The CIA and Double Demonology*

Calling the Sino-Soviet Split

Harold P. Ford

66

Once it was widely believed
that the USSR and
Communist China were
firm allies acting in concert
to spread Communist
influence everywhere they
could in the world. In the
early 1950s, there was
much to support that
image.

99

Harold P. Ford held senior
positions in both the National
Intelligence Council and the
Directorate of Operations.

Sino-Soviet relations are in a critical
phase just short of an acknowledged
and definitive split. There is no longer
much of a fundamental resolution of
differences. In our view, the chances
that such a split can be avoided in
1962 are no better than even.

NIE 11-5-62, February 1962!

[Ambassador George Kennan:] In sum-
mary, it seems to me that Chinese-
Soviet relations bid fair to receive, in
the coming months, a certain ease-
ment.... An environment of continued
sharp, military bipolarity will leave the
two partners little choice but to repress
their differences and carry on. [Ambas-
sador Charles (Chip) Bohlen:] I am
inclined to agree with George . . . there
is not the slightest sign that any adjust-
ments of the basic elements of that
dispute have been or are in process... .

Comments on NIE 1 1-5-62,
May 19622

The Soviet party is opportunist and
revisionist; it lacks any deep knowledge
of Marxism; its ideas about disarma-
ment are absurd; peaceful coexistence
could mean nothing, except as a tactical
weapon to deceive the enemy; the Soviet
idea of a division of labor among the
countries of the socialist camp ts wrong;
and China must go her own way.

Deng Xiaoping, November 1960?

Once it was widely believed that the
USSR and Communist China were
firm allies acting in concert to spread
Communist influence everywhere they
could in the world. In the early 1950s,
there was much to support that image.

Mao Tse-tung’s regime had tri-
umphed in China and then allied itself
formally with the Soviet Union. Com-
munist North Korea had invaded the
Republic of Korea. Communist China

l
had intervened massively in that war.

The USSR had provided its Commu-
nist allies with military assistance,
including Soviet-piloted MiGs. The
trouble was, among US policymakers
such an image of Sino-Sovier solidarity
persisted long after the Moscow—
Beijing relationship had in fact begun
to fray, badly.

Furthermore, that image persisted
long after officers from various CIA
units had begun to alert consumers
that a Sino-Soviet break was definitely
developing. 4 Not all CIA officers were
of one mind: some remained reluctant
to change their long-held view of
Communist bloc solidarity. All in all,
however, the dominant voice of CIA
analysis was out in front of the rest of
the Intelligence Community (IC) in
trying: to alert policymaking consum-
ers that the United States might
someday face a significantly changed
strategic situation.

This article treats the highlights of
that Sino-Soviet story: the judgments
CIA officers made in the years up to
1963, 'by which time estrangement
between Moscow and Beijing had
become publicly evident; why these
CIA officers came to hold those par-
ticular views; what they were up
against in trying to promote their
heresy amidst many policymakers
who remained true believers; and the
impact these CIA officers’ judgments
had—or did not have—on

policymakers.

* “Double demonology’” is the author's phrase for the efforts by analysts of Soviet and Chinese affairs in the 1950s and early 1960s to
explore and highlight the deepening split between the wo Communist powers, or “demons”.

57

Sino-Soviet

Judgments at CIA

... the differences between Peiping
and Moscow are so basic and are so
much a product of the different sit-
uations and problems in the two
countries that any genuine resolu-
tion of the fundamental differences
is unlikely.

NIE 13-60, December 1960°

From the outset of Stalin’s 1950 alli-
ance with Mao Tse-tung, and
continuing for the better part of a
decade, those analysts who were con-
vinced that bitter differences
underlay the Sino-Soviet relationship
faced tough hurdles. One involved
the outward appearance of Russian-
Chinese cooperation and a wide-
spread belief that the West was
under attack, worldwide, by a mono-
lithic Red bloc. Another hurdle was
America’s domestic fixation on Com-
munism. For years, most senior US
Kremlinologists and policymakers
remained hesitant to accept intelli-
gence judgments that Sino-Soviet
discord was growing. Central to such
hesitance was the fact that, until
about 1960, there was little hard evi-
dence to back judgments that
seemed to many to be based heavily
on tea-leaf interpretations of what
Soviet and Chinese media were

saying.

The Sino-Soviet heresy in CIA ranks
began as early as 1952, at a time
when the United States was fighting
Communist bloc forces in Korea.
One of the earliest CIA publications
mentioning differences between Mos-
cow and Beijing was published
jointly by the Foreign Documents
Division (FDD) and the Foreign
Broadcast Information Service
(FBIS), on 30 April 1952, titled

“Propaganda Evidence Concerning

58

66

The Sino-Soviet heresy in
CIA ranks began as early as
1952. ... In 1953, [CIA’s
Foreign Documents
Division] published the
first major analytic study
alerting readers to Sino-
Soviet differences.

99

Sino-Soviet Relations.” That study
briefly identified two chief areas of
differing Soviet and Chinese propa-
ganda: Soviet aid to China’s war
effort in Korea, and China’s status in
the Communist orbit.©

In 1953, FDD published the first
major analytic study alerting readers
to Sino-Soviet differences, “Chinese
and Soviet Views on Mao as a Marx-
ist Theorist and on the Significance
of the Chinese Revolution for the
Asian Revolutionary Movement,” by
Philip Bridgham, Arthur Cohen,
and Leonard Jaffe.’ It stressed two
Chinese claims, voiced in June 1951
on the occasion of the 30th anniver-
sary of the founding of the Chinese
Communist Party: that “Mao had
made a new contribution to Marxist-
Leninist theory in his ideological
writings on the Chinese revolution,”
and that “Mao’s theory, generalizing
the experiences of the Chinese revo-
lution, was applicable to the colonial
revolutionary movement as a
whole.”® After pointing out how the
Soviet response had been remarkably
cool to these claims, the authors con-
cluded that, “Differences in
viewpoint on these questions may
represent latent, but nonetheless
vital, tensions in the relations
between Soviet and Chinese
Communist leaders. In fact, a
deterioration in Sino-Soviet rela-

tions, for whatever cause, may quite
probably be signalized first in diver-
gent assertions regarding theoretical
matters.”

These first appearances of any
thought of significant differences
possibly developing between Mos-
cow and Beijing were no clarion
calls, but their messages were none-
theless heretical at a time when the
dominant view was definitely one of
Sino-Soviet solidarity, voiced by
some at the time as, “If you’ve seen
one Commie, you’ve seen them all.”

The next notch in Sino-Soviet propa-
ganda differences identified by FDD
and FBIS officers followed the death
of Stalin. In May 1954, in a study
titled “Some Aspects of Sino-Soviet
Relations Following Stalin’s Death,”
they pointed out that Beijing was sys-
tematically building up Mao’s
international doctrinal stature, a
move which “attested to the political
strength and liberty of the Chinese
Communist Party.” In the authors’
view, this indicated that Beijing had
assumed the right to devise Commu-
nist programs and strategies in
Southeast Asia, an area which for
decades had been the “exclusive
authority of Moscow.” !®

The word “conflict” in Sino-Soviet
relations first appeared in November
1954 in an FBIS study, “Points of
Sino-Soviet Conflict on Far Eastern
Policy.” This piece identified two
areas in which Soviet and Chinese
propaganda “persuasively suggest
longstanding and still not entirely
resolved divergences on policy in the
Far East.” The two principal such
issues: the rate at which the Chinese
economy should be industrialized
and socialized (and thus become

independent of the USSR); and the

degree to which Moscow should sup-
port China in opposing the West in
Asia."

Thereafter, FBIS authors, under the
direction of Paul McPherson, contin-
ued to alert readers to slowly
growing signs of Sino-Soviet discord.
By 1956, these had become much
more apparent. In April 1956, FBIS
alerted its readers to a Beijing Peo-
ple’s Daily article that attacked the
USSR’s “cult of the individual” and
certain “important mistakes” Stalin
had made: an excess of zeal in elimi-
nating counterrevolutionaries, lack
of vigilance before World War II,
failure to develop agriculture suffi-
ciently, mistreatment of Yugoslavia’s
apostasy—and, most notably,
“crudely” applying his directives con-
cerning China. Then, after attacking
the “cult of the individual,” this
Chinese article showed no embarrass-
ment in hailing Mao as “our great
leader” and lauding his “all-out
defense of the theories of Marxism-
Leninism.”

