DEPARTMENT OF STATE
GIST:
INR BRIEFING NOTE
Dubcek to Head Czechoslovak Party-Govt Delegation to Hungary to Sign Friendship Treaty
TO:
DATE: 12 June 68
COMMENTS CONTAINED IN INR BRIEFING NOTES ARE INITIAL AND TENTATIVE.
The Director, INR
TIME: 1530 hours
SOURCE(S)
CLASS./CONTROL(S)
FBIS 71, CVO, 12 June
Prague Int'l Service announced that Czechoslovak Party First Secretary Dubcek will head the delegation which leaves in the morning for Budapest to sign a treaty of friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance. The delegation will include Premier Cornik, Foreign Minister Hajek, and other Party-Govt leaders.
INR COMMENTS: Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the treaty signing will be whether Dubcek signs in the name of the Czechoslovak Party. Segments of the Czechoslovak press, as well as some Foreign Ministry officials, feel that the treaty should be a state treaty only, one in which the respective communist parties should not become involved. Dubcek holds no government function; if he signs, as now seems likely, he will continue the precedent among the bilateral mutual defense treaty signatories of having both the Premier and the Party First Secretary sign the treaty.
The treaty will most likely be of the "mild" variety with respect to West Germany — i.e., while it will make due mention of the threat of revanchism and militarism in the FRG, there will be no iron-clad provisions on mutual defense specifically mentioning the FRG and its allies — as the hard-line treaties signed among the East Germans, Poles, and Czechoslovaks under the Novotny regime have been. The Czechoslovak-Bulgarian treaty signed in April — in which Dubcek participated — was of the "mild" type.
INR OFFICE
BRIEFER
EXTENSION
RSB/CE
Costolanski
3971
FORM DS-1118
6 - Mw 31097 DocId:33061196 Page 2
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