From 1954 to 1969, 84 patients with carcinoma of the cervix were treated at the National Cancer Institute with radical hysterectomy and bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy. A total cumulative 5‐year survival of 83.5% was obtained. Fourteen patients classified as failures to previous radiotherapy, with a 5‐year survival of 85%, were in this group. Nine patients with adenocarcinoma survived at a rate similar to the patients with epidermoid carcinoma. Despite excision of all paracervical tissue en bloc and the taking of 3‐ to 5‐cm vaginal cuff, the local recurrence rate was 14%. The cause of tumor death was most often related to the combination of local recurrence and metastases. In patients with negative pelvic nodes, the 5‐year survival was 91% while in the presence of positive pelvic nodes the 5‐year survival was 66%. The in‐hospital mortality rate was 2.7%. No patient was lost to follow‐up. Complications in this series where one third of the patients had been treated previously with irradiation or surgery were related primarily to the urinary tract, with an 8% incidence of urinary fistulae, 7% incidence of ureteral stricture, and 8% incidence of atonic bladder. Radical hysterectomy is admittedly a technically difficult operation but the complications can be minimized with proper patient selection, and survival may be obtained which is equal to, or superior to, other reported treatment modalities.