Comment on the Critique of the 1964 Plan by Peter Veleff and Hans Werner Deim, by Petr Luňák
In their comment Dr. Veleff and Gen. Deim question the authenticity of the 1964 war plan that I found in the Czech Military Archives.
The two gentlemen raise doubts as to whether one stand-alone document, such as the 1964 war plan stored with other documents having nothing to do with it, can be considered a real war plan that would be implemented if the cold war turned hot. To be sure, I asked myself the same question when I first discovered the plan. However, in view of the condition of most archival documents in virtually all post-communist countries, it should come as no surprise that a plan such as this could be placed in a file that has nothing to do with it. In fact, since 1989 several selections of military documents took place in the Czech Republic, in other words, documents have been haphazardly taken from their original location in an effort to create a subject file. In such a way, the Warsaw Pact collection was created in the Czech Republic where all relevant documents were supposed to be kept. Alas, as I later found out, only a fraction of planning documents was stored here.
Circumstantial evidence absent, I tried to find individuals who were involved in the preparation of the plan. In my interview with one of them, Col. Štepánek confirmed that in 1964 the operations department of the ministry indeed worked on a plan based on the Soviet instruction to reach French territory within 8 or 9 days. Surprisingly, Dr. Veleff and Gen. Deim pay only scant attention to the interview which is posted together with the plan on the PHP website.
Continuing my research in he Czech archives, in 2001 I asked the chief of the general staff (CHOD) to declassify all planning documents prior to 1989. Documents which I saw as a result of this important decision by the CHOD show that the plan was genuine and perhaps with minor changes was approved as the operational plan of the Czechoslovak People's Army (CSLA).
In my recent presentation at the conference of the PHP at Spitzbergen had the opportunity to describe some of the plans that preceded the 1964 plan. If there is one line connecting all these plans, it is lack of realism. Yet, as Prof. Mastny convincingly argues in his comment, the fact that the plan was unrealistic does not mean that it would not have been implemented until the planners were proved wrong in their assumptions. In fact, a plan from 1960 explicitly drafted on Soviet instructions already assumes that if "a massive rocket attack of a operational/strategic character by the Soviet Union" were successfully carried out, the CSLA was supposed to cross the Rhine river on the fifth day of hostilities where the initiative would be taken up by Soviet forces.
Other documents in this newly declassified collection are related to the 1964 plan. First of all, it turns out that contrary to what Mr. Veleff deduces, the plan was based on a new Soviet instruction rather than reflect the preferences of the Czechoslovak General Staff. In the summer of 1964, Moscow ordered without further explanation that a new operational plan be developed according to which Czechoslovak troops were to reach southeastern France by the eighth day, with the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
In fact, many of the usually loyal Czechoslovak generals had serious reservations about the new plan. In contrast to the 1960 plan, the new plan meant that the Czechoslovak front would have to fight alone against the enemy for twice as long as planned before. In addition, the Soviet command was hinting at the possibility that Czechoslovakia would have to set up a second front in the future. The Soviet explanation that the time required for the second echelon of troops from Poland and the Soviet Union to reach Central Europe has been "recalculated" convinced only the true believers in the Czechoslovak command. Much more credible was the explanation that the Soviet Union – despite its claims – accepted the idea of a limited or rather substrategic nuclear war in Europe for a period exceeding the initial stages. Indeed, the 1964 plan does even mention the strategic exchanges between the two superpowers. To add to the confusion of the Czechoslovak command, Soviet intentions were never clearly explained. In any event, in sharp contradiction to the argument of Dr.Veleff, the plan was everything but expression of military thinking or the reflection of the preferred strategy of the Czech political and military leadership.
On the whole, it is possible to agree with the two critics in that the document was not the sharp plan containing all necessary details for such a massive operation. It may well be the case that it is a draft that the Czechoslovak planners did on the basis of the Soviet instruction. Given the subservience of the Eastern European militaries, it is hardly conceivable that the Czechs would venture into operational planning that would contradict the orthodoxy in Moscow.
Rather than to raise doubts about the authenticity of the plan, it would be more interesting to ask why the Soviet command decided to entrust the untested CSLA such an important mission. The only explanation is that it did not have any other choice. Firstly, Soviet troops were not on the Czechoslovak territory (unlike in Poland and Hungary) and Moscow thus could not run the war operations on her own. Secondly, the direction of the ground operation entrusted to the Czechs was of lesser strategic importance compared to the northern front consisting of Polish, East German, and Soviet troops.
In sum, the arguments presented by the two critics do not hold up under scrutiny.
