Chapter 3

"This nation's history in past centuries is a history of slavery. Except for two short intervals, we were condemned to creating our national existence illegally. Indeed, several times we were on the brink of extinction . . . the moment has arrived when, after centuries, our country has again become the cradle of hopes, and not only of our hopes. The moment has come when we can prove to the world that socialism is the only true alternative for all civilized mankind.

"We expected that all members of the socialist camp particularly would welcome this fact with sympathy. Instead, we are being accused of treason. We are handed ultimatums by comrades who continue steadily showing their ignorance of our evolution and our situation. We are accused of crimes we did not commit. We are suspected of intentions we do not have and never had.

"The threat of an unjust punishment hangs over us. And whatever shape it may assume, it may rebound like a boomerang also on our judges, destroy our effort and - above all - leave a tragic blot on the idea of socialism anywhere in the world for years to come."

Novelist Ladislav Mnacko and other dissidents gained control of the Second Writer's Congress in April and elected a liberal Presidium, but their short-lived rebellion was suppressed and the conservatives were reinstated. Mnacko wrote openly of the intricately detailed police dossiers kept on each citizen, and advocated that they be publicly burned. He wrote of a huge iron and steel combine that had been begun in Slovakia, at huge investment, and then abandoned, and the innocent people imprisoned as scapegoats for the affair. He appealed to his fellow writers and journalists to become the public's conscience, but the time was not yet right. The populace was still very much under the control of the Stalinists and the StB.

On May Day, student demonstrations in Prague and Bratislava demanded freedom of speech and access to the Western press. These actions resulted in a backlash from the Novotny regime, which moved the country into a period of neo-Stalinism. The 1958 KSČ Party Congress reaffirmed and formalized Stalinism.

During the early 1960s, Czechoslovaks were disaffected with their social, political, and economic climate. The economy slowed seriously, with the lowest industrial growth in Eastern Europe and food imports straining the balance of payments. Czechoslovakia's standard of living started to lag. Pressure to reform came both from Moscow and from within the KSČ. In 1963 openly critical articles by reform-minded communist intellectuals began to appear. Criticism soon proliferated, first directed against economic policies, but later spreading to party bureaucracy and ideological conformity. The leadership of the KSČ had no choice but to respond. It reviewed the purge trials of 1949-54 and rehabilitated some of the victims. Younger Communists, with more liberal views, replaced some of the hardliners at the top levels of government. In September 1963, Premier Vilam Siroky was replaced by Jozef Lenart. The KSČ formed committees to review economic policy.

In 1965, Ota Sik, an economist, theoretician, and former Director of the Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, sought formation of a New Economic Model. His program, which the KSČ approved, sought to revitalize the economy through a second, intensive stage of economic development that emphasized technological and managerial improvements. It limited central economic planning to determining overall production and investment indexes as well as price and wage guidelines, and included management personnel in decision-making. Production would be driven by the realities of the market and profitability, and prices would be based on supply and demand. Incentives would be based on profit criteria instead of planned production. Wage differentials were to be introduced. Sik's New Economic Model, however, went against Moscow's rigid thinking.

Concurrently with the debate over economic reform came discussion of political and legislative reform. This centered around a means to introduce a system of political pluralism within a one-party state. Michael Lakatos, a Slovak legal philosopher, led this discussion. He stressed the importance of interest groups to generate healthy conflict and debate over issues concerning society. Despite what could have been regarded as heresy in Moscow, he received cautious support from some high-ranking officials.

The economic reform program should have gone into effect in January 1967, but Novotny and the conservatives moved to block its implementation. The measure stalled as amendments were introduced to reinforce central control. Those who felt threatened by the new program responded by trying to sabotage the reforms and retain as much of the old system as possible. Pressure to enact the legislation increased from reformists in every sector.

In December, 1965, the KSČ published its "Theses" as a response to the call for political reform. The principle of democratic centralism was redefined with more emphasis on democracy. The KSČ retained its leading role, but with limits, and the National Assembly was to receive increased legislative responsibility authority. Slovakia's executive and legislative bodies, the Board of Commissioners and SNR, were to participate actively in the central government's planning and take responsibility for implementing programs in the region. Government administration at all levels from federal to local would receive more authority and limited autonomy within their jurisdictions. The KSČ agreed not to usurp the authority of economic and social organizations, but retained control of cultural policy.

Apart from economic reform, Novotny's old guard made an important concession in the field of ideology at the Thirteenth Party Congress in June 1966. A working party would be formed to draft a paper on the correct role of the Communist Party, based on a return to true Leninism. It accepted, at least in theory, that this could lead to the Leninist Doctrine of a separation of State and Party. What Novotny did not anticipate was that this could also lead to a separation of his dual role as head of the party and of the state. Ladislav Mnacko wrote a book titled The Taste of Power, an open attack on Novotny. Though the censor deleted some passages and returned the manuscript, he neglected to say that it should be resubmitted. The book was published in this form.

A Soviet crackdown on dissident writers also took place. Conservatives controlled the Soviet Writer's Congress in May, 1967. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote a long and eloquent letter protesting censorship and demanding rights and freedoms for writers, but it was suppressed.

The Six-Day War and the reactions of the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak government further alienated the journalists and intelligentsia in Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Israel and supported the Arab forces. Novotny's regime was the first among the East Bloc to follow the Soviet lead.

This had special significance for a number of Czechoslovak intellectuals. They were well aware that Czechoslovakia had assisted in the establishment of Israel by supplying arms and military instructors in the 1940s. They also knew that, under Soviet influence, arms were shipped to Egypt which contributed to the 1956 Middle East war. The propaganda campaign against Israel reminded them of the anti-Semitism of the 1950s purges.

The easy Israeli victory was a major blow to Novotny and the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia's intellectuals and dissidents rejoiced in the David and Goliath-like triumph. The authorities, however, moved immediately to help Egypt, Jordan, and Syria recover economically and militarily. Czechs and Slovaks groaned inwardly, already tired of the constant drain of foreign aid money to the North Vietnamese and the Middle East. Though unvoiced in the press, the discontent of the public became widely known. The Egyptian Ambassador, unable to contain his anger, denounced Czechoslovak journalists during a press conference for their failure to write "objectively" about the Middle East crisis, and for what he considered to be their support of Israel. He said, however, that he understood this, since "the Czechoslovak press remains infested with many Jews."[1] The incident was ignored by officials and went unmentioned in the press, but the news quickly swept dissident circles.

It was in this foreboding atmosphere that an extremely stormy Fourth Writer's Congress opened on 27 June 1967. The congress played a key role in polarizing, and then mobilizing, the forces that would end Novotny's reign. Intellectuals demanded freer contact with the rest of the world. They had begun to doubt the ability of the KSČ to renew itself from within, and felt the Party's attempts to dictate opinion and suppress debate were inappropriate for a country facing complex problems never dreamed of by Marx or Lenin. The Congress ended with an open revolt against the chief Party ideologist present, Jiri Hendrych. Hendrych furiously stalked out, saying: "You have lost everything - everything."[2] Three leading writers, Liehm, Klima, and Vaculik, all progressives, were expelled from the KSČ. Václav Havel, Ivan Klima, Pavel Kohout, and Ludvik Vaculik were removed as candidates from the election for the Central Committee of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers. The Union's newspaper, Literarni Noviny, was banned pending a new editor, and eventually placed under the control of the Ministry of Culture. The subsequent publication was boycotted by the majority of its readers.

