THE WARSAW PACT AND NATO: TWO RADICALLLY DIFFERENT ALLIANCES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010034-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2012
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: July 5, 1966
• Content Type: REPORT

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010034-1
V V V n L. 1 _ .. ? 1 r
THE WARSAW PACT AND NATO:
Two Radically Different Alliances
The Soviets' success
so far in their campaign to equate the Warsaw Pact (WP) with NATO has been
aptly termed a "victory in semantics." To accept the two organizations as
equal is to ignore the wide differences in the alliances' origins, struc-
ture, functions, control mechanisms, and leadership. A more serious error
is to applaud (or even to consider) the proposals that, as quid pro quo
both alliances be disbanded in the interests of a "lessening of tensions"
and the achievement of "all-European" security. For the Soviets, this
"exchange" would impose little or no sacrifice: the WP is only one of a
number of means by which the Soviets control the East European countries.
Of greater concern to the NATO countries is the risk, as pointed out in
BPG #188 ("In Defense of NATO") and recently emphasized by USG leaders,
that the disbanding of the alliance would be a step backward to shifting
entente systems which have in the past proven to be inadequate to preserve
international security and justice.
The essential differences between NATO and the WP are in their origins,
functions, and leadership:
a) Whereas NATO was caretully worked out in 1949 after several
years of hope-inspired work for a viable European peace had been
thwarted by Soviet intransigence, hostile acts, and threatening mili-
tary gestures coupled with efforts to use home-grown but Moscow-
directed CP's to gain political dominance in West European countries,
the WP blossomed almost overnight in response to West Germany's entry
into NATO in 1955.
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b) Whereas NATO took form almost at inception and produced
a Western solidarity which is credited with helping soon there-
after to bring about the end of the Berlin Blockade, the end of
the Soviet-assisted Communist insurrection in Greece 6 months
later, and also the reduction of Soviet pressure on Western Eur-
ope during the year leading up to the Korean War, the WP was a
formality which was used immediately as a basis for keeping Soviet
troops in Hungary and Rumania after the signing of the Austrian
State Treaty, and later was used by the USSR to secure Bloc un-
animity after Imre Nagy threatened in 1956 to withdraw Hungary from
the Pact.
c) Whereas NATO's military and political posts have been
placed under the leadership of representatives from a number of
member nations and the North Atlantic Council has met frequently,*
the WP's posts have been monopolized by the USSR,and the Political
Consultative Committee (PCC) has met. only 7 times, or one third as
frequently as the minimum decided upon at the PCC meeting in January
1956.
The differences between the alliances are further magnified when
attention is directed to the situation which would probably emerge if
both alliances were disbanded. For NATO this would untie many of the
significant bonds and agreements which member nations have developed
since 1919. More important, it would dilute the power which has stood
up to the Soviets' persistent pressure and intermittent attempts to en-
croach on Western Europe during the last 17 years.
For the WP countries the disbanding of the alliance would change
little. The Soviets would still be able to exercise substantial control
over the East European countries by political, military, ideological,eco-
nomic, and police means. Politically, the USSR and each of the East Eur-
opean nations are bound bilaterally by 20-year, renewable treaties of
Friendship and Mutual Assistance. These treaties, originally entered in-
to in 191+5-48 and renewed when due, commit the signers to mutual defense
against aggression, particularly aggression by a rearmed German state. A
further strengthening of military ties was accomplished without reference
to the WP through bilateral treaties of 1956 and 1957 permitting the USSR
to station troops in Poland, East Germany, Rumania, and Hungary." Ideo-
logical and CP ties of East European leaders to Moscow and the world
*For example, the Permanent Representatives of NATO met, as scheduled, an
average of 70 times a year between 1950 and 1960.
"Earlier treaties permitting the USSR to station troops in Hungary and
Rumania did make reference to the WP; but such references were not repeat-
50X1-HUM
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9FCDFT
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communist movement would remain unaffected by changes in the WP. As
stressed on 6 June 1966 by Premier Gyula Kallai of Hungary, "prole-
tarian internationalism" is the strongest "binding link" among the
countries of the socialist world system. Economically, most of the
countries are strongly bound or beholden to the USSR in spite of the
present weakness of the Bloc's Council of Mutual Economic Assistance
(CEMA, or Comecon). The countries' economic systems are similar and
to an extent they are meshed. Also important is the fact that most
of the East European countries have difficulty in finding outlets for
trade in the West because of the generally low quality of their pro-
duction. Finally, collaboration in the exercise of police controls
is of great potential significance.* Laszlo Szabo, who defected from
the Hungarian security service after 20 years, revealed how the Soviets'
KGB has trained Hungarian security personnel and coordinated the Hungar-
ian program with its own, and how the KGB has officers at the top and
departmental levels of its Hungarian counterpart, the AVH. Presumably,
the Soviets have similar arrangements with the other East European coun-
tries and can expect to maintain them with or without the WP.
Since the WP cannot be equated with NATO, it may be asked why the
Soviets hint in their propaganda -- in spite of their announced policy
of strengthening the WP -- that they would abolish the WP in return for
the abolition of NATO? One speculation, in the light of difficulties
they are having in operating the WP is that the Soviets are trying to
make a virtue of necessity. That is, they may soon be obliged to make
significant changes in the WP and are trying to get something from the
West beforehand. 50X1-HUM
Problems in the WP appear to stem from the inability of the Soviets
to obtain unanimity from the member countries. (It will be recalled that
it was the Soviets who first insisted on WP unanimity during the Hungarian
Revolution). Rumania's increasingly independent stance
apparently has had considerable bearing on developmentslat: the WP de-
fense ministers' meeting in Moscow in May; the WP foreign ministers' meet-
ing in Moscow in the first part of June; and the meeting at the same time
in East Berlin of virtually the entire top command of the Soviet armed
forces with defense leaders of East Germany, Czechcslovakia, and Poland.
Although it has been reported (see Press Comment 20 June 66 ) that
Rumania was reprimanded at the unusually long foreign ministers' meeting
in Moscow, and speculated that the Northern Tier countries (East Germany,
Czechoslovakia, Poland) are being forged into a special military force,
little firm evidence is at hand. A clearer picture may emerge from the
*It is estimated that militarized security forces of the East European
countries total more than a quarter of a million, or roughly 1 for every
?+ members of the armed forces.
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3 tGRLT
scheduled early July meeting in Bucharest of the Political Consultative
Committee (PCC) which might further demonstrate the fallacy of equating
NATO with the WP. [The PCC is composed of each country's top CP, Gov-
ernment, foreign affairs, and defense leaders, and is charged with co-
ordinating all activities of the WP. However, its meetings have been
held at 1 1/2-year intervals rather than the minimum of every 6 months
or more frequently, as decided in 1956. Furthermore, past PCC meetings
have served merely as forums for the articulation of a common stand on 50X1-HUM
important international issues as proposed by the USSR.]
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010034-1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010034-1