Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. [Vol. 5.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 25)

Studies - Tamás Magyarics: From the Rollback of Communism to Building Bridges: The U.S. and the Soviet Block Countries from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to the Prague Spring in 1968

members of the administration appeared before the various committees on Capitol Hill. Secretary of State Dean Rusk spelt out the guiding principles of the administration toward the Communist countries before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: (1) to prevent the Communists from gaining more ground and to make il as expensive and useless for them as possible; and (2) to encourage the establishment a larger degree of independence and the evolutionary processes leading to an "open" society within the Communist bloc. ~ Assistant Secretary of State Averell Harriman elaborated on the latter point before the same forum: the East-European peoples should freely decide what form of government they wished to live under, they should entertain "natural relationships" with their neighbors, including the Soviet Union. This last point echoes the statement made by John Foster Dulles in Dallas on October 26, 1956; it is less known, though, that President Johnson advised his Ambassador to Warsaw, John A. Gronouski that besides working on the establishment of the PolishAmerican friendly relations he should not put the Polish in a situation, which might result in the deterioration of the Polish-Soviet relationship because "the primary interest of the U.S. is the good relations with the Soviet Union." " However, the slow but gradual improvement of the relations between the U.S. and the East-European countries was arrested by the Vietnam War. While Secretary of State Rusk held a number of bilateral meetings with Foreign Ministers Péter (Hungarian), Gromiko (Soviet), David (Czechoslovak), Manescu (Rumanian), and Winewicz (Polish) at the UN in 1965, the escalation of the war erected unsurmounrable barriers on both sides before the further improvement of the relations. The U.S. found itself in a deadlock: it wished to improve the relations with the East-European Communist countries to counterbalance the effects of the Vietnam War, but it had to move very carefully because the Soviet Union had acquired a new importance in the eyes of the American leaders: they thought that the key to solve the Southeast-Asian situation was in Moscow. Thus, they did nat want to "disturb" the Soviet leadership with an increased degree of activity in Easter-Europe. At the same time, the Americans The Hungarian Chargé, János Radványi's report of his conversation with the Czechoslovak Ambassador, Drozniak. New Hungarian Central Archives, KÜM XIX-J1 -j, US A TÜK Box 13,4-1. 103. 001303/fl

. 1 Fulbright, J. William. The Arrogance of Power. New York, 1966. 120-121. 81