The controversy of the Fourth Writer's Congress might have gone unnoted in the outside world. Foreign radio stations that could be received in Czechoslovakia learned of the scope of the writers' revolt and began to broadcast the news. A 1,000-word manifesto of Czechoslovak writers appealed to popular world opinion for moral support in the struggle against censorship. It accused Novotny and the KSČ leaders in Prague of conducting a witch hunt and using terrorist methods against writers. It called upon well-known writers for help, among them Bertrand Russell, Arthur Miller, John Steinbeck, Jean-Paul Sartre, John Osborne, and Gunther Grasse. It was published in the Sunday Times on 3 September 1967 and reprinted throughout the world. It was labeled a hoax in Prague and elsewhere, and it was later determined that not all of the alleged signatories had actually signed the document. Doctor Ivan Pfaff, a Czech historian, admitted drafting the text, and also that he had estimated who would have approved of it and added their names. Despite its dubious authenticity, it focused world attention on Czechoslovakia.

Mnacko, appearing in the west in mid-August, announced his intention to move to Israel. Mnacko's statement to the press, which was very widely reported and broadcast into Czechoslovakia, was extremely damaging to the regime. Within a week, the government had revoked his citizenship, expelled from the party, and stripped him of all his literary prizes and honors.

Novotny made another serious error which eliminated any hope of support from the Slovak population. Slovaks already felt grossly maligned and misused by the policy-makers in Prague; Novotny added insult to injury. The Matica Slovenska, a Slovak cultural tradition which had been twice suppressed, maintained in its library a hand-inscribed album of Slovak manuscripts, dedicated to Novotny when he visited the Matica Slovenska. Inside the album lay a postal rejection slip signed by Novotny - "Send back - addressee does not wish to receive."

At the Central Committee meeting in October, a young reformer named Alexander Dubcek, who had risen to head the Slovak regional government, began to challenge Novotny. At the 30 October Central Committee meeting, Dubcek challenged a resolution presented by Hendrych, the chief speaker. Dubcek charged that the resolution differed significantly from the original version agreed upon by the Presidium. Dubcek went further in his challenge, adding that these changes were typical of the sort of cheating Novotny's group used when dealing with Slovak issues. Novotny exploded. He accused Dubcek and his followers of bourgeois Slovak nationalism. Novotny's lack of control and fury at Slovak nationalism immediately united Slovak politicians around Dubcek. In the resulting arguments, Dubcek called for separating party and state, and some Czechs rallied to the Dubcek alliance, sensing a chance to unseat Novotny.

Novotny made another error as the Plenum of the Central Committee was ending its meeting on 31 October. On a bitterly cold evening, students at the Prague Technical College in Strahow met with editors of the youth daily Mlada Fronta to complain about their living conditions; specifically, the lighting and heating systems, and the school administration's refusal to heed their protests. During the meeting, the electricity and heating in the dormitory failed. Their morale already destroyed due to the prospect of low earnings after years of study in engineering or medicine, the students angrily assembled. They organized a candlelight procession into the city, marching toward Hradcany castle. The Novotny regime reacted repressively. After minor scuffling, the students were dispersed. But when they returned to find that many of their group had been detained by the police, a genuine riot broke out. In violence presaging that of November 1989, police used clubs and tear gas to quell the riot.

Student demands spread, rapidly escalating beyond complaints about living conditions and moving into the political arena. The brutality of the police reaction was widely reported, angering the populace and spreading dissent to other campuses.

On 8 November, students of the Philosophical Faculty at Charles University held a five-hour protest meeting. They drew up a petition demanding academic immunity and calling for identification and punishment of the police responsible for the beatings. They also demanded that police wear numbered badges for identification, that they not be allowed to use chemicals, and that the results of a thorough investigation be published.

By mid-November, the regime was showing its alarm at this trend. The rector of the Prague Technical University accused the students of letting themselves be used politically against the government. The editor of the party cultural newspaper said the students showed a perfect knowledge of western anticommunist propaganda. The students also received support, however. Faculty members belonging to the Czechoslovak Youth League met to protest the actions of the police. The University Committee of the Communist Party demanded an investigation.

At the Philosophical Faculty on 20 November, a meeting turned into a nine-hour sit-in. They considered proposals to put more pressure on the regime. Remarkably, Rector Oldrich Stary and Deputy Rector Eduard Goldstuecker met with the students, engaging in meaningful, sympathetic discussions. They gave the students advice and guidance, resulting in an ultimatum to the government: grant the student demands by 15 December, or all university students in Prague would take action.

On 15 December, just before the deadline, authorities published the results of their investigation into the events of 31 October. The report was a partial victory for the students. It acknowledged the legitimacy of some grievances, such as the heating and electrical failures, and punished or fired some officials. But it also accused the students of encouraging brutality by attacking the police officers verbally, and even physically. No criminal charges were filed, either against police or students.

The Novotny regime had alienated nearly the entire populace - writers, economists, students, Slovaks, and the common man. He was rapidly losing his control of events as opposition grew on every side.

In November, the presidium had met to consider the plan for socialist reform begun at the Thirteenth Party Congress in June 1966. In early December, the Presidium prepared for a vote; Novotny's future as party boss was at stake. The vote was deadlocked at five to five. Reportedly voting with Novotny were: Premier Jozef Lenart, who had originally been considered a progressive; Michal Chudlik, another leading Slovak; Deputy Premier Otakar Simunek; and Assembly Chairman Bohuslav Lastovicka. Voting with Dubcek were: ideological chief Jiri Hendrych; Drahomir Kolder, who headed the Central Committee Economic Commission; Jaromir Dolansky; and Deputy Premier Oldrich Cernik, who headed the State Planning Commission.

Novotny appealed to Moscow for assistance. Leonid Brezhnev flew into Prague on 8 December. He spoke to members of both factions, but - mistakenly - saw nothing he felt would disturb Soviet interests. Reliable conservatives were among Novotny's opponents. Brezhnev departed, knowing that Novotny might fall from power, but left it to the KSČ as its own affair.

The plenum had not met as expected on 15 December. On the 16th, word arrived that a Czechoslovak tank division at Brdy had begun movement to the heights around the city. Other tanks reportedly were en route to Bratislava.

The military was being used to apply political pressure on behalf of Novotny. The rumored director of this effort was Miroslav Mamula, head of the Central Committee's Eighth Department, the security watchdog which overlooked the party, the military, and the state. Major General Jan Sejna, a Mamula subordinate, had drawn up a letter supporting Novotny, signed by many high-ranking officers, and had allegedly ordered the troop movement to ensure that the Central Committee voted "correctly." Another officer involved was Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Vladimir Janko, second in the Defense Ministry. The troops never reached the city. Dubcek received warning from Lieutenant General Prchlik and faced Novotny with the evidence. Novotny denied knowledge of the plan and ordered the troops recalled. The explanation offered was that the units were on routine training for the parade commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Czechoslovak revolution on 25 February.

