Late last year, the CIA declassified a treasure trove of information — the daily briefs it wrote for U.S. presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson from 1961 to 1969. The agency’s memos cover one of the most fascinating and frightening periods of American history.

During the 1960s, communist ideologies ruled in both the Soviet Union and China. At the time, propaganda often depicted the two countries marching in lockstep to plant the red flag across the globe.

The truth, however, was far more complicated. At some points, just based on the CIA’s briefings with no outside historical knowledge, it seemed as if Beijing outright hated Moscow … especially Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

The agency seemed to take glee in reporting the ins and outs of the Sino-Soviet split. Sometimes that joy got weird.

Relations were not always frosty between the two communist powers. Throughout the ’40s and ’50s the two maintained a cordial, even helpful relationship. But the commie buddy routine didn’t last, and by 1961 China’s leadership had formally denounced the Soviets as “revisionist traitors.”

The reasons why are complicated and varied, but one of the points of contention between the two powers was nuclear weapons. Moscow detonated its first nuclear warhead in 1949. By the middle of the 1950s, Mao Zedong decided China needed nukes too, and he looked to his Soviet friends for help.

The Kremlin was happy to oblige at first. It sent advisers and agreed to help China develop its own weapons program. As late as 1958, China had sent uranium to Russia in exchange for two R-2 ballistic missiles. Then Khrushchev told Mao he planned to discuss nuclear arms control with the West.

Mao didn’t take it well. By 1960, the Soviets were no longer helping China develop a nuke.

The CIA took great pleasure in the breakup and that pleasure bled over into the agency’s briefings to the president. In 1962, the agency began to write to the president about how the two great communist powers seemed at odds.

“We cannot confirm press reports that [Beijing] has asked the USSR to close all of its consulates in China,” the CIA wrote on Sept. 21, 1962. “There is, nonetheless, tenuous evidence suggesting that Moscow’s posts at Harbin in Manchuria and [Urumqi] in [Xinjiang] may in fact have been closed.”

“Nevertheless, we are coming to believe that a new period of open hostility between the two powers has arrived.”

Beijing took every opportunity to remind both Russia and the West that the superpowers’ stranglehold on nuclear weapons was one of China’s biggest problems.

“The Chinese communists have told Moscow in strong language that [Beijing] will speak for itself when it comes to renouncing the right to nuclear arms,” the agency wrote on Oct. 12, 1962. “Beijing has been saying publicly that the purpose of our arms limitation proposals has been to cheat them out of nuclear arms.”

As autumn wore on that year, relations between China and Russia worsened. The spies recounted every moment of the division with fervor.

“The Chinese have started using troops instead of police and border guards to patrol their border with the USSR,” the CIA explained in early October. “With relations at a low ebb, the Chinese evidently do not exempt the Soviets when they speak … of the danger of agent infiltration and subversion by the imperialists.”

Later that month, as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded, China took every opportunity to call out the Kremlin and its leadership for what it saw as a bungled opportunity. “[Beijing] … is grumbling that Moscow … has shown itself to be weak-kneed,” the CIA wrote on Oct. 26.

“Communist China’s leaders have recently stepped up their criticism of Soviet foreign policy and appear determined to undermine confidence in Soviet Leadership,” the agency wrote in late October as the Cuban Missile Crisis wound down.

China used the moment to score easy propaganda points against the USSR … and let the Soviets know exactly why. “[Beijing’s] latest note charges the Soviets with betrayal for allowing international communism to fall behind in the nuclear arms race by not sharing technical information with China since 1959.”

In 1963, the United States, United Kingdom and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty. The agreement prohibited the countries from conducting nuclear test detonations above ground. At the time, scientists and leaders worried about radioactive fallout and an uncontrolled nuclear arms race.

Except China.

“The Chinese yesterday handed diplomatic missions in [Beijing] a letter from [Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai] calling for a meeting of all chiefs of state to discuss the Chinese proposal for a total ‘prohibition and destruction’ of nuclear weapons,” the CIA explained to Kennedy in early August. “It appears that the Chinese are trying to spread the letter as widely as they can in an effort to trump the test ban agreement.”

“They have coupled this move on the diplomatic front with the most outspoken attack on the Soviets yet to see light in China,” the agency continued. “An almost apoplectic People’s Daily yesterday drew for its readers a picture of Soviet leaders ‘embracing Imperialism in joyous abandon.’ The paper alleged that the test ban agreement is a ‘U.S.-Soviet alliance against China pure and simple.’”

