Switch in E. Europe Changes Unlikely, CIA Director Says
CIA Director William H. Webster said today that the chances of a major reversal in the changes sweeping Eastern Europe are highly unlikely.
Webster told the House Armed Services Committee that the prospects for democracy in East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia are good, in part because hard-line authority lacks strength.
“As these upheavals continue to gain momentum they will be progressively more difficult to suppress,” Webster said in presenting an assessment of the dramatic happenings in the Eastern Bloc.
The push for democracy as well as the lessening Soviet threat to the West significantly reduces the chances of an attack on NATO forces in Europe while increasing the length of time it would take the Soviets to mobilize, he said.
“Marxist-Leninist ideology is now bankrupt as a serious alternative to democratic pluralism and market models of economic development,” Webster told the panel.
The CIA director said the armed forces and secret police in the Eastern Bloc have “become unreliable as instruments of repression,” while the Communist Party and the old regimes continue to fall apart.
However, these nations will face some difficulties in transition and will require money from the West, he said.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
