IX. Meeting of the PCC, Sofia, 6-7 March 1968
Editorial Note
Although the mounting Czechoslovak crisis provided the background it was not the reason for the meeting. The PCC was called into session at the initiative of Romania to address disagreements among the allies about the projected non-proliferation treaty, soon to be discussed at the UN Eighteen Nations Disarmament Committee. Nonproliferation had been a contentions issue at previous PCC meetings, as Romania continued to press for amendments of the Soviet draft in ways that would meet the main Chinese objections. Romania insisted that the treaty must include obligatory steps by the nuclear haves toward the liquidation of their arsenals, guarantees for the nuclear have-nots against an attack, no limitations on the peaceful use atomic energy, a system of controls based on equality and noninterference, with safeguards of the signatories' independence and sovereignty, including their right to withdraw from the treaty.
Gomułka branded these demands as "absolutely unrealistic." No agreement on the draft was reached, although the PCC at least agreed on issuing a communiqué. The Romanians subsequently published their dissenting opinion and continued to oppose the Soviet draft at the ENDC. In the end, however, they accepted the amended text as it had been negotiated between the Soviet Union and the United States with substantial input by other countries. The Warsaw Pact adhered to the landmark treaty en bloc upon its signature on 1 July 1968.
The Soviet Union used the PCC meeting for trying to finalize the changes in the Warsaw Pact that it had been unsuccessfully promoting for two years amid growing disarray within the alliance. Overcoming its crisis was all the more imperative for Moscow since NATO had succeeded in overcoming its own parallel crisis by the end of 1967. At issue in the Warsaw Pact's reform was the creation of new institutions, particularly a joint staff, military council, and committee on technology.
In response to the speech by supreme commander Marshal Iakubovskii, the PCC agreed, with Romania's abstention, to refer the establishment of the staff and the council to the defense ministers, who would then report the result of their deliberations to the PCC within six months. Romania took exception, declaring that questions of principle should be decided first and the creation of institutions be addressed only later, after resolving the question of the unified command. That question entailed the crucial decision of whether the command should be centralized or loose, allowing the member states to control their own armies.
Czechoslovakia, represented by the reformist new party secretary Alexander Dubček, endorsed without reservations Soviet positions on both nonproliferation and the reorganization of the alliance. Nothing in the record of the meeting indicates that in less than six months the country would be invaded by five of its allies.
Vojtech Mastny