By 1958, FBIS’s analysts were high-
lighting Moscow’s cool reception of
China’s commune and Great Leap
Forward programs; by 1959, FBIS
was also focusing on East European
and North Vietnamese praise of the
Great Leap Forward. This unprece-

_ dented Soviet satellite independence
was unacceptable to Moscow. By
September 1960, FBIS was pointing
to some specific Soviet “intensive
pressures” on China: the first warn-
ings that China might face exclusion
from the Communist bloc; demands
that bloc members subordinate their
“national interests”; increasingly
explicit charges that “dogmatists”
were engaging in divisive activities
that endangered world Communism;
and an implicit call that the Chinese
Communist Party recant.!

66

In April 1956... after
attacking the USSR’s “cult
of the individual,” [a]
Chinese [People’s Daily]
article showed no
embarrassment in hailing
Mao as “our great leader”
and lauding his “all-out
defense of the theories of

Marxism-Leninism.”

Special Studies Group

In 1956, meanwhile, following Chi-
nese media criticism of the USSR’s
squashing of uprisings in Poland
and Hungary, CIA made its first for-
mal organizational attack on the
Sino-Soviet question. This was the
establishment within the Office of
Current Intelligence (OCI) of a
Sino-Soviet Studies Group (SSSG),
commissioned to examine Chinese
leadership questions and Sino-Soviet
relations. That same year, the SSSG
published its first major study on
Sino-Soviet differences: The Chinese
View of Interbloc Relations.'> Organi-
zationally, the SSSG drew in
Chinese and Soviet experts from
OCI, FDD, FBIS, and the Office of
[Economic] Research and Reports
(ORR). SSSG’s specialists included
Walter P. (Bud) Southard, Philip
Bridgham, Arthur Cohen, Harry
Gelman, Set Mardirosian, and
Donald Zagoria.'4

The Deputy Director for Intelligence
(DDI) was perceptive in establishing
this group. With the advantage of
hindsight, numerous scholars now
date the beginnings of Sino-Soviet
estrangement to differences chat
developed in 1956 over how best to
build “Communism” in states

Sino-Soviet

already ruled by Communist parties;
what the relationships should be
among Communist parties; and how
best to exert Communist pressures
against the West. We now know
that, by that year, Sino-Soviet
discord behind the scenes had
become bitter. For example, Mao’s
minutes of a conversation he had
with Yugoslav Communists in Sep-
tember 1956 are replete with
criticisms of Stalin for having seri-
ously injured the Chinese
Communist Party over the years.
Beginning i in the 1920s, wrote Mao,
“These mistakes originated i in Sta-
lin,” dnd i in the course of signing the
Sino-Soviet alliance pact in February
1950 i‘I became even more disgusted
[with Stalin]; I quarreled a lot with
him in Moscow.”

Together with studies on other ques-
tions, |the SSSG’s officers created a
special series of major examinations
of Sino-Soviet discord. Titled Esau
studies, the group chose that name
explicitly to reflect the younger
brother's undercutting of the older
brother’ s birthright. In mid-1959,
the fitst Esau study, “The Soviet Atti-
tude Toward Communes,” chiefly
examined Moscow’s attitude toward
the USSR’s own experience with
communes.!° The SSSG produced
five more Esau studies in 1959. All
focused on China’s launching of its
own (ill- fated) commune program.
And all emphasized Moscow’ s igno-
rance of that program’s inception, its
sharp critiques of China’s com-
munes, and the fact that the Soviet
and Chinese parties by 1957 had
begun making “diametrically oppo-
site” interpretations of supposed
international Communist Declara-
tions, 7 Tn 1959, the DDI also
established a special interoffice com-
mittee, chaired by R. Jack Smith, a
member of the Office of National

59

Sino-Soviet

Estimates (ONE), “to survey the
assets of DDI components for investi-
gating the question of the Sino-
Soviet relationship and to ascertain
what is being done in terms of collec-
tion, analysis, and production.” !8

In 1960, the SSSG produced four
more major Esau studies. Pointing out
how Sino-Soviet discord had become
more acute during 1958-60, these
pieces emphasized how Soviet spokes-
men were now severely criticizing
China’s commune and Great Leap
Forward programs, how differences
had escalated concerning the best ways
to build Communism at home and to
spread it abroad, and whether China’s
commune program should be a model
for other societies in Asia. These stud-
ies also pointed up how China’s
commune program—to the disgust of
Moscow—had found warm reactions
among certain of the USSR’s satellite
regimes. In addition, they noted that
Mao was insisting much greater risks
should be taken in pushing the West,
now that the USSR had developed
ICBM capabilities. By 1961, Esau
studies were able to detail how a flood
of Soviet and Chinese documents,
clandestinely acquired in 1960, clearly
established thar Moscow and Beijing
were openly quarreling and acknowl-
edging that their relationship had
become badly estranged.

There was a much broader readership
of SSSG’s findings in 1962, when
Princeton University Press published
The Sino-Soviet Conflict, written by
one of the SSSG’s officers, Donald
Zagoria. This was a perceptive, unique
work, widely accepted since that time
as one of the first publications that
spelled out in unambiguous detail the
causes and character of the Sino-Soviet
conflict. The book’s strength lay in the
fact that in writing it, Zagoria had
borrowed heavily from the work he

60

66

In the early 1960s, I argued
that deep-seated
differences over China’s
acquisition of nuclear
weapons were central to the
initiation and aggravation
of Sino-Soviet discord.

99

and his SSSG colleagues had been

doing for some time.!?

More CIA Heretics

Meanwhile, several members of
ONE’s staff had begun to join the
ranks of the heretics arguing Sino-
Soviet discord. These officers
included Chester Cooper, Richard
Shryock, James Billington, John
Whitman, Louis Sandine, and
myself. The most senior, Cooper,
took a leading role: as early as 1954,
he set up meetings of ONE and
SSSG officers to discuss Sino-Soviet
differences,2° and he was later instru-
mental in urging CIA’s analysts to
focus more effort on the Sino-Soviet
estrangement, and in particular on
how it might affect US interests.7!

Along the way, in a memorandum
on “The Big Commune Heresy,”
written in November 1958, Shryock
pointed out how China’s leaders
were trumpeting their commune pro-
gram as a momentous event in world
history, whereas high-level Soviet offi-
cials were completely ignoring it.
Shryock concluded that “whether
deliberate or no, the Chinese have
started something too big to be long
ignored.” Billington wrote that by
1959 the alleged common ideological
bond between Moscow and Beijing
had. become of “minor importance in
the relationship and is likely to
become increasingly so”, and that the

Chinese consider thar “the papacy
has moved to Avignon; they are in a
stage of development which needs a
myth of infallibiliry; and they do not,
moreover, feel themselves implicated
in past Soviet mistakes.”*

In 1959, I stressed interacting dis-
cord existing within both the
Chinese Communist Party and Sino-
Soviet relations; the fact that Beijing
“js now very much on the make in
world politics at a time when Soviet
leadership has apparently decided
that there is much to be gained by
resort to seductive, less crude meth-
ods of conquest”; and that
differences over China’s acquisition
of nuclear weapons were apparently
becoming an increasing point of dis-
cord both within China and in its
relations with Moscow.”4 In the
early 1960s I argued that “deep-
seated differences over China’s acqui-
sition of nuclear weapons were
central to the initiation and aggrava-
tion of Sino-Soviet discord,” though
that discord was the product as well
of competing revolutionary strate-
gies, theological pretension, struggle
for supreme Communist authority,
and fundamental disagreement over
whether Stalin should be praised or
buried.” Radio Moscow later con-
firmed that there had been serious
Sino-Soviet differences over nuclear
weapons:

The Chinese leaders have been at
great pains to obtain possession of
nuclear weapons. They strenuously
tried—this is no secret-—to get the
Soviet Union to give them the
atomic bomb. The CPSU and the
Soviet Government naturally
could not consider this, since it
might have led to the most serious
consequences.26

By 1960, ONE’s front office had
become supportive of the positions
those ONE staff members had been
taking. In May 1960, ONE’s Acting
Director Abbot Smith wrote DCI
Dulles that Soviet detente tactics
toward the West had provoked “the
bitterest and most fundamental Chi-
nese Communist disagreement with
Soviet policy yet evidenced. »27 T ater
that year, ONE Director Sherman
Kent wrote, “The Sino-Soviet dis-
pute is genuine, bitter, and covers a
broad range of fundamental
policies.’

