stance on the following issues deserves special attention: – questioning every decision of the statute draft in which the Political Consultative Committee is mentioned, and demanding that only the government institution act in all these instances. The Romanian delegation, while negating previous practice based on the spirit of the protocol to the Warsaw Treaty from May 14, 1955, expressed the view that the Political Consultative Committee cannot be a political institution with the right to resolve mutually established general problems concerning the defensive capabilities of member-states of the Warsaw Treaty. Taking into consideration their inflexibility and persistence on this issue as well as the emphasis placed on the significance of the problem that should be resolved on an appropriate level, one can anticipate that the Romanian side will attempt to lower the standing and powers of the Political Consultative Committee, and possibly even question the existence of this type of institution. – disagreeing with the establishment of the Military Consultative Council composed of defense ministers from individual states and the supreme commander of the Unified Armed Forces, and demanding the establishment of a military council for the Supreme Command, the composition of which would include the supreme commander and his national deputies. In this situation, based on a petition from the Soviet side, a compromise solution was reached, which assumed that instead of establishing a Military Consultative Council, meetings of Warsaw Treaty defense ministers would be convened as needed. Despite this...

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