The Central Committee finally met on 19 December, but the deadlocked Presidium had no resolution to propose, and there were no prearranged speakers. The committee chose free debate, resulting in confrontation and an exchange of insults as the power struggle intensified. Sik attacked the old guard, demanded that the Central Committee be allowed to form separate and distinct sections to create in-party opposition, and called for political and economic liberalization. Novotny's followers responded with their own attacks, but Josef Smrkovsky made a speech which turned the tide against Novotny. The meeting adjourned on 22 December. Novotny's supporters fought for time, arguing that, since it was almost Christmas, the Central Committee should adjourn until after the holiday. The measure was adopted, and both sides used the time for intensive politicking.

On 23 December in Trencin, the first grass roots effort against Novotny began. The local Party Secretary called 500 officials to a secret meeting in a cinema. They decided that Novotny would have to go. They sent a petition to the Slovak Party Secretary calling for Novotny's ouster on the grounds of his insulting attitude toward Slovaks.

The Presidium met in the first days of January to prepare for the Central Committee meeting, which would begin on 3 January. Kolder immediately proposed that Party Secretary Lubomir Strougal succeed Novotny as First Secretary. Strougal declined and nominated Cernik, who also declined. Novotny then proposed Lenart, who declined. Novotny, perhaps expecting the declinations to continue, nominated Dubcek. Dubcek accepted, and became the nominee to the Central Committee.

After three days of talks, Novotny's "resignation" as First Secretary was announced. Novotny's opposition had put the break to good use, and Dubcek was unanimously elected First Secretary. Dubcek assumed leadership of the KSČ. Four additional members were elected to the Presidium: Jan Piller, Deputy Minister for Heavy Industry; Josef Spacek, party chief of the Brno region, who had protected the liberal magazine Host do Domu; Emil Rigo, head of the KSČ organization at the vast East Slovak Iron Works; and Josef Boruvka, a collective farm chairman. Oldrich Cernik was named Premier, and Sik became one of three Deputy Premiers. Novotny was able to retain the presidency.

During January 1968, Dubcek remained silent. No purge of Novotny's appointees and supporters took place. Dubcek, at the head of a government run largely by Novotny's followers, and being, as a Slovak, immediately suspect to a great many Czechs, was also very closely watched by the Soviets. Their coolness toward Dubcek could be seen in the insignificant placement of the article that announced his appointment in Moscow's Pravda. Though couched in properly optimistic terms of socialist fraternity, it carried only a small photo of Dubcek and appeared under an article marking the fiftieth anniversary of the small Communist Party of Argentina. It was three weeks after his election before Dubcek was able to visit the Kremlin.

The silence of January created a political vacuum which reformers took advantage of to put forward new ideas for discussion. Into this vacuum came three new political figures, all veteran communists. They quickly became major spokesmen for the new democratic trends of the nation.

Gustav Husak, a Slovak, had been head of Slovakia's government from 1946 to 1950. Condemned by Siroky during the Stalinist purges, he was imprisoned for bourgeois nationalism. Finally freed, he was restricted to work as a historical researcher. A week after Dubcek's election, Husak published an article in the Slovak periodical Kulturny Zivot that called for genuine democracy guided by the citizens of Czechoslovakia.

Josef Smrkovsky, who had been a leading Communist who helped to direct the uprising at the end of World War II, had also been purged. He had later been politically and judicially rehabilitated, and was already a member of the Central Committee and Minister of Forestry and Water Economy in Premier Lenart's cabinet when Novotny fell. Smrkovsky published and article in the trade-union daily Prace on 21 January. He called for the administration to execute the will of the people, not vice versa, and for the truth to be told to the population. He also called for decisions to be made and conflicts to be resolved democratically.

The third, Eduard Goldstuecker, a Jew, had been convicted of "Zionism." Also a victim of the purges, Goldstuecker had been an envoy to Israel before he was arrested and "confessed" to being a spy and a traitor. Rehabilitated, he became a Deputy Rector and professor of German literature at Charles University. Goldstuecker was elected Chairman of the Writer's Union on 24 January. His Vice Chairmen were Jan Prochazka, writer and dismissed Central Committee alternate member, and Slovak writer Miroslav Valek, head of the Slovak Writer's Union. Goldstuecker, who would become a radio and television star, called for clemency for Jan Benes, serving five years in prison as a victim of the regime's angry reaction to the June revolt at the Writer's Congress.

Conservatives also appeared in the forefront of the political scene during January, most notably Vasil Bilak, who succeeded Dubcek as the Slovak First Secretary. He would become the most conservative of the leaders within the inner circle of the government. Bilak's thinking on subjects such as freedom of the press would have been at home in the Kremlin, and ran completely contrary to Dubcek's.

Drahomir Kolder, a Czech member of the Presidium, also gained importance. Kolder's views too, were in line with Moscow, and earned him much favor with the Kremlin.

Then, on 15 February, Czechoslovak hopes for the future were embodied in an Olympic hockey game. Czechoslovakia faced the undefeated Soviet team during the championship at Grenoble, France. Czechoslovakia had just lost its first game to Canada. Czechoslovakia's defeat of its "fraternal" neighbor five to four elated Czechs and Slovaks nationwide.

The pro-reformists, Communists and non-Communists alike, had almost complete control of the media. Anti-reformists existed in the press as well, but the majority of anti-reformist opposition was created in the high- and middle-echelon bureaucrats and government officials who did what they could to impede change, spread rumors, and make speeches.

An example was the new weekly Literarni Listy, which the Writer's Union received formal permission to publish. Once in print, there was no doubt that the newspaper would be a powerful and eloquent voice for reform. Therefore, conservative officials tried to delay its publication and minimize its influence. When the editors requested a paper allocation sufficient for 150,000 sixteen-page copies a week, they were offered only enough for 50,000 ten-page copies a week. The Writer's Union finally got the paper, but only after the battle which reduced the early impact of Literarni Listy was widely publicized.

By mid-February, hints began to appear in the press that it would be a good time for Novotny to resign as President, but Novotny ignored them. Rumor had it that he was seeing the Soviet Ambassador and hoped to make a comeback. Other positions changed. Conservative Frantisek Havlicek was dismissed as head of the Central Committee's ideology department on 16 February, and replaced by Jaroslav Kozel. Kozel was on record opposing leniency in ideological methods, but perhaps had also reformed, or soon would do so given the example of his predecessor. Havlicek's superior, Jiri Hendrych, remained. Lieutenant General Prchlik, as a reward for warning Dubcek of the possibility of a military coup, was promoted from Chief of the Army Political Administration to head of the Central Committee Eighth Department.

Four days later, Prchlik's successor as head of the Army Political Administration, Major General Egyd Pepych, published an article in Obrana Lidu, the army weekly. His article hinted that a military coup had been planned to save Novotny. Efforts to destroy Novotny politically were underway.

On 1 March 1968, shocking news was published by the Czechoslovak media. Major General Sejna, previously obscure to the Czechoslovak public, had fled Czechoslovakia into Hungary. Sejna, who had ordered the troop movements of December, had been under investigation for the alleged theft of $20,000 worth of grass seed. The General, his 18-year-old son, and his 21-year-old mistress traveled from Hungary, through Yugoslavia, and then to Italy. On 5 March, it was learned that he had defected to the United States, the highest-ranking East Bloc officer to do so since the Cold War began.

