50. Circular Telegram From the Department of State to Certain Diplomatic Missions1
843. Department recently obtained from confidential source copy of document which purports to be version of Khrushchev’s secret Feb 25 speech as prepared for confidential info and guidance of leadership of a Communist party outside USSR.2 Study furnishes [Page 110] grounds for confidence its authenticity but Department does not propose to vouch for it.
Local correspondents aware Department’s possession of document and pressing for release. Accordingly Department will probably make document public some time Monday afternoon Washington time.
Document lengthy and will be air pouched to addressees soonest.
In releasing document Department will simply let it speak for itself and will offer no commentary.3
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 761.00/6–256. Confidential. Drafted by Beam, cleared with Murphy, and signed by Beam for Hoover. Sent to Moscow, Prague, Vienna, Warsaw, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Budapest.↩
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In a memorandum of June 1 to Acting Secretary Hoover, Armstrong wrote that he was attaching a revised translation of Khrushchev’s secret speech, which should be substituted for the earlier translation sent to Hoover on May 18. Armstrong noted that Wisner made the following comments in transmitting the revised translation to the Department:
“All the evidence we have been able to collect to date tends to confirm our earlier belief that this document contains the substance of N.S. Khrushchev’s secret speech of 25 February 1956 at the XXth Communist Party Congress, as prepared for the confidential use and guidance of the leaders of the Communist Party in one of the European Satellite countries. In the time that has passed since my first letter, we have had this document examined by a number of experts on Soviet Communism and checked as to factual accuracy in many ways.
“We continue to feel that the original speech probably contained additional revelations that were omitted or altered in the version released for Satellite consumption.
“The speech as here presented adds a great deal to our knowledge of the implications of the degradation of STALIN. It makes clear that the present Soviet leaders lived in mortal terror for their own lives in the last days of STALIN’s rule.” (Ibid., 761.00/6–156)
↩ - In telegram 1353 to
Moscow, June 2, not sent to the other Eastern European posts, the
Department of State said that since the Washington press was aware
of the Department’s possession of a copy of the speech, it was no
longer feasible to use the method of release indicated in Document 48. In publishing the document the
Department did not plan to provide background or comment, but would
let the text speak for itself. (Department of State, Central Files,
761.00/6–256)
The origins of the decision by the U.S. Government to publish the speech are not clear. In his memoirs, Ray Cline recalled that he was alone with Allen Dulles on June 2 working on the drafting of a speech, and Dulles mentioned that he had heard that Cline was in favor of releasing the Khrushchev speech. After Cline explained his reasons for this position, Dulles said that he too favored release. According to Cline, the Director first called Wisner and then Foster Dulles and obtained their concurrences to releasing the speech. (Cline, Secrets, Spies, and Scholars, p. 164) However, in a statement in Washington on November 29, 1976, James Angleton, who was head of CIA’s special operations and counterintelligence division in 1956, disputed Cline’s version. According to Angleton, the decision to publish the speech “was made by Eisenhower, Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles. They decided its significance should take precedence over political action, and therefore, with the President’s consent, the text and footnotes prepared by the CIA were given over to the New York Times.”
Eisenhower was at his Gettysburg farm from the afternoon of Friday, June 1, to the morning of Monday, June 4. Foster Dulles was on vacation in Watertown, New York, from May 25 through June 5. No record has been found of telephone conversations they may have had during June 1–4 regarding the publication of Khrushchev’s speech.
The speech was published in the New York Times on June 4 and reprinted in Gruliow, Current Soviet Policies—II, pp. 172–188.
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