Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume X, Eastern Europe

356. Telegram From the Embassy in Hungary to the Department of State¹

7305.

Budapest, July 15, 1988, 1539Z

SUBJECT

• MFA Officials on Withdrawal of Soviet Forces From Hungary.

REF

• Budapest 7086.²

1. (Secret—Entire text.)

Summary:

2. Hungarian MFA officials confirm Hungarian CC staffer’s account that Soviet troop withdrawals from Hungary did not come up in the July 5 Grosz-Gorbachev Moscow meeting. According to the MFA’s Deputy Director for Disarmament Matters (protect), there is a bilateral agreement in principle that all the Soviet forces will go, and it is currently foreseen that the move would be triggered by some Western gesture in the conventional forces area.

End summary.

3. In a chance meeting with PolOff July 14, Ambassador Ferenc Somogyi, the MFA’s Director for International Organizations and Disarmament, confirmed reftel report that Soviet troop withdrawals from Hungary under the rubric of “unilateral gestures” did not come up in the July 5 Grosz-Gorbachev meeting. He said the issue would be addressed again during the July 15 Warsaw Pact meeting. Somogyi denied that Soviet-Hungarian conversations to date have addressed specific numbers. He did not think there was any prospect of troop withdrawal from Hungary only, but that there would be related moves from other Pact countries.

4. However, over lunch July 15, Ambassador Imre Uranovitz (protect) MFA Deputy Director for Disarmament Matters, elaborated that extensive Hungarian-Soviet party/party and military/military conversations have resulted in an agreement in principle that the Soviet forces will go. Uranovitz says the agreement provides for withdrawal of all the Soviet forces—piecemeal withdrawals, he points out, would vitiate any political impact of the move. Uranovitz says the Hungarians and Soviets now share the perception that the Soviet troops are here because of 1956, not for military reasons, and that changes in the Soviet Union and the invalidation of the Brezhnev Doctrine have increasingly undermined the rationale for keeping the Soviet forces here. So have developments in Vienna: The 62,000 Soviet troops in Hungary used to be a component in the MBFR “numbers war;” paradoxically, movement beyond MBFR has facilitated understanding that the Soviets could pull out. Uranovitz says the Soviet military has been reluctant throughout for reasons of institutional self-interest: It is easier, in terms of careers, to demobilize a GLCM or retire outmoded strategic rocket forces than to withdraw tank regiments.

5. Uranovitz is uncertain of the timing; he doubts it will come in the immediate future. It is presently foreseen that the move will be triggered by some positive Western gesture in the conventional forces area which might be of an indirect nature. For example, attention is being paid to West German political positions regarding commitments of conventional forces to NATO, and to Franco-German military cooperation. Some development in one of these areas could precipitate movement of Soviet forces.

6. Uranovitz repeated that Hungary is interested in cutting defense outlays and has resisted suggestions by other Pact members that it increase spending under the guise of “modernizations.” He declined to get into details, but said areas of suggested interest for force modernization were “not just aircraft.”

7. Comment: Asked why Hungarian officials have lately been so communicative about “unilateral gestures,” Uranovitz was cautious and denied that CC International Department Director Kotai, speaking in Potsdam in June, had actually called for Soviet “unilateral gestures” in Hungary: that, Uranovitz said, was the press interpretation. The signal we do seem to be getting is that Soviet troop withdrawal from Hungary is agreed, packaged, and waiting on the shelf, subject to the right conditions. And Uranovitz was trying to leave the impression that those conditions may not be all that strenuous.

Kursch

1. Source: Reagan Library, Rudolf Perina Files, Hungary—Substance 1988 (3). Secret; Immediate. Sent for information to Eastern European posts, Bonn, London, Paris, Rome, and Vienna.
2. Telegram 7086 from Budapest, July 11, reported on Grosz’s July 5 meeting with Gorbachev. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D880590–0384)