Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XX, Eastern Europe

9. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter¹

Washington, June 24, 1977

SUBJECT

• Prospects for Eastern Europe

The Intelligence Community recently published a report entitled “Prospects for Eastern Europe.”² The estimates provided in that report are interesting and I have summarized them below:

—Unrest is likely to grow in Eastern Europe over the next three years. Destabilizing factors include detente, slower economic growth, and dissident activity.

—Poland will be the most volatile of the East European states. A blow-up there, which might bring down Gierek and even conceivably compel the Soviets to restore order, cannot be ruled out. (I have included an additional note on the possibility of Soviet intervention at the end of this memo.)

—The situation will be less volatile in East Germany, but the Honecker regime is going to have a harder time balancing its economic need for closer ties to the West with the unsettling effect those ties have on the East German people.

—In the rest of Eastern Europe, the tension is not likely to get out of hand. Nowhere will dissident activists by themselves seriously challenge the regime.

—Under economic pressures, all of the East European countries will show more interest in expanding their trade with the West. Despite misgivings, the Soviets will acquiesce or even encourage such expansion because they are increasingly reluctant to subsidize the East European economies.

—East European leaders will continue to give ground, sporadically and reluctantly, on human rights issues of interest to the West. The prospects are fair for a slow evolution toward less authoritarian methods of rule in East Europe. I should note here that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) does not agree with this part of the estimate. According to DIA, the necessity for tight centralized party control, the likelihood of growing unrest, constraints imposed by the USSR, and the example of Soviet treatment of dissent all argue against these developments.

—The US is not likely to have a major impact on how the internal picture develops in any of the East European countries. But the East Europeans will attach more importance to developing relations with the US.

I mentioned above that the Soviets might feel compelled at some point to restore order in Poland. A recent CIA report entitled “Probable Soviet Reactions to a Crisis in Poland”³ assessed this possibility. The report noted that there have been three political-economic crises in Poland over the past 20 years—all without Soviet armed intervention. Here is the key assessment in that report:

“The Soviets, of course, have the military capability to invade and occupy Poland (Tab A).⁴ The Kremlin evidently prefers, however, to have the Polish leadership make minor concessions to the people to reduce public frustration. Polish regimes have thus far successfully used such tactics. At the same time, they have preserved the leading role of the party, while initiating and executing the transfer of party authority. There is currently no evidence to conclude that either the Soviets or the Poles intend to alter this pattern. A crisis could come in the event that ameliorating tactics failed to pacify the public, or in the event that the economic situation became sufficiently untenable that austerity measures would have to be strictly enforced.”

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 22, Europe: 1/77–12/78. Top Secret; Codeword. Drafted by Inderfurth on June 23. Printed from an uninitialed copy.
2. Dated June 10, the memorandum was prepared by representatives of the CIA, State/INR, and DIA under the auspices of the National Intelligence Officer for Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. (Ibid.) Brzezinski included copies of the National Intelligence Daily from June 21, June 22, and June 23, which had published the entire interagency memorandum in three parts. Carter initialed the June 21 copy, indicating he saw it.
3. Dated June 1977. (Ibid.)
4. Attached but not printed is a map of Poland and the surrounding area. The map listed major Soviet military units from which Moscow could draw in the event it deemed Soviet intervention necessary, including 10 motorized rifle divisions and 10 tank divisions in the German Democratic Republic; 3 motorized rifle divisions and 2 tank divisions in Czechoslovakia; 4 motorized rifle divisions, 3 tank divisions, and 1 Airborne division in the Baltic military district of the Soviet Union (comprised of the Baltic States and Kaliningrad); 2 motorized rifle divisions, 8 tank divisions, and 1 Airborne division in the Belorussian military district (comprised of Belarus); and 8 motorized rifle divisions and 3 tank divisions in the Carpathian military district (comprised of the western part of Ukraine). Soviet units in Hungary were not added to the map.