In the ’60s, Beijing never missed an opportunity to call out Moscow … or call for insurrection. “The paper ended by implying that the Soviet people would surely react against this ‘betrayal’ by their leaders.”

The Kremlin didn’t take Beijing’s call to arms well.

“The Soviets lost no time striking back at the Chinese for the insults [Beijing] published on Saturday,” the CIA told Kennedy the next day. “Moscow, as might be expected, took particular offense at the Chinese attempt to turn the Soviet people against their government. Such talk, the statement says, could only come from those who are ‘doomed by history’ and are themselves on shaky ground.”

“The Soviets take the occasion to reject [Beijing’s] call for a summit meeting on nuclear disarmament which they say is a merely a cover for China’s refusal to sign the test ban agreement.”

‘Study the Soviet Union’s advanced economy to build up our own nation,’ from 1953. Image and translation via chineseposters.net[/caption]

As the decade wore on, relations between China and Russia went from worse … to weird.

“Yesterday [Beijing] put on sale its second volume of Khrushchevian memorabilia,” the agency explained in mid-October, 1964. “It covers reports, speeches, and letters extracted from Pravda issues between 1942–53, the first volume published last August having covered material from the 1930s.”

That’s right, China was putting out books about how much Khrushchev sucked.

“The publisher’s note claims that comparison of Khrushchev’s past and present statements shows him to be a ‘conspirator, careerist and double faced hypocrite’ and at one time an obsequious sycophant of Stalin.”

It may seem weird that Beijing published a multi-volume set dedicated to dumping all over Russia’s leader, but it made a lot of sense back then. China felt it was in an ideological conflict with the Soviet Union over the soul of communism.

Beijing wanted to oust the Kremlin as the spiritual leader of a global movement. The best way to do that, it felt, was to demean and belittle the men in charge. But pretty soon Beijing wouldn’t have Khrushchev to kick around anymore.

On Oct. 14, 1964, the Soviet leadership ousted Khrushchev. He went without a fight. Two days later, China detonated its first nuclear bomb. For Beijing, it was a happy autumn. The CIA seemed … depressed.

“Within hours of its successful nuclear test, [Beijing] started beating the drum for an all-nation summit conference to discuss prohibition and destruction of nuclear weapons,” the agency wrote at the time. “This was presumably intended to dampen adverse criticism abroad. The Chinese made a similar proposal in 1963 when they refused to sign the test ban treaty, and they may be expected to continue to push it.”

“The Chinese have not publicly acknowledged the help they received from the Soviets in laying the technical foundations for their nuclear program. Rather, they say the success of today’s shot was due to the hard work of Chinese scientists who ‘displayed a spirit of relying on their own efforts.’”

A day later, the CIA bemoaned the events.

“The successful atmospheric test at to Lop Nor site, coming as it did on the heels of Khrushchev’s ouster, has doubtless added to the already monumental self-regard of the Chinese leadership,” the agency wrote in the president’s Oct. 17 briefing.

“Within hours of exploding a rough 15 KT device, they were jubilantly describing the event to the world as a ‘major contribution to peace,’ arguing that they, unlike earlier nuclear powers, could be trusted to be neither adventurous nor capitulationist with their bomb.”

China was now a nuclear power, a fact that the rest of the world rushed to acknowledge.

“Western European statesmen have reflected resignation at an anticipated development and have focused on its political ramifications,” the agency wrote. “Several have round in the Chinese success a new and persuasive argument for admitting [Beijing] to world forums.”

Then things got weirder.

“Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. In these last few days the ax has been falling all over the world. Not only has it cut down such diverse figures as Khrushchev and Lord Home, but it has shown itself no respecter of either victor or vanquished; both the Cardinal’s Johnny Keane and the Yankees Yogi Berra have felt its edge.”

Thus passes the glory of the world. Lord Alec Douglas-Home was the British prime minister, but lost the position on Oct. 15. Johnny Keane and Yogi Berra were both baseball managers. Keane ran the St. Louis Cardinals and Berra managed the New York Yankees.

The two faced off against each other in the World Series that year. Keane’s Cardinals won, but he resigned from the team a few days later. The owner of the Yankees fired Berra. The two best teams in the league no longer had managers.

It’s an odd moment in the briefs, the most personal and human moment I’ve seen so far. Between baseball, nuclear China and the hippies, the 1960s must have seemed like a turbulent time to the CIA.

This first appeared in WarIsBoring here.

Image Credit: Creative Commons/Wikicommons.