2. Magyar Országos Levéltár [Hungarian National Archives] (hereafter cited as MOL) M-KS-288, F. 4/92, minutes of the meeting of the HSWP CC, 19–20 June 1968.
3. While in the Soviet Bloc, there had been two other serious crisis situations as well, the local leaders did not have to play a similar role in those cases. In June 1953 while crushing the Berlin uprising, the Soviet military commander directed operations, and Ulbricht and his comrades returned from hiding only after order was restored. In October 1956 during the Polish crisis, Gomułka did not have to save the Communist system, but avoid a Soviet military intervention which he did and consequently emerged from the crisis as a most popular leader.
4. For the role of the Hungarian army in the invasion of Czechoslovakia, see Iván Pataky, A vonakodó szövetséges: A Magyar Népköztársaság és a Magyar Néphadsereg közreműködése Csehszlovákia 1968. évi megszállásában [The Wavering Ally: The Participation of the Hungarian People’s Republic and the Hungarian People’s Army in the Occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968] (Budapest: Zriínyi Kiadó, 1996).
5. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 5/467, minutes of the meeting of the HSWP CC, 20 August 1968.
6. For details on the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, see Csaba Békés, et al., eds., The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002).
7. For a comparative analysis of the two crises, see Csaba Békés, Európából Európába: Magyarország konfliktusok kereszttüzében 1945–1990 [From Europe to Europe: Hungary in the Crossfire of Conflicts, 1945–1990] (Budapest: Gondolat, 2004), 223–36.
8. For details of the Hungarian party’s policy at the time of regime change, see Melinda Kalmár, “From ‘Model Change’ to Regime Change: The Metamorphosis of the MSZMP’s Tactics in the Democratic Transition,” in The Roundtable Talks of 1989: The Genesis of Hungarian Democracy, ed. András Bozóki (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002).
9. Csaba Békés, The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and World Politics, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, September 1996, Working Paper No. 16, http://cwihp.si.edu.
10. For details see the chapter of Harald Knoll and Peter Ruggenthaler, “The Moscow ‘Negotiations,’” in this volume.
11. See Békés, Európából Európába, 233.
12. For details on Hungary’s policy with reference to the Czechoslovak crisis, see Tibor Huszár, 1968, Prága, Budapest, Moszkva: Kádár János és a csehszlovákiai intervenció [1968, Prague, Budapest, Moscow: János Kádár and the Intervention of Czechoslovakia] (Budapest: Szabad Tér, 1998).
13. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 5/444, minutes of the meeting of the HSWP Politburo 23 January 1968.
14. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, memorandum of conversation between Kádár and Dubček, 22 January 1968.
15. Navrátil et al., Prague Spring 1968, 22.
16. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, memorandum of conversation between Kádár and Novotny, 26 February 1968.
17. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 5/444 (cf. note 13 above); Huszár, 1968, Prága, Budapest, Moszkva, 15.
18. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743 (cf. note 14 above).
19. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 5/444 (cf. note 13).
20. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743 (cf. note 14).
21. For details, see the article by Manfred Wilke, “Ulbricht, East Germany, and the Prague Spring,” in this volume and Paweł Piotrowski, “Polen und die Intervention,” in Karner et al., Beiträge, 447–60.
22. The meeting was later moved forward to 8 February and finally took place on 7 February.
23. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743 (cf. note 14).
24. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, memorandum on Dubček’s message to Kádár, 29 January 1968.
25. After the end of the negotiations, Dubček and his comrades paid a half-hour visit to Komárom on the Hungarian side of the border at Kádár’s request. Komárom was originally one town, located on both sides of the Danube that was cut in two by the Trianon Peace Treaty of 1920.
26. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, memorandum of conversation between Kádár and Dubček in Komárno, 5 February 1968.
27. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 5/445, minutes of the session of the HSWP Politburo, 6 February 1968.
28. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 5/445, minutes of the session of the HSWP Politburo, 6 February 1968.
29. For details on the Soviet Bloc’s FRG policy, see Csaba Békés, “The Warsaw Pact and the Helsinki Process, 1965–1970,” in The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965–1975, ed. Wilfried Loth and Georges-Henri Soutou (London: Routledge, 2008), 201–20 and Douglas Selvage, “The Warsaw Pact and the German Question, 1955–1970,” in NATO and the Warsaw Pact: Intrabloc Conflicts, ed. Mary Ann Heiss and S. Victor Papacosma (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2008).
30. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 5/445 (cf. note 27).
31. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, memorandum of a telephone conversation between Kádár and Brezhnev, 13 February 1968.
32. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, memorandum of conversation between Kádár Novotný, 26 February 1968.
33. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, telephone conversation between Kádár and Brezhnev.
34. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, telephone conversation between Kádár and Brezhnev.
35. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, telephone conversation between Kádár and Brezhnev.
36. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, telephone conversation between Kádár and Brezhnev.
37. For details on this, see Wilke, “Ulbricht, East Germany, and the Prague Spring,” in this volume.
38. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, memorandum of a telephone conversation between Kádár and Brezhnev, 19 March 1968.
39. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, telephone conversation between Kádár and Brezhnev.
40. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 5/451, minutes of the session of the HSWP Politburo, 19 March 1968.
41. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, memorandum of a telephone conversation between Kádár and Brezhnev, 19/2 March 1968.
42. SAPMO BA, ZPA, IV 2/201/778, minutes of the Dresden meeting, 23 March 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente, #21.
43. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 5/452, minutes of the session of the HSWP Politburo, 2 April 1968.
44. MOL, M-KS-288, F. 47/743, memorandum of a telephone conversation between Kádár and Brezhnev, 16 April 1968.
45. Navrátil, The Prague Spring 1968, 138.
46. For Kádár’s entire speech at the meeting of the CPSU leadership with the leaders of the Communist parties of Bulgaria, Hungary, the GDR, and Poland on 8 May in Moscow, see AdBIK, holding “Prague Spring,” minutes of the meeting of the leaders of the CPSU CC with the leaders of the Communist parties of Bulgaria, Hungary, the GDR, and Poland, 8 May 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente, #77. The quotation as cited above is a translation from the report compiled by Károly Erdélyi, MOL, M-KS-288, F. 5/455, cited in Huszár, 1968, Prága, Budapest, Moszkva, 86.