More questions were raised as it became known that Sejna had traveled on a diplomatic passport - he had obviously been warned - while authorities were waiting for his immunity as a member of the Federal Assembly to be revoked.

Czechoslovakia's journalists seized the opportunity to exercise their new freedoms, and investigated the Sejna case. Sejna, a former farm laborer with little education, had a skill for making highly-placed friends who could advance his career. One of these was Antonin Novotny, Jr., son of the President.

Stories of misappropriation, fraud, blackmail, and theft from the government surfaced. The scandal took Prague by storm, and Sejna and the younger Novotny quickly came to embody corruption.

Amid the discoveries of Sejna's criminal activities, General Prchlik publicly announced that a tank division had been mobilized to prevent Novotny's loss of power. Since Sejna had been head of the Main Party Committee of the Ministry of Defense - the very organization accused of trying to influence the Central Committee at the height of effort to remove Novotny - it became quite clear to the public that Sejna was involved in the plans for a coup.

As a government investigation began, Colonel General Janko shot himself once in the chest, was revived, and then shot himself again, this time fatally - as good as a confession to the people of Czechoslovakia. Sejna, in the United States, denied the charges against him.

Novotny's chances for a political comeback died amid the scandals. Neither Novotny nor his son refuted the accusations or made an effort to state their case. General Bohumir Lomsky, Defense Minister, did appear on television to deny that he knew anything about the plot, but said nothing about Novotny. The country's verdict was: guilty.

As Novotny fell, so did those around him. On 5 March, when it was learned that Sejna was in Washington, the Presidium dismissed Jiri Hendrych as Central Committee Secretary in charge of party ideological affairs, and replaced him with Josef Spacek - the liberal head of the Brno Party organization. Interior Minister Josef Kudrna apologized to Prague's students on 12 March and made major concessions to their demands, including the use of badges to facilitate claims against police. That same day, the three top trade union leaders resigned.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Vaclav David was publicly criticized on 13 March by the Ministry's Communist Party cell. Michal Chudlik, a Novotnyite Politburo member, resigned as Chairman of the Slovak National Council on 14 March. That day, the Federal Assembly passed a vote of no confidence against Interior Minister Kudrna and Prosecutor General Jan Bartuska. President Novotny himself relieved Prosecutor General Bartuska and Interior Minister Kudrna from their posts on 15 March. Novotny's support fell away at an increasing pace, and rallies demanded Novotny's resignation.

It came just one week later. On 22 March, Prague Radio announced that Novotny had stepped down as President for "health reasons."

Alarmed at the ouster of Novotny, the Soviet leadership hurriedly convened a pact summit in Dresden, East Germany, on 23 March. All member states attended the one-day meeting except Romania. Dubcek presented his plans to the Soviet Bloc leaders. Brezhnev, Kosygin, and Suslov were in attendance. By this time, it was apparent to all that it was too late to slow the reforms. Dubcek conceded that the press had gotten out of control, but assured the pact leadership that the reforms would be reigned in. By appearing at the summit and defending his positions, however, Dubcek had all but conceded that the pact had the right to intervene in internal political affairs. Dubcek returned from Dresden and asked the press to play down the reforms, but it was too late.

During the week following the Dresden summit, attention turned to the election of a new president. Three leading candidates emerged: Ludvik Svoboda, Josef Smrkovsky, and Cestmir Cisar.

Cisar, with a reputation as a liberal, found support among the youth and students. But, Cisar had been all but banished to Bucharest as the ambassador to Romania. Intellectuals favored Smrkovsky as a strong advocate of democracy. During the campaign, East German ideologist Kurt Hager attacked Smrkovsky as serving West German interests. The Czechoslovak Foreign Minister called the East German Ambassador before him to demand an apology for this interference in internal domestic affairs. Hager's actions gave Smrkovsky an unexpected boost in his candidacy.

Svoboda, now a retired general, was an obscure Lieutenant Colonel who had fled Hitler's takeover when he was selected to head the Czechoslovak troops fighting alongside the Red Army in the Ukraine. He got to know Nikita Khrushchev during the war. He was a non-partisan Defense Minister under Benes, but when he took no move to use his troops when the Communists seized power in 1948, he gave tacit assent to the coup. In spite of his Soviet decorations and past contributions to the Soviet Union, he was imprisoned in the Stalinist show trials of the 1950s. He became a bookkeeper on a collective farm after being released, until Khrushchev visited Prague and asked to see Svoboda. Thus rehabilitated, Svoboda was given a position as head of a military academy. Svoboda had the support of the veterans' organizations, and was the choice favored by the Soviets.

Dubcek knew that he had to placate Moscow. He also knew he must offer something to the Czechoslovak populace. Therefore, all three candidates received top posts.

The presidential nomination went to Svoboda on 30 March. Smrkovsky was appointed to the Presidium, and Cisar became a Party Secretary with responsibility for education and culture.

The students were not satisfied and marched in support of Cisar. Appearing at the KSČ headquarters at midnight, they shouted for Dubcek, who was summoned from home. He answered the students questions and reassured them. He revealed to them that Gustav Husak would become a Deputy Premier. Dubcek did not satisfy the students, however. They staged a sit-in two days later when the Federal Assembly met to approve Svoboda's nomination.

Throughout the month of April, suicides among hardliners and StB members increased as the hopelessness of their situation became more and more evident.

The body of Dr. Jozef Brestansky, Vice President of the Supreme Court, was found hanging in a woods near Prague in early April. Brestansky had been involved in the rehabilitation of those unjustly convicted during the Stalinist purges. He apparently feared the discovery of the fat that he had also approved unjustified sentences during that period.

During the rest of April, suicides averaged one per day, mostly among members of the StB who had been linked to the brutality of the 1950s. Dr. Josef Sommer, a doctor involved in torture at the infamous Ruzyne Prison in Prague, hanged himself in his Prague apartment. One of Sommer's victims in the 1950s was General Josef Pavel, who had become the Minister of Interior at the time of Sommer's suicide.

Not all of the hardliners gave up so easily. The Central Committee met in late March and early April, where the conservatives counterattacked. Bohus Chnoupek denounced the rightist excesses in the country and issued a veiled threat of counter-demonstrations or worse. Chnoupek's vehement speech was quoted in the Moscow Pravda article about the meeting.

The liberals pushed for an extraordinary congress, so that the large number of Novotnyites left in the upper ranks of the leadership could be replaced. This effort was prosecuted via the mass media, with meetings and man-in-the-street interviews carried live on radio and television. A popular movement to remove the Communist Party's leading role - constitutionally guaranteed - grew rapidly.

Many new groups appeared, with the potential to wield extensive political power. One of these, Club 231, was established on 31 March. This group of approximately 3,000 former political prisoners, named their organization after the article of the penal code under which they had been convicted. They spoke publicly of their persecution, torture, and imprisonment. The group demanded rehabilitation and compensation for their treatment.

On 2 April, in the Prague weekly Student, philosopher Ivan Svitak demanded an investigation into the death of Jan Masaryk. Svitak cited evidence that Masaryk had not jumped to his death, but had been thrown out of that window in the Czech tradition of defenestration. Material had been found linking a Major Schramm, who later became a liaison officer between Czechoslovak and Soviet security forces, to the case. Suspicions turned to Soviet involvement. The next day, the Czechoslovak State Prosecutor announced that he would open an investigation.

