The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for Tuesday, 12 December 1989 describes the latest developments in USSR, Bulgaria, East Germany, Western Europe and Eastern Europe.

Recommendations adopted by the National Security Council at the suggestion of the Psychological Strategy Board on covert actions to be undertaken in the Soviet Satellite States. Authorized by the National Security Council, NSC 158 envisaged aggressive psychological warfare to exploit and heighten the unrest behind the Iron Curtain. The policy was endorsed by President Eisenhower on June 26, 1953.

The Soviet leadership discusses the state of Soviet foreign policy after the Hungarian crisis and Khrushchev’s visit to the US. Molotov criticizes Khrushchev for recklessness in foreign policy direction. Soviet inroads in the Middle East and the Third World are analyzed. The effects of the crises in Eastern Europe are placed in the context of the struggle against US imperialism.

This report by the National Security Council discusses Soviet control over Eastern Europe, barriers to Soviet control of the satellites, and the power threat that consolidation poses to the United States. As a result, the NSC recommends that United States pursue a policy of resistance towards Soviet domination of its Eastern European satellites, and should impose pressure and propaganda to weaken Soviet influence.

Note about the experiences of N. Palade, Chief Editor of the Romanian Red Cross journal "Sanatatea" at the Socialist bloc seminar of Red Cross journals. The information note discusses Czechoslovak reactions to the Soviet-led invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia and especially of Prague. Palade describes his reception by the Czechoslovak officials and the current attitude of the Czechoslovak population vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and the other East Bloc countries, describing the pessimism that seized the population after the August 1968 invasion.