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Khrushchev’s speech was supposed to be private. It was intended only for internal Communist Party consideration, but word of the events unfolding at the Twentieth Party Congress quickly traveled across the Iron Curtain. In addition to the rumors of what had been said, Israeli intelligence officers obtained a copy of the complete speech and shared it with the Eisenhower Administration. Reactions varied. U.S. CIA chief, Allen Dulles, struck by the unexpected reversal in policy espoused in the speech, wondered if Khrushchev had been drunk and speaking extemporaneously. After an internal debate in the CIA, Dulles suggested to his brother and Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, that the United States leak the speech to the press. Eisenhower agreed, and it was sent to the New York Times.

In the immediate aftermath of the speech, the course of de-Stalinization suited U.S. interests, as the internal crisis that was expected to emerge out of the shift in policy temporarily paralyzed the Soviet Union. The Eisenhower Administration watched, but did not interfere, as the speech became the impetus for a series of grassroots movements demanding democratic reforms inEastern Europe. Protests broke out in Poland and Hungary in the summer and autumn of 1956, both with tragic consequences. In Poland, the Communist Party leadership proved uncertain how to address the demonstrations, and overreacted by sending in a military force to put down the protest. The situation in Hungary was even more extreme and month-long demonstrations ended with Soviet military intervention and thousands of casualties. In Asia, Communist leaders in the People’s Republic of China and Vietnam expressed grave doubts about the reforms indicated by Khrushchev.