Polskie Dokumenty Dyplomatyczne 1959

This 15th volume in the series Polish Diplomatic Documents  contains documents created at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (both the headquarters and missions abroad) and kept at the MFA Archives, and also documents of the Polish United Workers’ Party’s Politburo and Central Committee (its Secretariat and Foreign Commission), kept at the  Central Archives of Modern Records.

The bulk of these are classified materials, never published previously (only nine out of the 460 documents in the volume are known from earlier source publications).

Most documents deal with Poland’s activity at the multilateral level. The dominant theme in the first half of the year were (unsuccessful) endeavors to secure presence at the Geneva conference of foreign ministers. On the other hand, efforts to gain support for socialist Poland’s candidature in elections to the UN Socio-Economic Council and Security Council proved successful. Poland also continued to promote the initiative to form a nuclear-free zone (the so-called Rapacki Plan).

In bilateral relations, mention is due to efforts seeking recognition of the country’s Western border, the most important event being de Gaulle’s announcement of 25 March. Among the key visits paid to Poland in 1959 were those by Soviet Communist Party First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon.

In addition to the name index and an extended subject index, the volume has annexes with information about the MFA structure and lists of major bilateral agreements signed, and multilateral agreements ratified, in 1959.