SOVIET UNION EASTERN EUROPE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00865A002300180002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 21, 2001
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 8, 1975
• Content Type: NOTES

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No Foreign Dissem
%~Ipp HOUM
Soviet Union
Eastern Europe
Secret
9 ^
1W11
December 8, 1975
SC No. 00551/75
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SOVIET UNION - EASTERN EUROPE
This publication is prepared for regional specialists in the Washington com-
munity by the USSR - Eastern Europe Division, Office of Current Intel-
ligence, with occasional contributions from other offices within the
Directorate of Intelligence. Comments and queries are welcome. They should
be directed to the authors of the individual articles.
December 8, 1975
Polish Congress Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Dissident Trials as Backdrop to Sakharov's
Nobel Award? . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 2
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Hungary-Vatican:
Who Will Suceed Mindszenty? . . . . . . . . . 5
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Polish Congress Begins
Edward Gierek kicked off the Polish party's
seventh congress Monday with a recitation of Poland's
economic and political progress since 1971.
He emphasized that the people are now living
better than ever before and that the party will con-
tinue to seek further improvements in the living
standard. For the Polish consumer, Gierek had the
welcome news that price increases on basic food items
will be delayed well into next year and that over-
coming difficulties in meat supplies is one of the
party's most important goals. Gierek said that the
price policy for 1976-1980 would ensure increases in
real wages.
On internal political matters, Gierek repeated
the standard formulations on the need to increase
the militancy and effectiveness of ideological
activity. He also proposed that the period between
party congresses be extended to five years and said
that several constitutional amendments were needed
to reflect the socialist nature of the state.
Gierek paid the requisite tribute to Moscow,
saying that the Soviet Union is the "leading force
of the international Communist movement." He called
for expansion of cooperation within CEMA, claimed
that "good conditions" were shaping up for a Euro-
pean Communist Party Conference, and said the Po-
lish party favors the idea of a new world confer-
ence.
Soviet party leader Brezhnev is present along
with most East European party leaders; the notable
exception is Romania's Ceausescu. Brezhnev will
address the congress on Tuesday. (UNCLASSIFIED)
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Dissident Trials as Backdrop
to Sakharov's Nobel Award?
Two leading dissidents close to Nobel Peace
Prize winner Andrey Sakharov reportedly may go on
trial this week. The timing is probably not acci-
dental. By having the trials overlap the date on
which Sakharov was to have received the award in
Oslo (December 10), the regime would underscore
that publicity surrounding Sakharov's case will not
deter it from enforcing domestic controls.
Dissident sources say that the trial of biolo-
gist Sergey Kovalev will probably begin December 9
in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he has been detained
since his arrest a year ago. Although Kovalev is
charged with "anti-Soviet agitation" stemming from
his alleged support of underground Lithuanian Catho-
lic activities, his former role in the illegal Mos-
cow chapter of Amnesty International and his rela-
tionship with Sakharov probably contribute to his
travails.
The connection is even clearer in the case of
Andrey Tverdokhlebov, the former secretary of Am-
nesty International's Moscow branch and a co-founder
of Sakharov's "democratic movement." The trial of
Tverdokhlebov, who was arrested in April, has re-
portedly been postponed several times; Sakharov now
expects that it will be held this week, or "soon."
Sakharov has repeatedly protested the detention
of his two colleagues, and in a gesture of defiance,
last month formally invited them among others to
the Oslo Nobel award ceremony which he himself has
been prevented from attending. By holding the
trials of the two this week, the regime would be
making its own strong countergesture to Sakharov
and his allies at home and abroad.
December 8, 1975
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Although the regime has not foreclosed its op-
tion of expelling Sakharov from the USSR at any time,
there is no sign that he will be permitted--or
forced--to leave before the award ceremony. His wife,
who has been in the West for medical treatment and
whom Sakharov delegated to receive his prize, has a
Soviet re-entry visa valid until December 20. Both
Sakharov and his wife remain anxious, however, that
the regime may bar her return home at the last
moment. Far from keeping his head down, however,
Sakharov again this year led some 70 other dissidents
in the annual human rights vigil on December 5 (Con-
stitution Day) in Moscow's Pushkin Square.