Cautious NIEs

CIA officers also played leading roles
in producing the IC’s authoritative
judgments on the state of relations
between Moscow and Beijing. The
views of these coordinated National

Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) con-
cerning the degree of Russian-
Chinese discord lagged behind the
judgments of the individual CIA
officers. Up into the early 1960s,
however, NIE views were definitely
ahead of the still-dominant image
among policymakers of Sino-Soviet
solidarity. The IC had addressed the
Sino-Soviet relationship as early as
1952, at a time when most observers
considered China to be a tool of the
Soviet Union, and concluded that
Beijing, unlike the USSR’s East Euro-
pean satellites, was not “directly and
completely controlled by the Krem-
lin,” and retained “some capability
for independent action and a capabil-
ity to exert an influence upon the
shaping of Communist policy in the
Far East.”

By 1956, the IC agreed that certain
difficulties did exist between Mos-
cow and Beijing, but concluded,
“Although potential conflicts of
interest exist, we believe that

66

ONE Director Sherman
Kent wrote [in 1960,] “The
Sino-Soviet dispute is
genuine, bitter, and covers
a broad range of

fundamental policies.”

99

common objectives and mutual
advantage, and Peiping’s continuing
dependence on Moscow, will serve
to prevent any significant weakening
of Sino-Soviet ties at least through
1960.”2° In 1957, the coordinating
process kept the IC’s judgments sim-
ilarly cautious; NIE 13-57
concluded that conflicts of interest
would “probably” arise between the
two powers, but that it would be
“highly unlikely” that either side
would “permit such conflicts to
impair Sino-Soviet solidarity.”>!
The following year, NIE 13-58
made similar judgments. By 1959,
obvious Sino-Soviet differences had
arisen concerning China’s commune
and Great Leap Forward programs;
China’s instigation of the Quemoy-
Matsu offshore island crisis; and
whether the USSR’s acquisition of
nuclear weapons meant that greater,
or more cautious, risks should now
be run against the West. In 1959,
the IC admitted the presence of
numerous differences in the two
powers’ relationship, judging that
“the reconciliation of Sino-Soviet
interests will probably become
increasingly difficult,” particularly
with respect to “nuclear weapons,
attitudes and tactics toward the
West, and patterns of economic and
social development”. Yet that NIE
still concluded that Moscow and
Beijing would find “no feasible
alternative” to maintaining their
alliance.>2

Sino-Soviet

The final text of the next NIE on the
subject (100-3-60) was much less
firm about a possible Sino-Soviet
rupture than many of CIA’s analysts
(ONE's included) had been champi-
oning.|The NIE did state that there
had been a “sharp increase in dis-
cord” in the Sino-Soviet relationship
and that it “is not a monolith.” But,
after judging that that relationship
contained “elements of both cohe-
sion and division,” the Estimate
concluded that the cohesive forces
“will remain stronger than divisive
forces at least through the e,petiod of
this estimate [five years].

A Different NIE Tune
t

The message of the next NIE on the
subject (13-60, 6 December 1960)
was substantially different, at last
coming to the view that the differ-
ences between Beijing and Moscow
were so great that “any resolution of
the fundamental differences is
unlikely. ”34 Three reasons explained
this changed, much more confident
judgment. First, it was known that ©
in July 1960 Moscow had suddenly
and unilaterally ordered its experts in
China'to leave, “within the month.”
Second, it had become known that
during the year Chinese and Soviet
spokesmen had angrily confronted
one another in a series of interna-
tional Communist gatherings of
unrivaled bitterness, climaxed by the
CPSU’s 22nd Congress in Novem-
ber. Third, and most important, an
unprecedented breakthrough had
occurred in clandestine collection
regarding those encounters: the for-
eign and domestic intelligence
services of the United States and of
several friendly countries obtained
copies of many of the angry letters
the Soviets and Chinese had distrib-
uted. Among this new evidence
documenting Sino- Soviet bitterness

61

Sino-Soviet

was a denunciation Khrushchev had
made of the Chinese for being
Trotskyites and “madmen” who were
seeking war.

By 1963, when the Sino-Soviet
estrangement had become widely evi-
dent, the IC at last agreed that the
“basic issues” behind that discord
were “incompatible national and
party interests,” and that “the Chi-
nese Communists show no signs of
relenting.”°° In focusing on compet-
ing national interests as the basic
source of Sino-Soviet discord, the IC
at last validated what many CIA ana-
lysts had long been stressing.

CIA’s 1960 NSC Briefings

Meanwhile, by 1960, the much
firmer evidence being received had
enabled senior CIA officers to keep
the National Security Council
(NSC) well informed of the growing
discord in Moscow’s relationships
with Beijing. As early as December
1959, Deputy Director for Plans
(DDP) Richard Bissell was assuring
the NSC that the IC “is unanimous
that [Sino-Soviet] strains are genuine
and not a fabrication.”?” In April
1960, DCI Allen Dulles told the
NSC that three questions principally
marked the Sino-Soviet dispute:
whether war was inevitable; whether
the West was increasing preparations
for war; and whether peaceful coexist-
ence was possible.?® When Acting
DCI Charles Cabell briefed the NSC
in August 1960, reporting that
Khrushchev had said “only madmen
and maniacs regard war as inevita-
ble,” Vice President Nixon asked
Cabell whether he was “completely
sure” that there was a real difference
of view between the USSR and
China; General Cabell replied that

“in his opinion there were real

62

66

Knowledge of Chinese-
Russian history was the
primary factor convincing

[CIA] analysts that a break

was brewing.

99

ideological and policy differences
between the two countries.”

In September 1960, DCI Dulles told
the NSC that CIA had “a great deal
of documentation” on the Sino-
Soviet dispute, and that among this
evidence was an 84-page Soviet direc-
tive to all Communist parties
informing them that China had bet-
ter shape up, or Soviet aid to it
would be “reduced or eliminated.”4°
In October, Dulles told the NSC
that the Soviets were apparently
working to confront the Chinese
with the unanimous condemnation
of all the world’s Communist par-
ties.4! And, near the close of 1960,
Dulles informed the NSC of what
CIA had learned concerning the just-
completed 22nd Congress of the
CPSU, stating that from their study
of the manifesto published by that
conference “CIA experts have iso-
lated 17 issues dividing Communist
China and the USSR”; also, that the
chief Chinese delegate to the confer-
ence [Chou En-lai] “was said to have
made a four-hour speech attacking
Khrushchev personally.”47

All in all, 1960 was a good Sino-
Soviet year for CIA: the collection of
evidence had been excellent; the
heretical views long held by many of
the Agency’s analysts had at last
begun to become canon; and the
DCI and other senior CIA officers
had become convinced of the extent
and genuineness of Sino-Soviet dis-
cord and had passed on those
conclusions to the government's top
policymakers.

Sources of Sino-Soviet Discord

I will never forget that night in
Nanking, when the Chinese
Communists’ liaison officer,
Huang Hua, told me over and
over again how much he hated
the Russians’ guts.

Walter P. (Bud) Southard?