A further attack on Moscow came when Karol Bacilek, former Minister of National Security and former First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party, declared that the entire staged Slansky trial had been ordered by Stalin. He claimed that Anastas Mikoyan, then a respected elder statesman in Moscow, had come from Moscow to order Klement Gottwald to stage the trial. It was reported that 26 Soviet advisers helped orchestrate the affair. The allegations of Mikoyan involvement implicated other Soviet leaders who had served under Stalin as well.

In the midst of these controversies, Dubcek sought middle ground. He maintained that the needed changes should be implemented through a reformed Communist Party. His goal, he announced, was to form a socialist democracy fitting the needs of contemporary Czechoslovakia - socialism with a human face.

The Central Committee met, and elected a new Presidium. Those who had supported Novotny in December were removed. So too, were Jiri Hendrych, now compromised, and the aged Jaromir Dolansky, who had requested retirement. Ota Sik, an extreme liberal, was denied a posting. Josef Boruvka, a liberal collective farm chairman, was not reelected. Of eleven elected, only three were "hard-core" liberals: Josef Smrkovsky, Josef Spacek, and Frantisek Kriegel. Dubcek himself and Deputy Premier Oldrich Cernik were centrists. There were six conservative Presidium members: Frantisek Barbirek, chairman of the Slovak National Council; Vasil Bilak, Slovak Communist Party head; Drahomir Kolder, a Central Committee Secretary; Jan Piller, Deputy Minister of Heavy engineering; Emil Rigo, head of the Party organization in the East Slovak Iron Works; and Oldrich Svestka, editor of Rude Pravo. The three candidate members - factory manager Antonin Kapek, Premier Jozef Lenart, and Prague party chief Martin Vaculik - were even more conservative.

Changes were necessary in Premier Lenart's government, as well. In the three months that Slovaks had headed both the KSČ and the state, Czech discontent had risen. Cernik, a Czech, was named Premier. Ota Sik became a Deputy Premier, but without portfolio. Liberals held three key posts: Josef Boruvka, Minister of Agriculture; General Josef Pavel, Minister of Interior; and Miroslav Galuska, Minister of Culture and Information. The most prominent liberal, however, was Josef Smrkovsky, who became Chairman of the Federal Assembly. Lieutenant General Dzur relieved the discredited Lomsky as Minister of Defense. Jiri Hajek, formerly Ambassador to London and Chief Delegate to the United Nations, became Foreign Minister.

The new Action Program, subtitled "The Czechoslovak Road to Socialism," was drafted in early April by a team that was headed by Dubcek and included reformers, moderates, and conservatives. The program was published on 15 April and adopted by the KSČ, and, though containing compromises between the liberals and conservatives, proposed a new, democratic, and national "socialism" adapted to Czechoslovak needs and conditions. The new socialism provided for a democratized National Front and electoral system, and a federalized Czechoslovak republic. Constitutional guarantees would protect freedom of assembly and expression. It clearly stated that the StB should be restricted to defending the country from enemy intelligence agencies, and should not be used against citizens based on their political convictions and opinions. The New Economic Model would be implemented; trade with the west would increase. Despite radically progressive reforms and the rejection of Stalinism, the new Action Program remained committed to communism as a goal and reaffirmed Czechoslovakia's alliance with the Soviet Union and other socialist states.

The censorship of literature and the mass media was abolished. The media moved to support the reformers, and the movement to democratize socialism in Czechoslovakia rapidly gained popular support. What had been a movement confined to the party intelligentsia soon permeated all of society. The defection of Sejna and the reopening of investigations into the death of Masaryk had helped the new government to gain public support. Hard-line conservatives had been isolated. The victims of Stalinist normalization had been rehabilitated. Travel restrictions had been removed.

The openness in Czechoslovakia worried its more conservative neighbors and, most importantly, Moscow. Walter Ulbricht in East Germany began to seal off the East German-Czechoslovak border, canceling tours and banning Volkszeitung, a German-language Prague newspaper from circulation. In Moscow, the Czechoslovak Ambassador was summoned and received a two-hour tirade from Brezhnev. Thinly disguised warnings appeared in the Soviet press.

While Soviet apprehension rose, in the United States there was little notice of the changes in Czechoslovakia. Washington made no comment for three months after Dubcek came to power. The Johnson administration was absorbed in the Vietnam War and failed to appreciate the atmosphere in Prague. Some officials feared any show of support from the United States would increase Moscow's fears. The State Department did not take the one course of action desired by Czechoslovakia - it could not prevail over the private interests whose property claims against Czechoslovakia had caused the United States to veto the repayment of $20 million in Czechoslovak gold seized from the Nazis in World War II. When the State Department finally broke its silence in April, a spokesman said simply that the United States was "watching with interest" the developments in Czechoslovakia. This cautious and minimal gesture did little to represent a surge of interest and sympathy that swept through the informed segments of the American public.

On 3 May, Dubcek, Cernik, Smrkovsky, and Bilak flew to Moscow. It had been hinted earlier that the trip's purpose was to negotiate a long-rumored Soviet hard currency credit of 400 to 500 million rubles, but this did not ease public apprehension. After a one-day trip, a short, uninformative statement was issued, but the public demanded more information. Dubcek and his colleagues prepared an "interview" - questions and answers they themselves selected, and sent it to the media. Dubcek mentioned the economic situation, but also hinted cautiously at the Soviet anxiety over Czechoslovak reforms.

The seriousness of the situation, however, went unmentioned, as did the apparent intent of the Soviet Union to send troops into Czechoslovakia. Dubcek's group had reportedly yielded to Soviet demands to hold large-scale Warsaw Pact maneuvers in Czechoslovakia. They had also met considerable pressure to permanently station Soviet troops within its borders, supposedly to prevent "West German aggression."

On 8 May, Gomulka of Poland, Ulbricht of East Germany, Kadar of Hungary, and Zhivkov of Bulgaria arrived in Moscow to meet with Brezhnev and Kosygin. At the meeting, supposedly to attend celebrations of the twenty-third anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, these leaders actually made policy concerning Czechoslovakia. Ulbricht and Gomulka pushed for a hard and speedy solution - only Kadar asked that Dubcek be given a chance.

As a result, Polish and Soviet troops began to move toward the Polish-Czechoslovak border south of Krakow. Large-scale Warsaw Pact maneuvers had in fact been planned, but then were canceled at Dubcek's request after the Dresden Warsaw Pact meeting in March. Now, instead of the staff and communications elements expected for the previously scheduled staff exercises, the Soviets and Poles deployed tanks, infantry, and broadcasting and jamming equipment.

Soviet editorial pressure continued to increase. Scathing criticism of Masaryk and his "bourgeois republic" appeared in the Soviet press. A Sovetskaya Rossiya attack on Tomas Masaryk on 14 May particularly incensed the Czechoslovak public[3]. Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin arrived in Czechoslovakia on 17 May, ostensibly for a short holiday and an incidental exchange of views on questions affecting both countries, but the implication was clear. Just hours after his arrival, an eight-man military mission headed by the Soviet Defense Minister, Marshal Andrei Grechko, also flew into Prague.

