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Belarus

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June 2007

By the Church Gates. Folder 1. The Chekist Anthology.

This folder includes information on the arrest of Patriarch Tikhon, 1919 and 1922, and Felix Dzerzhinsky’s minutes of 2 December 1920 meeting asserting exclusive role of the VChK in undermining the Church. The note includes extracts of a 23 February 1922 decree on confiscation of Church treasures, and describes the subsequent liquidation of Bishop Phillipe and Professor Uspenski, the emergence and persecution of the True Orthodox Church and True Orthodox Christians operating underground, and KGB Penetration of the True Orthodox Church’s top leadership during the 1960’s. Efforts to strengthen Orthodox control over Belorussian, Kazakh, and Ukrainian national churches, the February 1975 conference of heads of Warsaw Pact security services and their decision to engage in joint action against the Vatican, the World Council of Churches and other religious institutions in the West, and the KGB’s campaign against underground religious manuscript publishers (samizdat) during 1970’s are discussed.

The file contains KGB statistics on religious participation throughout the USSR, and a description of Archbishop Sinod’s, anti-Soviet activities in 1920’s and his support for Hitler during the Great Patriotic War. The notes section includes Mitrokhin’s thoughts on religion in Kievan Russ in 988 and extracts from FCD operations files on Church personalities involved in operations abroad. Includes operational codenames of KGB agents who had infiltrated the True Orthodox Church

May 10, 1995

Summary Report on One-on-One Meeting between Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin, May 10, 1995, 10:10 a.m.-1:19 p.m., St. Catherine's Hall, the Kremlin

Yeltsin and Clinton discuss arms control agreements such as START II, the nuclear aspirations of Iran and North Korea, NATO expansion, and other subjects.

August 28, 1980

Special Dossier on the Polish Crisis of 1980

Memorandum to the CPSU Politburo from the Suslov Commission regarding a request by the Soviet Ministry of Defense to bring up to full readiness 3 divisions of the Soviet Armed Forces. The memorandum cautions the Soviet leadership that, in case the Polish Armed Forces switch allegiance to the counter-revolutionary forces, another 5-7 divisions might be necessary.

July 28, 1990

National Intelligence Daily for Saturday, 28 July 1990

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 28 July 1990 describes the latest developments in Persian Gulf, Liberia, Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, Poland, Papua New Guinea, China, Zaire, OPEC, Haiti and South Africa.

April 9, 1968

Excerpts from Andrei A. Gromyko’s speech at the April 1968 Plenum of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party

Gromyko discusses negotiations over the Non-Proliferation Treaty.