With occasional exceptions, until the
windfall of clandestine reporting
occurred in the 1960s, the principal
source materials demonstrating
growing Sino-Soviet discord had
been the many (unclassified) broad-
casts, speeches, and articles that
Beijing and Moscow had published
over the years, haranguing one
another indirectly by criticizing third
Parties or citing supposed historical
precedents. The analysts out front in -
appreciating this growing estrange-
ment were those officers who
immersed themselves in this vast
body of materials and were able to
decode the respective polemics.
Some read these materials in the orig-
inal Russian or Chinese; others relied
on the excellent publishing by FBIS
(and the British) of daily translations
and occasional analyses.

But knowledge of Chinese-Russian
history was the primary factor con-
vincing these analysts that a break
was brewing: they recognized that
the Chinese Communists had come
to power largely unaided by Moscow
and, at times, despite it. These offic-
ers’ conviction that China was a
wholly unique phenomenon within
the Communist world stemmed
from their appreciation of the many
clashes of interests that had marked
Chinese-Russian relations over the
years.

Continuing Chinese anger at Russia
for having taken enormous territories

from China in years past was central
to Sino-Soviet controversy. CIA’s her-
etics were aware that there had been
numerous border wars beginning as
far back as the 17th century; that tsa-
rist Russia had acquired over 500,000
square miles of territory claimed by
China and that this had dismayed
successive Chinese officials—impe-
rial, Nationalist, and Communist—
who alike referred to the Russians dis-
dainfully as “long noses”; that after
Russia’s new Bolshevik government
had in 1919 disowned previous
unequal treaties, it had proceeded to
make Mongolia a Soviet satellite, a
territory of more than 1 million
square miles; and that at the close of
World War II the Soviet Union not
only had regained East Asian assets it
had lost to Japan in 1905 (Port
Arthur, Dairen, and railroad rights in
Manchuria), but also had then looted
Manchuria and heightened the
USSR’s covert influence in China’s
northwestern province of Sinkiang.“4
Chinese anger on these scores was
mirrored in 1954, when China pub-
lished a geography book showing
Mongolia as still part of China and
picturing the huge areas Russia had
wrested from China by “unequal
treaties.”

Another prime source of discord,
known to those familiar with Rus-
sian—Chinese history, was the
disdainful manner in which the
Soviet Communist Party (CPSU)
had often treated the Chinese Com-
munist Party (CCP) over the years.
Trying to fashion the CCP in its
own image, the CPSU had pushed
the fledgling Chinese Communists
into disastrous urban rebellions in
the 1920s and early 1930s. Mao later
claimed that, as a result of those
disasters, the Chinese Red Army,
“which in 1929 was comprised of
300,000 fighters, was reduced by

66

“When Stalin walked [into
the room in which Sino-
Soviet talks were being
held,] everyone seemed to
stop breathing, to freeze.
He brought danger,
an atmosphere of fear.”
—N. T. Federenko
(Stalin’s interpreter)

99

1934-35 to 25,000, and the territory
which made up the (Communist)
regions of China was reduced by 99
percent.”*” In addition to suborning
Chinese Communist officers, Mos-
cow had purged Soviet officials
believed to be too close to the Chi-
nese. The USSR had lent the CCP
some support over the years, but it
had given Chiang Kai-shek’s Nation-
alist Chinese far more military
assistance than it had provided to
Mao’s forces. Chiang’s Whampoa
Military Academy had depended
heavily on Soviet advisers. And the
operational leadership of Chiang’s
subsequent triumphant northern
expedition in the mid-1920s was
“almost completely in the hands of
[Soviet] General Bleucher. ld

By 1940, in China’s war with Japan,
thanks to active Soviet military sup-
port of Chiang, Soviet pilots
destroyed 986 Japanese planes.
According to Soviet author A. A.
Martynov, “more than 100 Soviet
hero-pilots . . . were killed in these
battles.”48 At the close of World
War II, the Soviets did turn over
great quantities of former Japanese
arms to the Chinese Communists,
but in 1945-46 Chinese Nationalist
forces acquired far greater quantities
of captured Japanese arms—twice as
many rifles, six times as many
machineguns, and 10 times as many

Sino-Soviet

artillery pieces.*? Stalin had been far
more concerned with the strategic
security of Siberia than with broth-
erly ties to the CCP. At Yalta, the
Soviet Union bound itself by formal
treaty to Chiang Kai-shek’s govern-
ment, and then continued its
diplomatic recognition of that gov-
ernment until the Soviet treaty with
Mao was signed in early 1950, four
month§ after the People’s Republic
of Chita had been created.

Bitter Negotiations
Considerable friction had surrounded
the consummation of the 1950
Soviet-Chinese alliance. The negotia-
tions were long and bitter; the
Chinese resisted some of Moscow’s
demands, and Stalin treated Mao
badly. In January 1950, US Secretary
of State Dean Acheson told the
National Press Club that the USSR
was trying to annex parts of China.
A few days, later Acheson noted pri-
vately that in Moscow Mao was said
to be “highly dissatisfied with
attempted exactions on China”; that
it was rumored that Chou En-lai had
told the Soviet delegation he “would
resign rather than accede” to Russian
demands; and that the Kremlin was
seeking to introduce Soviet “advisers”
into China whose real aim would be
to penetrate the CCP and bring the
“Chinese party and government appa-
ratus completely under Stalinist
control. "D

Since that time, considerable testi-
mony has verified the view that those
negotiations were indeed bitter. N.
T. Federenko, Stalin’s interpreter,
recalled that “The very room where
the talks were held was like a stage
where a demonic show was being
acted out. When Stalin walked in,
everyone seemed to stop breathing,

i

63

Sino-Soviet

to freeze. He brought danger, an
atmosphere of fear.”°* And we now
know Mao complained in 1956 to
P.F. Yudin, the USSR’s Ambassador
in Beijing, that for some time during
his stay in Moscow in 1950:

Stalin refrained from any meetings
with me. From my side, there was
an attempt to phone him in his
apartment, but they responded to
me that Stalin is not home... . All
this offended me... and I decided to
undertake nothing further and to
wait it out at the dacha. Then an
unpleasant conversation took place
with [I.V.] Kovalev and [N.T.]
Federenko, who proposed that I go
on an excursion around the coun-
try. I sharply rejected this proposal
and responded that I prefer “to sleep

through it at the dacha.”

CIA’s heretics had noted many signs
of growing Sino-Soviet discord well
before the receipt of excellent clan-
destine reporting in the 1960s.
Following the death of Stalin in
1953, Beijing published Maoist pre-
tensions to ideological and policy
leadership of the Communist
world.>4 In 1956, Chinese anger was
evident concerning Khrushchev’s de-
Stalinization and the USSR’s suppres-
sion of Polish and Hungarian
protests against Soviet rule. In 1957,
one reason Mao’s “Let a Hundred
Flowers Bloom” experiment proved
so brief was that it produced wide-
spread, embarrassing criticisms of the
Soviets. It was likewise known that,
by 1958-59, numerous sharp differ-
ences of view had arisen on a
number of subjects: Beijing’s
commune and Great Leap Forward
programs; China’s shelling of the
Nationalist-held offshore islands,

undertaken without Moscow’s prior

64

66

CIA’s Young Turks found
themselves occasionally
frustrated by conservative
pressures within the
Agency. These [usually]
took the form of senior
officers watering down

drafts.

99

knowledge; possible Chinese acquisi-
tion of nuclear weapons;
Khrushchev’s beginning moves
toward better relations with the
United States; and, especially, Mao’s
boast that China could survive a
nuclear war. In May 1958 Mao said:

Ifwar breaks out, it is unavoidable
that people will die. We have seen
wars kill people. Many times in
China's past half the population
has been wiped out.... We have
at present no experience with
atomic war. We do not know how
many must die. It is better if one-
half are left, the second best is one-
third... . After several five-year
plans [China] will then develop
and rise up. In place of the totally
destroyed capitalism we will ob-
tain perpetual peace. This will not

be a bad thing.”

For US intelligence analysts, aware-
ness of manifold Sino-Soviet
differences became much clearer in
1960, when the USSR suddenly
pulled out all its advisers from
China, over and above the break-
through in documented evidence of
sharp discord. Thus, by the end of
1960, the long-held views of CIA’s
heretics had at last begun to be veri-
fied. The journey there had not been
an easy one.

