Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 31. Oktober 2006 / Time Line October 31, 2006
Version 3.530. Oktober 2006, November 2006
10/31/2006
The John Rabe and International Safety Zone Memorial Hall i Nanjing i Kina åbnes for offentligheden.
10/31/2006
National Security Archive Update, October 31, 2006
CIA HAD SINGLE OFFICER IN HUNGARY 1956
"No Inside Information" and "Little Outside Information"
Declassified CIA Histories Describe Hungarian Revolution as
"Undreamed-of"
Obtained through FOIA by Author Charles Gati for New Book "Failed
Illusions"
Washington, DC, October 31, 2006 - Fifty years ago today the Soviet
Presidium overturned its earlier decision to pull its troops out of
Hungary in the face of a popular uprising, yet the CIA--with only
one Hungarian-speaking officer stationed in Budapest at the
time--failed to foresee either the uprising or the Soviet invasion
to come, according to declassified CIA histories posted on the Web
by the National Security Archive at George Washington
University.
Describing the several days in early November 1956 when it seemed
the Hungarian Revolution had succeeded (before the Soviet tanks
rolled in on November 4), a CIA Clandestine Service History written
in 1958 commented: "This breath-taking and undreamed-of state of
affairs not only caught many Hungarians off-guard, it also caught
us off-guard, for which we can hardly be blamed since we had no
inside information, little outside information, and could not read
the Russians' minds."
Through a Freedom of Information Act request and appeal, Johns
Hopkins University (SAIS) professor Charles Gati obtained the
heavily-censored extracts from two previously secret CIA histories
in the Clandestine Service History series for his
critically-praised new book "Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington,
Budapest and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt" (Stanford University Press
and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2006).
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