In what would turn out to be an eight-day stay, Kosygin repeatedly met with Czechoslovak officials. During a period of high tensions, Kosygin lounged in Karlovy Vary, a popular tourist attraction known for its spas, acting quite the tourist with no cares in the world. Television crews faithfully recorded his walks and his spa visits. His actions, intended to reassure the Czechoslovak public and project an air of normalcy, had limited success. His negotiations with the Czechoslovak leadership had none.

It was the Czechoslovak media's turn to declare that an "anti-Czechoslovak" campaign had begun in Moscow. The slanderous anti-Masaryk articles prompted uncounted editorial reactions. The question of the Soviet annexation of the Carpatho-Ukraine was again raised. The effects of the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939 on Czechoslovakia were openly debated. KGB manipulation of the purge trials of the 1950s was also openly debated in the press.

At May's Central Committee meeting, Antonin Novotny was expelled from the committee and his KSČ membership was suspended. Six others, who had played a role in the Stalinist purges were also suspended - notably former Premier Viliam Siroky and former Chief Prosecutor Josef Ulvalek. Other conservatives resigned, including former Defense Minister Bohumir Lomsky.

The Action Program was to have been implemented cautiously, under KSČ direction, but popular pressure for immediate reforms threatened party control. Radical and anti-Soviet arguments were openly published in the press. The established political order was threatened as the Social Democrats began to form a separate party and new, unaffiliated political clubs formed.

Limits on religious activities were eased. Religious groups used the new freedoms of the press, and the story of religious persecution under the previous regime became public. Bishop Frantisek Tomasek received permission to travel to Rome, where he met with the exiled Cardinal Josef Beran. Beran had been imprisoned during the era of tight religious control, but was released in 1963 on the condition he leave Czechoslovakia and never return. Lesser Catholic Bishops were allowed to return to their diocese. Under Tomasek's leadership, the Movement for Conciliatory Resurgence grouped Catholics faithful to Rome.

Former political prisoners were granted permission to resume their former occupations. They had previously been restricted to manual labor. Candidates for rehabilitation were considered on a case-by-case basis. Those who were found to have been unjustly convicted would receive 20,000 crowns for each year they were in prison, to be paid 25 percent immediately and the rest over ten years.

Economic reform continued. Western capital investment in joint ventures was sought, and eventual full convertibility for the crown was planned. Heavy industries such as steel would receive less emphasis.

Contacts with foreign countries and non-Soviet Bloc Communist Parties were increased. Italian Communist Party leader Luigi Longo and Yugoslavian Foreign Minister Marko Mikezic visited Prague in May. Both commented approvingly on Czechoslovakia's reforms. Western businesses, in particular those from the United States and West Germany, opened offices in Czechoslovakia; cultural contacts improved.

Party conservatives reacted by calling for the implementation of repressive measures. Dubcek took a moderate line and was able to reemphasize KSČ leadership. He had announced in May that the Fourteenth Party Congress would convene in an early session on 9 September. The congress would enact the necessary legislation to implement the Action Program and federalize the republic. It would also presumably elect a new, more liberal, Central Committee.

Worry increased that conservative forces would be able to slow or halt the momentum of the reforms. Anti-reform rhetoric, with its emphasis on the "anti-socialist threat," had begun quietly in early June with a hardline speech by Alois Indra, which was not published but eventually became widely known. An extreme conservative, with the ironic name of Josef Judas, published an even more alarming article expressing fear for the fate of socialism. Ota Sik responded to Judas' article, alerting a wider section of the populace to the conservative threat. The new openness of the press alarmed many party members and functionaries. In Slovakia, a letter to Pravda by an old communist criticized the recent praise of Masaryk and the criticism of the communist past. This produced responses defending the role of the progressive intelligentsia in criticizing the old order. Such polemic debate and attacks against leaders of both wings, often in the form of "anonymous" letters, cluttered the press and confused the issues.

Soviet and Polish forces arrived in Czechoslovakia for "maneuvers" on May 30. Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian party's First Secretary, and President Tito of Yugoslavia immediately came to the defense of Czechoslovakia. They challenged Moscow's right to intercede in Prague's internal affairs. Ceausescu and Tito stringently opposed the threat of force, and demanded that the Soviet Union let Czechoslovakia set its own course.

As the exercise kicked off in early June, Soviet pressure on Dubcek increased, but Moscow's bullying did not have the intended effect. Quite the reverse, it strengthened Czechoslovakia's independent and nationalistic fervor and rallied the country around its leaders. The position of Dubcek and his reformers was consolidated.

On 19 June, ten thousand members of the People's Militia, the party's armed paramilitary worker's group, gathered at Prague-Ruzyne airport from all over the country to be addressed by Dubcek. Dubcek's intent was to win the group over to the idea of reform from within the KSČ. The meeting, however, quickly became a pro-Soviet, anti-reformist demonstration. The members issued a resolution pledging loyalty to the Soviet Union. Dubcek did gain positive press from the event, but it provided great propaganda value to the Soviets. However, even within the militia and the StB, mainstays of the old regime, support for reforms began to appear.

It was in this volatile setting that Ludvik Vaculik, noted writer, lifelong communist, and candidate member of the Central Committee, published his "Two Thousand Words." The essay appeared simultaneously on 27 June in Literarni Listy, Prace, Zemedelske Noviny, and Mlada Fronta. Written at the request of a number of scholars and scientists, it was signed by seventy people. It expressed the apprehension and anxiety of a large portion of the Czechoslovak public. Vaculik sharply criticized the party's record, but did give it credit for initiating the Action Program. He expressed concern over the conservative elements of the KSČ, and also referred to "foreign forces" that were threatening "to intervene in our development." Though Vaculik stated that only the party had the necessary organization, experienced officials, and program of reform, he called on the people to act at their own initiative and by their own decision.

Dubcek, although he did not refer specifically to the Two Thousand Words, censured the article and, calling for unity, argued that weakening the party would weaken the reform program. Premier Cernik warned of the dangers of extremism from both left and right, and condemned the declaration for agitating both sides. Smrkovsky, in an article called "One Thousand Words," dismissed Vaculik's "political romanticism." Indra went much further, claiming the resolution threatened to break up the party and could create a counter-revolutionary situation.

The resolution sharply divided the populace and the government. Husak, Cisar, and Sik condemned it, others endorsed it. Letters flooded the media, most supporting Two Thousand Words. Though the resolution, being the conception of one, at most several individuals, aroused much unwarranted controversy domestically, it was the reaction of the Soviet Union which was most significant.

The Soviet Union was clearly very alarmed, but confined its reactions to such indirect forms of pressure as troop movements and strident editorials. In Poland and East Germany, the press began a concerted campaign against the Prague leadership.

In the Czechoslovak press, journalists continued to take full advantage of their freedoms, refusing to heed cautions to be discreet. The "war of the press" continued to escalate between the free-speaking journalists of Czechoslovakia and the state-directed editorials of the Soviet Union.