Internal Disagreement

This staff [OCI’s SSSG] compiled
the data that permitted CIA to
lead the way—against furious
opposition elsewhere—in charting
the strategic conflict between
Soviet and Chinese styles of dicta-
torship and doctrine that was basic
to the definitive split in 1960.

Ray S. Cline 56

By contrast with those officers
steeped in Chinese history, some
other CIA officers maintained that
the indirect indications of Sino-
Soviet discord should not be overesti-
mated. These officers tended to be
either those steeped in the study of
Communist theory and the USSR or
certain senior generalists whose
broad responsibilities prevented
them from immersing themselves in
trying to decode Sino-Soviet polem-
ics and who were reluctant to go out
on a limb against what had long
been conventional wisdom, includ-
ing the wisdom of some of the
country’s most respected senior
experts on Communist affairs.

CIA’s Young Turks found them-
selves occasionally frustrated by
conservative pressures within the
Agency. In most cases in the late
1950s and early 1960s, these took
the form of senior officers watering
down drafts, leaving little in the way
of sharp messages to consumers that
Sino-Soviet discord was mounting.””
Nor were bureaucratic pressures
absent. The SSSG’s Philip Bridgham
told the author of this article that on
one occasion, a senior person ina
competing office had sought unsuc-
cessfully to have the SSSG
disbanded.°* According to another

interviewee, an analyst who refused
to recant his Sino-Soviet heresy was
given a negative fitness report and

left that office.>”

Nowhere in CIA were opposing
views on Sino-Soviet relations more
sharply exchanged, however, than
those between a small special group
of senior analysts chosen by the DCI
explicitly for their knowledge of
Communist theory and Soviet
affairs, and a few heretics from OCI,
ONE, and other offices. In one such
meeting in 1960, the exchanges back
and forth across the table took the
following form.

The senior experts on Communism:

“You guys who think there's a lot of
growing Sino-Soviet discord simply
have 19th-century minds.”

The heretics:
“What do you mean by that?”

“You think the matter between the
Soviet Union and China is one largely
of clashing national interests.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, you're wrong. You don’t appreci-
ate the fact that in Communist theory

a differentiation is made between what
are considered antagonistic contradic-
tions and nonantagonistic
contradictions. What we have in the
present Sino-Soviet case are non-antag-
onistic contradictions. That’s why you
guys with 19th-century minds are
wrong.”

“Well, at least that’s better than having
13th-century minds.’®°

66

For some years beyond
1963, a few CIA officers
still held that Sino-Soviet
discord was a fraud,
deliberately orchestrated

by Moscow and Beijing to
deceive the West.

99

As we all subsequently learned, in
1969 these supposedly nonantagonis-
tic contradictions came to include
firefights and loss of life along
China’s borders with the USSR.°!

For some years beyond 1963, a few
CIA officers still held that Sino-
Soviet discord was a fraud, deliber-
ately orchestrated by Moscow and
Beijing to deceive the West. Most of
those officers were members of CIA’s
Counterintelligence Staff, whose
chief, James Angleton, had been con-
vinced of such a view by a Soviet
defector, Anatoly Golitzyn. That
view nonetheless remained a minor-
ity interpretation within the Agency.

External Resistance

The most difficult hurdle for CIA’s
double demonologists was outside
the Agency: it was the proclivity of
many senior policymakers to brush
off intelligence analyses of growing
estrangement as being too theoreti-
cal, too inferential, and, for some
years, too contrary to continuing out-
ward signs of cooperative Soviet and
Chinese policies. There were notable
exceptions within the Department of
State, some of whose officers argued
themes similar to those of CIA’s ana-
lysts. These State officials included
Allen S. Whiting, Counselor;®? Assis-
tant Secretary of State Roger
Hilsman;® Herbert Levin;°4 and

Sino-Soviet

Ambassador Marshall Green.© For
the most part, however, policymak-
ers lagged several years behind them
and CIA’s heretics. Here are a few
examples of what the heretics in CIA
and State were long up against:

* Walt; Rostow, 1954: We see no
signs of incipient Titoism; we see
much that makes it most unlikely
in the foreseeable future.

* Assistant Secretary of State for Far
Eastern Affairs Walter Robertson,
1958: Mao Tse-tung and other
Chinese Communist leaders are
wholly dedicated to the cause of
international Communism under
the leadership of Moscow. They
slavishly follow the twists and
turns of Moscow-directed
orthodoxy.°”

* Vice'President Nixon, 1959: The
Vice; President asked whether there
was any dissenting opinion in the
IC on whether there was a real
strain in the relations between the
USSR and China. Was there, for
example, any opinion that Khrush-
chev, might be seeking to build up
the appearance of differences
between the two countries?

President Eisenhower, 1960: [Presi-
dent Chiang Kai-shek] said it is
impossible for the Chinese
Communists to split from the
Soviet Russians. He stated emphati-
cally, that che Communist bloc
works as a bloc, pursues a global
scheme, and no party to the bloc
can take independent action. .. .
President Eisenhower rejoined that
he found nothing in President
Chiang’s exposition with which he
differed, . . . President Eisenhower
said|that during the past seven or
eight months he had made several

trips and had talked with a num-
I

65

Sino-Soviet

ber of world leaders. He said that
that none of them sees a split being
created between Soviet Russia and
Communist China.°?

Vice President Nixon and Defense
Secretary Thomas Gates, 1960:
The Vice President asked whether
[DDCI] General Cabell was com-
pletely sure there was a real
difference of view between the
USSR and Communist China. Sec-
retary Gates wished to make the
same inquiry .. .”°

John McCone [Chairman, Atomic
Energy Commission], 1960: [Mr.
McCone] said that he took the
schism between the Chinese and
the Russians with a grain of salt.”!

Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson,
1962: Though I agree with the
basic line of NIE 11-5-62, I
believe it somewhat exaggerates the
likelihood of a Sino-Soviet break,
and I consider this borne out by
events since the paper was written.
Similarly, I believe it underesti-
mates the possibilities of at least
temporary accommodation
between the two parties.”

Cable from Ambassador George
Kennan, Belgrade, 1963: [Marshal
Tito] stressed tremendous impor-
tance in his eyes of assuring that
international Communist
movement should not come under
influence of Chinese whose posi-
tion on problem of war and
coexistence he described as literally
insane. .. . In general he professed
inability understand our underesti-
mation of momentous importance
of Chinese-Russian rift . . .”3

66

66

It was not until the late
1960s that top US
policymakers (President
Nixon and Dr. Henry
Kissinger) began taking
major steps to exploit what
had become an open Sino-
Soviet split.

99

¢ DCI John McCone, 1963: Mr.
McCone added that, although the
differences between the Russians and
the Chinese are very great, he did
not think they were very deep or
that a final break between the two
powers would occur.’

Measuring CIA’s Impact

The United States, in fact, owes
the men and women [analysts] of
the CIA an extraordinary debt....
See [the SSSG’s] Harry Gelman,
“The Sino-Soviet Conflict: A Sur-
vey,” in Problems of Communism,
March-April 1963, Vol. XIII; and
[the SSSG’s] Donald Zagoria, The
Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956-1961,
Princeton, 1962, on both of whom
I have drawn heavily.

—Former Assistant Secretary of
State Roger Hilsman’?

Until about 1963, most of CIA’s
double demonologists shared a gen-
eral conviction that they were
breaking their lances and that no one
up the line was listening. But what I
and many of the other CIA heretics
did not know was that our products,
plus growing signs of Sino-Soviet
estrangement, were having a some-

what greater impact among upper-
level CIA officials than we realized.

By and large, midlevel Agency offic-
ers were unaware that, by 1959-60,
DCI Dulles and other top CIA offic-
ers were not only alerting the NSC
that Sino-Soviet discord was for real,
but also were standing their ground
against lingering suspicions among
some senior US officers that Sino-
Soviet “discord” was an orchestrated
fraud. Some of CIA’s heretics were
aware that, by the early 1960s, a few
senior State Department officers had
become convinced of Sino-Soviet
estrangement. Some former State
officers attest that they regularly read
and were influenced by CIA’s Sino-
Soviet analyses and that they kept in
touch with the Agency’s authors.

