Office of the Historian

46. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the Soviet Union1

Washington, May 18, 1956—4:54 p.m.

1286. CAS Headquarters has procured purported copy Khrushchev speech of February 25. Since document may be same as one on which notes taken … appreciate your spelling out errors mentioned Embtel 25822 to assist analysis here.

[Page 105]

… Owing sensitivity source, document being treated noforn until further notice. Copy being sent you for comment soonest.3

Dulles
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 761.00/5–1756. Secret; Limited Distribution. Drafted by Klosson and cleared with EE and Armstrong, who signed for Dulles.↩
  2. Supra.↩
  3. In telegram 1300 to Moscow, May 21, the Department indicated it was forwarding by air pouch the document procured by the CIA and compared its contents to the contents of the document obtained by Bohlen. (Department of State, Central Files, 761.00/5–1956)

    In his memoirs, Ray Cline, who was then the CIA’s expert on Sino-Soviet relations, recalled that the agency obtained a copy of the speech in April “through non-American intermediaries, at a very handsome price.” Cline, who was asked to read the document to vouch for its authenticity, argued that it was authentic and that it should be made public as an aid to students and scholars interested in the Soviet Union. Cline said that he had also pointed out that it was a rare opportunity to have all the critical things that “we had said for years about the Soviet dictatorship confirmed by the principal leader of the Soviet Politburo.” But, according to Cline, Wisner and James Angleton, Chief of Counterintelligence and Counterespionage, opposed publication of the speech and wanted to “exploit” it by “feeding selected bits of the text to specific audiences on which they wanted to have an impact.” (Cline, Secrets, Spies, and Scholars, pp. 163–164) In a public statement on November 29, 1976, Angleton said the CIA did not pay for the copy of Khrushchev’s speech, but instead obtained it from a European Communist whose motive was considered ideological. (New York Times, November 30, 1976)

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