Cold War NATO documents released on FM website

A screenshot from one of the declassified NATO reports dating from the 1980s.

The documents were handed over in Brussels on Monday to Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski by Bill Eaton, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General.

In the early 1980s, NATO countries examined various scenarios relating to a planned Soviet intervention in Poland. According to NATO documents, the alliance had contingency plans to face such an option but it was not prepared to get involved in any military operations in Poland.

According to Foreign Minister Sikorski, the declassified documents are of importance for all those interested in modern history.

“It is a great satisfaction to see that at the time when Poles fought for freedom, Polish affairs were debated in NATO. Today, as a member of NATO, Poland is in a privileged position, looking at the events of the 1980s as a distant history, to which there is no return,” Sikorski said.

The documents also relate to the impact of the election of the Polish Pope on the strengthening of the position of the Church in Poland, the enthusiastic welcome accorded to Pope John Paul II during his first pilgrimage to Poland in 1979, the failure of the economic policies of Communist leader Edward Gierek and the murder of Father Jerzy Popieluszko in 1984.

A team of NATO archivists working on the declassification of the documents included Pawel Ceranka of the Polish Foreign Affairs Ministry. He was the second person from outside NATO to have ever been invited to take part in the selection of the documents.

Meanwhile, NATO archivists are to continue work on declassifying a further 180 documents on Poland. They will include the minutes of the private sessions of the North Atlantic Council in 1980-82. The declassified documents are to be displayed at a special exhibition in December, marking the 30th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law by the communist regime in Poland. (mk/jb)

The list of documents can be found here.

Audio by Alicja Baczyńska