Široký, Viliam 1902 - 1971

Czechoslovakia participated in the Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament, a short-lived outfit which was mired in superpower infighting and consequently made no substantive progress. This letter, written from Czechoslovakia’s Foreign Minister Václav David to Prime Minister Viliam Široký, is nonetheless informative, as its attachment contains a memorandum outlining Soviet proposals for general and complete disarmament in three phases. 

A record of the conclusions of the 186th meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which met on March 6, 1962.  The attachment includes the initial instructions for the Czechoslovak delegations to the first meeting of ENDC. The document testifies to the strong preoccupation with West Germany’s re-armament, and the possibility of West Germany nuclear-weapon acquisition. Czechoslovakia travelled to Geneva with a goal of avoiding this outcome at any cost. Although the document offers a broad overview of the “lay of the land” ahead of the first meeting of ENDC, it is the focus on West Germany that is the most obvious here