Meanwhile, the USSR's other Nobel prize winner,
establishment economist Leonid Kantorovich, is al-
ready in Stockholm, where on December 10 he will
share this year's economics prize with US scientist
Koopmans. Kantorovich's work on optimal use of re-
sources has been reformist by Soviet standards, but
his public politics are clearly orthodox; in a
Stockholm interview last Sunday he referred to the
USSR's "perfect, socialist system." (UNCLASSIFIED)
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Hungary-Vatican:
Who Will Succeed Mindszenty?
Premier Lazar's audience with the Pope last
month, the first by a Hungarian government head in
the Communist era, was an important step toward the
establishment of better Hungarian-Vatican relations.
The visit and Lazar's subsequent statement about
possible diplomatic relations raise the question of
selecting a successor to the late Jozsef Cardinal
b Mindszenty as archbishop of Esztergom and thus primate
of Hungary. Both Budapest and the Vatican presumably
will want to fill this vacancy before talking seri-
ously of diplomatic relations.
Both sides appear willing to regularize the Hun-
garian church leadership. They agreed on the selec-
- tion of five diocesan bishops last January, leaving
only two (Gyor and Esztergom) of the eleven dioceses
without regular leadership.
The Vatican has been working to improve its re-
lations with Eastern Europe in order to improve the
church's working conditions there. It may believe
that dealings with Hungary are the easiest way to
keep up the momentum. Budapest, which has recently
been relatively conciliatory toward local church
activity, probably wants to regularize the leader-
ship of the Hungarian church in order both to negate
the Mindszenty legacy of fierce anti-Communism and to
bolster its own political legitimacy. Settling the
issue could also give Budapest some important points
on the European security scoreboard. The Soviets
probably have an important background role to play,
and may see a Vatican-Hungarian accord as a useful
contribution to the post-Helsinki atmosphere.
Any successor to Mindszenty will have to be a
compromise selection, not only because of political
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necessity but also because the Vatican agreed in 1964
to prior consultations. A likely candidate appears
to be Laszlo Lekai, 65, the apostolic administrator
of Esztergom since 1974. He was Mindszenty's secre-
tary during World War II, was jailed along with
Mindszenty by the Horthy regime, and then worked in
the lower church ranks until he was appointed ap-
ostolic administrator of Veszprem in 1972.
Lekai apparently is not a member of either the
regime-sponsored popular front or the peace commit-
tees, the Opus Paces and the Catholic Committee of
the Peace Council. The Vatican reportedly is willing
to nominate him. Budapest's attitude toward him has
not been spelled out, but there are some signs that
it may be willing to go along with the appointment.
The regime permitted Lekai to accompany the acting
head of the Hungarian episcopate to a synod in Rome
in October 1974, and allowed him this spring to write
the notice of Mindszenty's death in Uj Ember, the
Hungarian Catholic weekly.
Another--but perhaps less likely--candidate is
64-year-old Jozsef Bank, Archbishop of Eger, the
third-ranking diocese in the Hungarian episcopate.
Bank reportedly was a classmate of Casaroli, the
Vatican's "foreign minister," for a time in the
1930s. While Bank's reputation is largely based on
his scholarly writings on canon law, he has steadily
progressed up the church hierarchy since 1964. Bank
belongs to the regime's popular front organization,
and there is an unconfirmed report that he may. be
a member of one of the "peace priest" committees.
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The Vatican may wait before elevating any new
archbishop of Esztergom)to cardinal status, even
though the Hungarian church now has no cardinals
while the Polish church has two. The Hungarian re-
gime may insist on a waiting period as a precondi-
tion to any appointment and the Vatican may also see
merit in waiting until the new man has shown
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