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(Classification)
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
INR BRIEFING NOTE
GIST: AFP Purports to Have Kosygin-Dubcek Agreement; All Reported Points Unobjectionable to Prague
DATE: June 5, 1968
TIME: 5:45
COMMENTS CONTAINED IN INR BRIEFING NOTES ARE INITIAL AND TENTATIVE.
TO: The Director, INR
SOURCE(S)
CLASS./CONTROL(S)
FBIS 09, June 5
Paris AFP
The Prague correspondent of the French newsagency claims to have pieced together the results of Kosygin's recent negotiations with Dubcek and other Czechoslovak leaders from reports that have since filtered through. He states that the Soviet leader's talks apparently ended in the following gentleman's agreement:
- the Czechoslovak CP will not permit its leadership role to be questioned
- key posts will continue to be staffed by communists
- no opposition party will be permitted
- both sides will consult each other before major political decisions
- Czechoslovakia will remain vigilant along its Western border
Another point of agreement might bear on the inspection of Czechoslovak forces by the Warsaw Pact commander
INR Comment: All of the above have been traditional Dubcek positions which have been for the most part officially stated—most recently on the occasion of the 4-day Czechoslovak CP Central Committee plenum ending June 1. AFP concedes that it did not obtain official confirmation of this tacit agreement, which in any case does not endanger Dubcek's democratization process. The report strikes us as something Czech political and journalistic sources (mentioned in AFP story) would gladly leak to the West. This, however, does not preclude the possibility that the above is the totality of what Kosygin obtained.
INR OFFICE
INR/RSB
BRIEFER
Matusek
EXTENSION
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(Classification)
NW: 31097 DocId: 33061196 Page 126