In a series of articles and interviews, Ota Sik explained the decaying state of the Czechoslovak economy to the populace. Almost two-thirds of the nation's machinery was obsolete. The newer machinery did not attain its maximum production due to a lack of skilled workers. In housing construction, Czechoslovakia ranked fourth lowest in Europe. Products of heavy industry were exported at less than their cost to produce. Many goods were produced only to find there was no one to buy them. Quality fell far short of world standards. The agricultural regions' young people had moved to the city; two-thirds of agricultural workers were over 47 years old. Less than half the total output was available for consumption within Czechoslovakia. An average Czechoslovak had to work perhaps ten times longer than a West German to purchase the same item.

All these critical statements, and the economic policies implicitly denounced, applied also to the Soviet Union, but even more so. Czechoslovakia's standard of living was still higher than the Soviet Union's.

On 16 June, nearly six months after Dubcek had come to power, the United States finally made a small gesture to assist Czechoslovakia's economic reforms. Though they did not agree to negotiate the return of the $20 million of Czechoslovak gold held in the United States, the government did decide on 16 June to release $5 million in Social Security and other blocked payments to Czechoslovak citizens. The agreement opened the doors for further negotiations on other issues.

When the Warsaw Pact maneuvers ended on June 30, the Soviet troops remained. The Czechoslovak Defense Ministry initially announced that the withdrawal was halted due to "abnormal traffic conditions."

As July began, the Soviet Politburo had three alternatives. Ideally, Dubcek could be made to deliver on his promises to reign in the reforms and restore proper socialist "discipline." This approach would avoid the worst political and military repercussions for the Soviet Union. Another possibility was an internal coup d'etat removing Dubcek and the reformers from power and restoring a hard-line government. By this time, contingency plans for the third option, direct military intervention, were complete.

Reinforced Soviet, East German, and Polish troops were already in place. Even Kadar in Hungary had been forced to take Moscow's line. The Kremlin was confident that the United States was too involved in racial and youth unrest and the Vietnam War to intervene in Eastern Europe.

In early July it became known that the KSČ had received letters from Moscow and other East Bloc capitals, which expressed grave concerns over recent events and proposed a meeting in Warsaw. The KSČ Presidium politely, but firmly, declined to attend, rejecting any effort toward political or economic pressure violating Czechoslovak sovereignty, but agreed to discussions. The Presidium proposed bilateral talks working toward an eventual broader meeting.

This declination of what was, in fact, a Soviet directive, was a courageous but serious step. The KSČ had never before dared turn down such a Soviet "invitation." This defiance, with thousands of Soviet troops remaining in Czechoslovakia, seems to have been an attempt to regain public confidence lost by the menacing Soviet presence.

Numerous departure dates for the troops were promised; they were accompanied by many "explanations" of why these dates were delayed. Soviet Marshal Ivan Yakubovsky, Warsaw Pact Commander, reportedly told Prague's leaders that he was dissatisfied with the performance of the Czechoslovak troops, and wanted to continue the "maneuvers." When Prague objected to this on the basis that it would delay the harvest, Yakubovsky reportedly said that he had no objection to holding the "allied troops" in Czechoslovakia until fall. At this point, according to the reports, Czechoslovak leaders demanded the withdrawal of the troops.

During their occupation of Czechoslovak territory, the Soviet Army and its vassals practiced its role as invader. Plans were made and tests conducted in how to most efficiently cut communications, silence the media, and introduce a propaganda campaign. These preparations were apparent to astute observers, however, and allowed for the Czechoslovaks to develop countermeasures, albeit to a limited degree.

The Warsaw meeting took place on 14 July, without Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union and its four loyal allies attended. At the end of the two-day meeting, the Warsaw Pact nations drafted a harsh letter to the KSČ which indicated the extent of the differences between Czechoslovakia and its allies. The "Warsaw Letter," as follows[4], appeared in Pravda in Moscow on 18 July, and in Rude Pravo in Czechoslovakia the next day:

"We do not want to interfere in your affairs or infringe your sovereignty, but there are forces in Czechoslovakia trying to take the country out of the socialist camp. We will not agree that the historical achievements of Czechoslovakia should be threatened. We will not permit Imperialism to split the socialist camp from inside or from outside, with or without force. There must be no change in the balance of power. In January we believed that you held the situation in control and would take the way of democratic centralism, but you began to ignore this way, which meant that the leading role of the party was threatened. The word `democracy' is being misused in Czechoslovakia and there are campaigns against honest party workers. The aims of these campaigns are to end the leading role of the party, to undermine socialism, and to turn Czechoslovakia against the other socialist countries. New political organizations are being formed outside the National Front. These are centers of reactionary forces and their aim is to take over power in Czechoslovakia and bring back the bourgeois regime. Antisocialist and revisionist forces have taken power in the press and all the mass media and use it as a tribune for attacks against the Communist Party and also antisocialist demagogy designed to undermine friendship with the Soviet Union and the socialist countries. Many mass media exert real moral terror against those who stand firm against reaction. Even after the plenary session in May the attacks got stronger and stronger. Nobody stood up against them. Only in such a situation could a manifesto like `Two Thousand Words' appear. The manifesto was an open attack on the party and on constitutional power. It was an attempt at anarchy and a platform for counterrevolution.

"The situation is absolutely unacceptable to the socialist countries. The fact that the bourgeois press writes approvingly of developments in Czechoslovakia indicates that the forces of reaction have foreign links. Do you not see this, comrades? Do you think declarations are enough? How can you organize a campaign against the military maneuvers in Czechoslovakia? There is a threat to the vital interests of other socialist countries. Every Communist Party is responsible not only to its own working classes, but to the international working class as well, and we therefore think that the fight against anticommunist forces, which is necessary to save socialism in Czechoslovakia, is not only your fight but ours too. The defense of the working classes and of all workers requires that the following four points be observed:

The letter left no doubt that the KSČ leadership was expected to reimpose censorship, ban new political organizations, and repress the "rightist" forces within the party. If the KSČ wanted independence from Moscow, it could not accept what Dubcek termed "discredited bureaucratic-police methods." Dubcek argued that the Soviet fears were unfounded, that the party's leading role was in no danger, and that freedom of the press need not be curbed. He maintained that the troubles were actually the result of bureaucratic centralism.

Dubcek and the KSČ leaders responded politely, but unequivocally, in a letter from the Presidium. They rejected the Warsaw Pact ultimatum and invited Brezhnev, Gomulka, Ulbricht, Kadar, and Zhivkov for bilateral talks, to discuss not only Czechoslovakia, but the more general issues of the pact. The letter acknowledged certain extremist and negative aspects, but added that the May plenum had already considered these possibilities and had formulated plans to deal with them. It reviewed progress made in recent months and plans for the future. It conceded that the other pact nations had a right to intervene in the affair of a neighbor, but in a verbal exchange of views. The letter also criticized the Warsaw Pact for meeting to judge the policies of one member without its representation. The Soviets attempted to get the Czechoslovak leaders to Moscow, Kiev, or Lvov, but Dubcek refused, perhaps wary of entering the lion's den.