In 1961, Roger Hilsman, at the time
Director of State’s Bureau of Intelli-
gence and Research, set up a special
studies group on Sino-Soviet rela-
tions.’” Also in 1961, the Office of
the Secretary of Defense set up a sim-
ilar Sino-Soviet studies group and
borrowed the SSSG’s Philip
Bridgham to serve as that unit’s dep-
uty director.”8 And in the spring of
1962, President Kennedy asked
Ambassadors George Kennan, Chip
Bohlen, and Llewellyn Thompson to
comment on an NIE (11-5-62),
which judged that Sino-Soviet rela-
tions were in a critical phase just
short of an acknowledged and defini-
tive split.”?

Despite those particular experts’
doubts, by 1962 some policymakers
were giving thought to how American
policy might at long last take advan-
tage of the historic break in
Communist ranks. Roger Hilsman
cites a record, written by James C.

Thomson, of a Planning Meeting of
the Secretary of State in January 1962:

. all the powers of State ap-
peared to focus for the first time
on the reality of a permanent
Sino-Soviet split. The impact on
the minds around the table that
morning was dramatic, and you
could hear the ice of 12 years begin
to snap and crackle as an intellec-
tual thaw set in. I kept careful
notes on that meeting and regard
it as something of a turning point.
One after another of State’s opera-
tors and planners toyed with the
new world of possibilities that
non-monolithic Communism
might offer the United States. a

And, by 1963, public speeches of cer-
tain State Department officers
contained signals of a possible US
willingness to lessen the level of Sino-
American hostility.°!

Those early initiatives came to
naught at the time, due in important
measure to the advent in late 1963 of
a new US President, Lyndon
Johnson, who quickly became over-
whelmed by Vietnam. Before long,
moreover, it began to look to many
policymakers that China and the
Soviet Union were cooperating in
their support of Vietnam’s Commu-
nists. This perpetuated the image of
a monolithic bloc enemy and justi-
fied a central rationale for the US
war effort: to stop “Communism”
and so prevent an anticipated dom-
ino collapse of the rest of Southeast
Asia. It was not until the late 1960s
that top US policymakers (Nixon
and Dr. Henry Kissinger) began
taking major steps to exploit what
had become an open Sino-Soviet
split.

66

In showing the way before
1963, CIA’s heretics did
help stir the beginnings of
policy movement in the
Department of State.

99

If it took open hostilities between
the Soviet Union and China to help
move a White House to make a radi-
cal change in US policy, what may
be said of the impact, if any, that
CIA’s earlier Sino-Soviet analyses
had had? Clearly, Agency authors
had been in the field first, followed
by State, then b a certain authorities
from academia,* and finally by the
military. Further, the causes and
depths of Sino-Soviet discord these
CIA authors had decoded—espe-
cially their insistence that the root
issue was the clash of state interests—
were later confirmed by events, par-
ticularly Soviet-Chinese combat.
Those early CIA analyses cannot take
credit for having killed the long-held
certainty of so many officials that the
United States confronted a united
Communist bloc. In showing the
way before 1963, however, CIA’s her-
etics did help stir the beginnings of

policy movement in the Department _

of State. And, at a minimum, they
demonstrated the validity of patient
analysis and the courage to contest
convential wisdom. Years later, CLA
and other IC agencies were to make

a more direct impact on decisionmak-
ing through their all-source ability to
document the buildups of Soviet and
Chinese forces.

Overall, the Sino-Soviet story illus-
trates some facts of life ever-present
in the intelligence business:

* Policymakers carry their own NIEs
around in their heads. These are
experienced, often proud officers

Sino-Soviet

who are reluctant to give up previous
assumptions and positions.

Theyican be especially reluctant to
accept new images of reality on the
say-so of midlevel officers from
across the Potomac.

This applies particularly in situations
where new intelligence judgments
are not accompanied by hard evi-
dence. In our case, CIA’s heretics
happened to be correct in their early
analyses, but it was not until firmer
evidence surfaced in the early 1960s
that some impact began to be made;
and it was not until a decade later
that armed Sino-Soviet conflict con-
vinced remaining doubters—all
those, that is, except for a few true

believers,

Intelligence analysis, even the read-
ing of tea leaves, can nonetheless
have some influence up the line in
situations where staff officers have
done their homework sufficiently
wellito gain their intelligence supe-
riors’ confidence and backing.

* Despite the great improvements of
recent years in collection and ana-
lytic methods, in situations where
firm data are not yet available, decod-
ing and discerning new trends will
require officers steeped in knowledge
of what has gone before on the given
questions.

* Perhaps most important, the inter-
play of intelligence and
decisionmaking often occurs in a
highly charged setting of competing
policy demands and the politically
possible. In our case, major changes
in China policy did not occur until
the' ionce- -overwhelming US commit-
menc in Vietnam had begun to
diminish, and a Republican White

67

Sino-Soviet

House could approach our former
Chinese enemies more easily than
the Democrats—politically vulnera-
ble for having “lost” China and been
“soft on Communism”—could have
done.

Finally, our Sino-Soviet story has
meaning beyond that of filling in
some of the historical record. Its
events may be a generation old and a
world apart from ours, but they con-
tinue to speak to today’s intelligence
problems. Since 1950, China has
passed from being an uneasy junior
partner of the USSR, to an enemy of
the USSR, to a burgeoning power
cooperating with the new Russia in
certain respects benefiting each side’s
interests. Their two presidents have
met cordially, at least outwardly;
they have jointly pledged to try to
reduce America’s influence in the
world; and Russia now makes consid-
erable modern weaponry available to
China. These two powers are highly
unlikely to become formal allies
again, but they remain the two great
entities that in the fucure could seri-
ously menace America’s security.
Hence, developments in that Sino-
Soviet furure will continue to require
close, high-priority intelligence atten-
tion, plus the courage, where
applicable, to challenge any out-
moded assumptions.

NOTES

1. Political Developments in the USSR
and the Communist World, 21 Febru-
ary 1962. Foreign Relations of the
United States, 1961-1963, Vol.
XXII, Northeast Asia, pp. 207-208.
(Hereafter FRUS).

2. FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol. XXII,
Northeast Asia, pp. 231-232. Presi-
dent Kennedy had requested their

68

comments on the NIE. FRUS,
p. 231.

3. From Deng speech, 14 November

1960, at the Moscow conference of
81 Communist parties. As cited in
CIA/Office of Current Intelligence
Special Report, “The Men in the
Sino-Soviet Confrontation,” 5 July
1963, p. 2. On file in CIA’s History
Staff.

4. Notably the Foreign Documents

Division (FDD); the Analytic Divi-
sion of the Foreign Broadcast
Information Service (FBIS); the
Sino-Soviet Studies Group of the

Office of Current Intelligence (later
the DDI’s Special Research Staff);

. the staff of the Office of National

Estimates (ONE); and, most impor-
tant, DCs and other senior Agency
officers who periodically briefed the
NSC. In the late 1950s, the present
author, then a staff member of
ONE, joined the efforts of other
CIA officers who for some time had
been producing the heretical judg-
ment that the Soviet and Chinese

Communist Parties were out of sync.

. Communist China, 6 December

1960. FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. XIX,
China, p. 740.

6. On file in the History Staff. The

author is indebted to Avis Boutell,
Janet Grefe, and Edith Ferrell for
making available most of the FDD/
FBIS materials cited in this article.

7. 6 September 1953. Bridgham, to

author, 5 October 1996, On file in
the History Staff. A revised version
of this study was published in The
China Quarterly (October-Decem-
ber 1972), pp. 670-698, under the
revised title, “Mao’s Road and Sino-
Soviet Relations: A View from

Washington, 1953.”

8. The China Quarterly, p. 681.

9, Ibid., p. 670.

10. 17 May 1954. On file in the
History Staff.

