On November 22, 1963, US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The event shocked the entire world and elicited waves of sympathy on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The generally positive attitude in the USSR towards the young American president was finally solidified after the publication in Pravda on June 11,ContinueContinue reading “1963: A Cold War Stand-Down: Top Secret Documents on Kremlin Response to JFK Assassination”
Tag Archives: Brezhnev
Cosmonauts to Brezhnev in Top Secret 1965 Letter: Soviet Woes and US Gains in Space
On 22 October 1965, a letter was sent to Leonid Brezhnev about the challenges facing the Soviet Union’s once all-powerful space program. The letter that hit Brezhnev’s desk was probably worth his attention for two reasons: first, it carried the classified “Top Secret,” and second, it was signed by seven cosmonauts, well-known across the globeContinueContinue reading “Cosmonauts to Brezhnev in Top Secret 1965 Letter: Soviet Woes and US Gains in Space”
Top Secret 1974 Politburo Records on the Solzhenitsyn Issue: Exile? Imprison? Expel?
By January 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was already well known throughout most of the Soviet Union as a rabble-rouser, trouble-maker, ne’er-do-well, and pretty good author. When he quietly sent his weighty manuscript for ‘Gulag Archipelago’ off to the YMCA Press to be published in Paris and New York City, many inside Kremlin circles were shocked, toContinueContinue reading “Top Secret 1974 Politburo Records on the Solzhenitsyn Issue: Exile? Imprison? Expel?”
Declassified KGB Report on President Jimmy Carter’s “Dangerous Game” with US-Soviet Relations
Last month saw the publication of a newly declassified report submitted by then-KGB Director Yuri Andropov to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union based on “confidential” conversations with US business and political leaders regarding the dangerous direction led by US President Jimmy Carter. The initial text below, from the FSBContinueContinue reading “Declassified KGB Report on President Jimmy Carter’s “Dangerous Game” with US-Soviet Relations”
Cuban Missile Crisis, Document 17
23 October 1962 / Enciphered cable from Havana from Alekseyev on mobilizing the national militia in Cuba TOP SECRET Reproduction prohibited Copy No. 12 5962 23/X/62 Enciphered Cable [Translator’s note: Distribution for this cable is as follows: Brezhnev, Voronov, Kirilenko, Kozlov, Kuusinen, Mikoyan, Podgornyy, Polyanskiy, Suslov, Khrushchev, Khrushchev [sic], Shvernik, Grishin, Rashidov, Mazurov, Mzhavanadze, Shcherbitskiy,ContinueContinue reading “Cuban Missile Crisis, Document 17”
Translating History 