This memorandum, signed by Yurii Andropov, the chairman of the Soviet Committee of State Security (KGB); Nikolai Shchelokov, the Minister of Public Order (whose ministry was renamed the Ministry of Internal Affairs in late November 1968); and Mikhail Molyarov, the Procurator of the USSR, was sent to the ruling Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) eleven days after the demonstration in Red Square against the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. The document lays out the basic facts of the case as viewed by the KGB and the CPSU. The document mentions the names of the eight activists who were in Red Square as well as two who helped with planning but were not actually in Red Square, Inna Korkhova and Maiya Rusakovskaya. Natal’ya Gorbanevskaya, one of the eight, was detained but released because she had recently given birth. However, a year later she was arrested in connection with her involvement and sentenced to a harsh term in a psychiatric prison.

The KGB informs the Central Committee of RL policy guidelines concerning programs dealing with the USSR. While the first paragraph indicates “Free Europe,” the content of the note makes clear that Radio Liberty is meant. The original memorandum on which the note was based [a copy could not be located in the RFE/RL archives for comparison] was probably taken from Radio Liberty headquarters in Munich.

This document discusses Western radio programming aimed at the intelligentsia and dissidents, and cites the use of samizdat by Western broadcasters.

Mao Zedong and Nicolae Ceausescu discuss China's international reputation as a dogmatic dictatorship, especially among other Communist countries. They also discuss ping pong and scientific progress, specifically nuclear weapons and space exploration.

First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party Shelest reports on the vist of a delegation of workers from Czechoslovakia to Ukraine. There was much discussion of the ongoing Prague Spring, including criticism of the Soviet Union from some delegation members.

Excerpt from diary of the First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Petro Shelest. Shelest describes arrangements to receive a letter from Vasil Bil'ak, a written appeal for urgent military assistance from the Soviet Union to thwart an imminent "counterrevolution" in Czechoslovakia.

Pierre Cerles provides an assessment of Chinese foreign policy toward Eastern Europe during the 1960s within the context of the Sino-Soviet split, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Cultural Revolution, and China's own internal leadership divisions.

In August 1968 a small group of pro-Moscow hardliners in the Czechoslovak Communist Party, led by Vasil Bilak, wrote two letters requesting urgent assistance from the Soviet Union to thwart the imminent "counterrevolution" in Czechoslovakia. Both letters were addressed to Leonid Brezhnev, the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU), and both were written in Russian to ensure that they would be read promptly. The first (and more important) letter was signed by Bilak and four of his colleagues: Drahomir Kolder, Alois Indra, Oldrich Svestka, and Antonin Kapek. Brezhnev later used the letter as a formal justification for the impending military invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Letter from the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Soviet Union explaining the need for intervention in Czechoslovakia. The letter lays out the rationale behind the Brezhnev Doctrine.