11. On file in the History Staff.

12. In particular, see FBIS’s Radio Pro-
paganda Report, “The Sino-Soviet
Argument: Moscow Intensifies Pres-
sure for Conformity; Peking Shows
No Retreat from Basic Positions,”
30 September 1960. On file in the
History Staff.

13. Ray S. Cline, Secrets, Spies, and
Scholars: Blueprint of the Essential
CIA (Washington, DC: Acropolis
Books, Ltd., 1976), pp. 149-151;
and Walter P. Southard, to author,
27 December 1996 and 12 May
1997. Cline, the first chief of the
SSSG, later became the CIA’s Dep-
uty Director for Intelligence.
Southard was the principal substan-
tive officer of the SSSG and of its
successor, the DDI’s Special
Research Staff.

14, Cline, Secrets, Spies, and Scholars, p.
151. Also Southard, to author, 27
December 1996 and 12 May 1997;
Gelman, to author, 17 December
1996; Bridgham, to author, 5 Octo-
ber 1996 and 25 March 1997;
Cohen, to author, 26 December
1996; and Chester Cooper, to
author, 3 October 1996.

15. Mao Zedong waijiao wenxuan
[Secret Diplomatic Papers of Mao
Zedong} (Beijing: The Central Press
of Historical Documents, 1933); as
reprinted in “The Emerging Dis-
putes Between Beijing and Moscow,
Ten Newly Available Chinese Docu-
ments, 1956-1958.” Cold War
International History Project Bulle-
tin, Issues 6-7, winter 1995-1996
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institution’s Woodrow Wilson Inter-
national Center for Scholars),

p. 151. (Hereafter Wilson Center).

16. Esau 1959, OCI No. 2769/59, 12
June 1959. All the Esau studies this
article cites are on file in the History

Staff.

17. Esaus 1J-1959 through VI-1959,

passim.

18. Memorandum for [DDI] R. A.
Amory, Jr., “Meeting of DDI Ad
Hoc Committee on Sino-Soviet
Relations,” 21 December 1959. On
file in the History Staff. That com-
mittee included representatives of
the SSSG, ONE, FBIS, FDD, and
ORR.

19. Zagoria shortly thereafter left CIA

for a career in academia.

20. Philip Bridgham, to author, 5 Octo-
ber 1996.

2

pans

. As part of his efforts, in early 1961
Cooper arranged for an OCI and an
ONE officer to accompany him on
temporary duty abroad to compare
CIA’s Sino-Soviet findings with
those of the intelligence services of
two European countries. From the
author’s experience as the ONE
officer who accompanied Cooper.

22, ONE Staff Memorandum No. 47-
58, 20 November 1958. On file in
the History Staff.

23. Memorandum for the Board, “Sino-
Soviet Relationship,” 18 September
1959. On file in the History Staff.

24. Staff Memorandum No 45-59:
“Chinese Communist Politics and
Sino-Soviet Relations,” 13 October
1959. On file in the History Staff.

25. From manuscript, “The Separation
of Soviet and Chinese Societies,”
prepared during a 1961-1962
sabbatical year at St. Antony’s Col-
lege, Oxford University. Part of that
study was later reprinted in “Mod-
ern Weapons and the Sino-Soviet
Estrangement,” The China Quar-
terly, April-June, 1964.

2

nN

10 July 1964, as cited in Raymond
L. Garthoff, “Sino-Soviet Military
Relations, 1945-66,” chapter in
Garthoff (ed.), Sino-Soviet Military

27.

28.

29.

30.

3

—_

32.

34.

Relations (New York: Frederick A.
Praeger, 1966), p. 90.

Smith, “Sino-Soviet Discord on the

Eve of the Summit,” 10 May 1960. _

On file in the History Staff. Smith
was referring to Beijing’s historic
Red Flag article, “Long Live
Leninism,” of 15 April 1960.
Because that article criticized only
Yugoslavia’s Marshal Tito by name,
many observers at the time doubted
that the publishing of “Long Live
Leninism” meant that Sino-Soviet
relations had hit a new low. In his
memoirs, published years later,
senior Chinese official Bo Yibo
states emphatically thac the target of
the article was the USSR. Reprinted
in Wilson Center, p. 230.

Kent memorandum, “The Sino-
Soviet Dispute,” 9 November 1960.
On file in the History Staff.

NIE 58, 4 September 1952, ”Rela-
tions Between the Chinese
Communist Regime and the USSR:
Their Present Character and Proba-
ble Future Courses.” On file in the
History Staff.

NIE 13-56, Chinese Communist
Capabilities and Probable Courses of
Action Through 1960, 5 January
1956. FRUS, 1955-1957, Vol. IIL,
China, p.232.

. NIE 13-57, Communist China

Through 1961, 19 March 1957.
FRUS, 1955-1957, Vol. II, China,
p. 498.

NIE 13-59, Communist China, 28
July 1959. FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol.
XIX, China, pp. 579-580.

. NIE 100-3-60, Sino-Soviet Rela-

tions, 9 August 1960, FRUS, 1958-
1960, Vol. XIX, China, p. 704.

Communist China, FRUS, 1958-
1960, Vol. XIX, China, p. 740.

Sino-Soviet

35. As a chaiaeal in subsequent [Beijing]

3

3

3

3

4

4

4

4

4

6.

7.

8.

9.

0.

aay

2.38

3.

oN

People’ ’s Daily-Red Flag joint edito-
rial of 6 September 1963, as cited in
Harry Gelman, ”The Conflict: A
Survey,” Problems of Communism,
Vol, XIII (March-April, 1964), p. 9.
John Whitman recalled that during
1960 excellent clandestine reports
on Sino-Soviet differences hit his
desk in ONE “almost daily.” Whic-

man, to author, 4 February 1997.

NIE 13-63, Problems and Prospects

in Communist China,” 1 May 1963.
FRUS 1961-1963, Vol. XXII, North-
east Asia, p. 366.

Briefing of 10 December. FRUS,
1958- 1960, Vol. XIX, China, pp.
639- 640.

riefing of 28 April. FRUS, 1958-
ae Vol. XIX, China, p. 663.

Memorandum of Discussion at the
448th Meeting of the NSC, 22 June
1960. FRUS, 1959-1960, Vol. XIX,
China, p pp. 690-691.

7 September 1960. FRUS, 1958-
1960, Vol. XIX, China, pp. 719-
720. As we have seen, in July the
Soviets had already begun to pull
their support experts out of China.
}

_ 20 October 1960. FRUS, 1958-

ce Vol. XIX, China, p. 730.

8 December 1960. FRUS, 1958-
1969, Vol. XIX, China, p. 742.

Southard to author, 12 May 1997.
Southard was a Naval Intelligence
officer stationed in China, 1945-
1948, Years lacer, Huang Hua
became China’s foreign minister
and its Representative to the UN.

t

' .
. !’Because of Stalin’s pressure, the

Northeast [Manchuria] and
Xinjiang became [a Soviet] sphere
of influence; and four jointly owned
and operated enterprises were
established.” From Mao’s minutes

of conversation with Soviet

69

Sino-Soviet

4

wn

46.

47.

48.

70

Ambassador Yudin, 22'July 1958, in
which Mao told Yudin that “You
[Russians] have never had faith in
the Chinese people, and Stalin was
among the worst... . Stalin. ...
opposed our carrying out the revolu-
tion. He made a huge mistake on
this issue.” As reprinted in Wilson
Center, p., 155. Beijing later pub-
licly accused the Soviet Union of
fomenting large-scale subversion

and sabotage in Sinkiang, and
warned the Soviets not to “dare to
stretch out their evil hands” to that
province. Hsinhua News Agency dis-
patch, 28 April 1964; as cited in An
Tai Sung, The Sino-Soviet Territorial
Dispute (Philadelphia: The West-
minster Press, 1973), pp. 78, 232.

. Harrison Salisbury, War Between

Russia and China (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1969), p. 132.

From Soviet Ambassador P.F.
Yudin, record of conversation with
Mao, 31 March 1956, aé cited in
Wilson Center, p. 164. Later in
1956, Mao made similar remarks to
a Yugoslav Communist delegation,
claiming that this disastrous course
of the 1920s-early 1930s had in
large part been the result of the then-
dominance of the CCP by Wang
Ming, whose policies, Mao told the
Yugoslav officials, had “originated
in Stalin.” From minutes of Mao’s
conversation with those officials,
September 1956, as cited in Wilson
Center, p. 149. Wang Ming, known
also as Chen Shaoyu, had spent con-
siderable time in the USSR before
returning to China in 1930, where
he then became a leading member
of the CCP. Mao did not come to
dominate the Party until 1935.

James C. Bowden, “Soviet Military
Aid to Nationalist China, 1923-
1941,” chapter in Raymond L.
Garthoff, Sino-Soviet Military Rela-
tions (New York: Frederick A.
Praeger, 1966), p. 50.

Martynov, The Glorioius National
Liberation Army of China. (Moscow,

49.

50.

51.

_

52.

53.

54.

55.

1957), pp. 6-7, as cited in Bowden
pp- 54, 257.

Lt. Col. Robert Rigg, Red China’s
Fighting Hordes (Harrisburg, PA.,
1952), p. 276.

The New York Times, 13 January
1950.

Cable to Ambassador David Bruce
in Paris, 11 February 1950. FRUS,
1950, Vol. Vl, Korea, pp. 308-309.
See also C. L. Sulzberger, “Vast
Issues Face Peiping, Moscow,” The
New York Times, 14 January 1950.

“The Stalin-Mao Summit in Mos-
cow,” Far Eastern Affairs (Moscow),
No. 2, 1989, pp. 135, 137, 140; as
cited in Sergei N. Goncharov, John
W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain
Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the
Korean War (Stanford University
Press, 1993), p. 210.

From P. F. Yudin, record of conver-
sation with Mao Tse-tung, 5 April
1956, as reprinted in Wilson Cen-
ter, p. 165.

We have since learned that, accord-
ing to the memoirs of Khrushchev,
on returning from a trip to China in
1954 he warned his colleagues that
“conflict between us and China is
inevitable.” From “Memuary Nikity
Sergeyeicha Khrushcheva,” Voprosy
istorii 11-12 (1992), p. 66, as cited
by William Taubman, “Khrushchev
vs. Mao: A Preliminary Sketch of
the Role of Personality in the Sino-
Soviet Split.” Wilson Center (Issues
8-9, Winter 1996/1997), p. 243.

Mao, “Second Speech to Second
Session, Eighth Party Congress,” 17
May 1958, as cited in Allen S. Whit-
ing, “The Sino-Soviet Split,” in
Roderick Macfarquhar and John K.
Fairbank (eds.), The Cambridge His-
tory of China, Vol. 14, The People’s
Republic, Part I, The Emergence of
Revolutionary China 1949-1965

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

‘Chester Cooper’s view that the

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

(New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1987), pp. 488-489.

Secrets, Spies, and Scholars, p. 151.

In late 1959, some of ONE’s Board
members were reluctant to buy the
ONE staff's recommendation that
new difficulties in the Sino-Soviet
relationship warranted laying on an
NIE on that subject, and in the sub-
sequent interagency coordinating
process insisted that the draft judg-
ments of the Estimate (NIE 100-3-
60) be watered down. The author
was the initial drafter of that
Estimate.

Bridgham, to author, 5 October
1996 and 25 March 1997.

That officer, to author, 28 Decem-
ber 1996. The officer transferred to
another part of the Agency, where
he was respected and given sensitive
senior responsibilities.

The author was a participant. Ie is

above particular doubters had “a
vested interest in holding the line on
the world Communist threat,” and
for a long time the stand-patters
held that Sino-Soviet discord was a
fraud. Cooper, to author, 9 October
1996.

Nine series of armed clashes
occurred, March to May 1969,
along the Manchuria-Siberia and
Sinkiang-Kazakhstan borders.

Whiting, to author, 19 October
1996.

Hilsman, To Move a Nation: The
Politics of Foreign Policy in the
Administration of John F. Kennedy
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday &
Co., Inc, 1967), pp. 355-356.

Levin, to author, 25 October 1996.

Green, to author, 24 February
1997.

66. The Prospects for Communist China
(Published jointly by the Technol-
ogy Press of MIT and John Wiley
& Sons, Inc., New York: 1954),

p. 216.

67. Robertson, Memorandum to Act-
ing Secretary of State Herter, 1
August 1958. FRUS, 1958-1860,
Vol. XIX, China, p. 36.

68.

co

Editorial Note: From Memoran-
dum by Marion W. Boggs of the
428th meeting of the NSC, 10
December 1959. FRUS, 1958-1960,
Vol. XIX, China, p. 640.

69. From Memorandum of Conversa-
tion, Taipei, 18 June 1960. FRUS,
1958-1960, Vol. XIX, China,

p- 679.

70. From Memorandum of Discussion
at the 448th meeting of the NSC,
22 June 1960. FRUS, 1958-1960,
Vol. XIX, China, p. 690.

Editorial Note of the 464th meet-
ing of the NSC, 20 October 1960.
FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. XIX,
China, p. 730. Chester Cooper
recalls that in the early 1960s, the
SSSG’s Bud Southard, ONE’s John
Whitman, and he briefed Ambassa-
dors Llewellyn Thompson and Chip
Bohlen on the growing nature of
Sino-Soviet discord, but that these
distinguished experts’ response was
that they were “not convinced.”
Cooper, to author, 6 December
1996. Former State Department
Counselor Allen Whiting also attests
that Ambassador Bohlen was skepti-
cal of significant Sino-Soviet
discord. Whiting, to author, 19
‘October 1996.

71.

—

72, Editorial Note re Thompson tele-
gram 3070 from Moscow, 26 May

7

iS)

74.

75.

76.

77.

79.

80.

1962. FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol.
XXII, Northeast Asia, p. 231.

. Telegram 15 March 1963. FRUS,

1961-1963, Vol. XVI, Yugoslavia,
pp. 337, 338.

Summary Record of 516th meeting
of the NSC, 31 July 1963. FRUS,
1961-1963, Vol. XXII, China,

p. 373.

To Move a Nation, p. 357.

Amb. Richard Solomon, to author,
11 October 1996; Amb. William
Gleysteen, to author, 24 February
1997; former State Department
Counselor Allen S. Whiting, to
author, 19 October 1996; Herbert
Levin, to author, 25 October 1996;
and Paul Kreisberg, to author, 26
October 1996.

Allen S. Whiting, to author, 19
October 1996.

. Bridgham, to author, 5 October

1996. Bridgham later returned to
CIA duty.

Earlier, according to Bud Southard,
a study prepared by his SSSG, “The
State of Interbloc Relations,” was on
President Kennedy’s desk the first
day of his presidency. Southard, to
author, 27 December 1996.

To Move a Nation, p. 344. Accord-
ing to former State Department
official Herbert Levin, “to State
Department China types like
myself, the ideas of a Sino-Soviet
monolith and full cooperation
between the USSR and the PRC
were ridiculous.” Levin, to author,

25 October 1996.

Sino-Soviet

81. Amb. Marshall Green, to author,
24 February 1997. Roger Hilsman
was a prominent actor in these
respects; see his To Move a Nation,

passim.

82. “Asia After Vietnam,” Foreign
Affairs, Vol. XLVI (October 1967),
p. 121.

83. Soon after the 1969 firefights, both
the USSR and China produced pro-
paganda films giving their respective
versions of those hostilities. CIA
obtained copies of those films. It
was difficult for even an American
viewer (myself included) not to walk
away from the Chinese version with-
out harboring an intense hatred of
the Russians; conversely, the same
for the Russian version—disturbing
confirmation, for any latter-day
doubters, of the reality and intensity
of Sino-Soviet discord.

84. Prominent among these were
M.1.T.’s William Griffith, the
RAND Corporation’s Alice L.
Hsieh, and British authors G. F.
Hudson, Roderick MacFarquhar,
and Edward Crankshaw.

71