Lieutenant General Václav Prchlik[5], head of the State Administrative Department and chief of the Security Department of the Czech Central Committee, publicly demanded a reorganization of the Warsaw Pact on 15 July. Prchlik said the pact's members should be equal and protected against groupings of other members of the pact, an obvious reference to the Warsaw meeting. He noted that the Warsaw Treaty gave no one country the right to station troops within another without written consent. He also said that the leadership of the pact, in effect completely Soviet with "advisers" from the other nations of the bloc, should be changed, and that top posts rotate between pact countries. This, to the Soviets, amounted to sacrilege. They responded that 145,000 Red Army troops had given their lives to liberate Czechoslovakia in World War II, and repeated their demand to station Soviet troops on the Czechoslovak-West German border.[6]

Brezhnev demanded on 17 July that the Czechoslovaks agree to a meeting to be held two days later between the entire Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party and the entire Presidium of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. He suggested Kosice, a Slovak city 45 miles west of the Soviet border, but the fact that sizable "withdrawing" Soviet forces had converged on the town made Kosice a dangerous place, and the proposal was rejected.

In the 19 July edition of Pravda, two articles provided "evidence" that imperialist and counter-revolutionary forces were ready to overthrow the Czechoslovak government. They claimed that secret Pentagon and CIA documents plotting the coup had been discovered, and that a secret cache of American arms had been found in Czechoslovakia in the Sudetenland.

On 23 July, the Soviet Defense Ministry announced a massive military exercise including most of the Soviet Union's western region, including its borders with Czechoslovakia. The Red Army's reserves mobilized. Soviet Defense Minister Marshall Grechko was recalled from an official visit to Algeria. The Soviet threat of force was obvious. The Czechoslovak leadership sought a compromise, and agreed to talks at Cierna nad Tisou, in eastern Slovakia.

Brezhnev was reluctant to resort to military intervention in Czechoslovakia. Though Dubcek's Action Program proposed a new, democratic, and national socialism - "socialism with a human face" - he had not threatened Czechoslovakia's commitment to the Eastern Bloc. While the Soviet Union closely monitored events, its leadership split into two camps, pro- and anti-interventionist.

Those who favored intervention did so because of what they viewed as a counterrevolutionary situation in Czechoslovakia, and sought the defeat of Dubcek and his fellow reformers. The pro-interventionists included many from Byelorussia and the Baltic Republics, who feared the Czechoslovak example would awaken nationalist sentiment in their republics. They were headed by the Ukrainian party leader, Pyotr Shelest. Bureaucrats who would be responsible political stability and reliability in Soviet cities and for the ideological supervision of the intelligentsia also feared the spread of reformism, and sided with the interventionists. Within the Warsaw Pact, however, only a minority strongly favored intervention. Walter Ulbricht of the German Democratic Republic and Wladyslaw Gomulka of Poland saw liberalism as a threat to their own positions. Romania supported Czechoslovakia, while Hungary remained neutral, but under the control of the Soviets.

Intervention was opposed by those Soviet leaders concerned with international affairs. Premier Aleksei Kosygin knew that armed intervention would threaten the newly-gained detente between the United States and the Soviet Union.[7] Kosygin also wanted to encourage negotiations with West Germany and to prevent a rapprochement between the United States and China. Mikhail Suslov, communist theoretician, feared the reaction of West European communist parties, whose tenets included the concept of independent "national" roads to communism, and were supporting Dubcek's position.

The Soviet Union had accepted the Czechoslovak request for bilateral talks in July at Cierna nad Tisou. But the proximity of this city to the Soviet Union caused apprehension in the Czechoslovak public. There was concern that - like Jan Hus in 1415, who was promised safe passage by Sigismund, then arrested, and finally burned at the stake - Dubcek and his party could meet a similar fate.

The talks at Cierna nad Tisou began Monday, 29 August, and lasted four days, not one day as had been anticipated. No public announcement left the meeting during those four days, leaving the public open to speculation and rumor.

Each morning, a Soviet train crossed from Chop in the Soviet Ukraine to Cierna nad Tisou carrying the Soviet delegation, and each night it returned. The sessions were held in a railwaymens' club refurnished for the occasion. On 31 July, Dubcek and Brezhnev held a long private meeting. That night, a scheduled banquet and a press briefing were peremptorily canceled.

During the talks, Dubcek defended the KSČ's reform program, but also pledged commitment to the Warsaw Pact and COMECON. Among the leaders of the KSČ, however, opinion was divided. Dubcek found support among men such as Josef Smrkovsky, Oldrich Cernik, and Frantisek Kriegel. Conservatives such as Vasil Bilak, Drahomir Kolder, and Oldrich Svestka took up a pro-Soviet stance.

Much of what occurred during the Cierna nad Tisou summit remains a mystery. History is divided on the subject of the Czechoslovak Presidium's performance at the meeting. Some accounts say the Presidium split in the face of Soviet pressure, others say they presented a common front despite their differences.

Brezhnev decided to compromise. The representatives of the KSČ reaffirmed their loyalty to the East Bloc and agreed to curb "antisocialist" tendencies, to prevent the revival of the Social Democratic Party, and to increase control of the press. In return, the Soviets agreed to withdraw the troops stationed in Czechoslovakia since June's maneuvers and to allow the 9 September Party Congress. A Warsaw Pact multilateral summit, consisting of only six of seven member countries since Romania did not attend, was scheduled for 3 August in Bratislava.

On 1 August, in the first public speech after Cierna nad Tisou, President Svoboda gave the impression that a victory had been won; that Czechoslovakia would continue on its present course. The next day, Dubcek spoke, echoing Svoboda's speech. He called the results of the meeting "satisfactory," and praised Soviet "good will." He also hinted that prudence and statesmanship should replace "spontaneous actions and meetings for expressions of various anti-socialist and anti-Soviet sentiments."[8] The lack of hard information about the summit and hints at increased press control disturbed Czechoslovaks.

The 3 August Bratislava meeting lasted only one day. Romania did not attend, leaving the delegates of only six of seven member states - Soviet, Bulgarian, Polish, Hungarian, East German, and Czechoslovak. By signing the Bratislava Declaration, the delegates reaffirmed their countries' commitment and loyalty to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. The communiqué issued after the meeting was in the typical Communist style - open to many interpretations. The six nations proclaimed a relentless and eternal struggle against "bourgeois" ideology and "antisocialist" forces. The Soviet Union announced its intent to intervene if a bourgeois pluralist system threatened a Warsaw Pact country.

Following the Bratislava conference, the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from Czechoslovak territory, but only just outside Czechoslovak borders. Perhaps convinced that armed defense of Czechoslovakia could only cost needless loss of lives and property damage, Dubcek did not mobilize the Czechoslovak army to resist the threatened invasion. While the Soviet Union's armed forces seemed mammoth in comparison to Czechoslovakia's, there had been many instances when even smaller forces had successfully defended against such a large force. The defense of Finland in the "winter war" of 1940-41, Stalin's decision not to invade Yugoslavia during the 1948-53 fight against Tito, and the ongoing Vietnam War all showed that such a defense could be successful. Whether an announced intent to defend itself would have altered Czechoslovakia's fate will remain an unanswered question.

Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia arrived in Prague on 9 August. Plans were under consideration to expand Czechoslovak-Yugoslav trade cooperation. Joint export to third countries, efforts to create a common bi-national bank, the import of Yugoslav workers and construction materials, and Czechoslovak investment in Yugoslavia were considered. Some went as far as to call for the revival of the Little Entente, a pre-World War II military and political alliance that grouped Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania.

The 9 September Party Congress was still scheduled, and pro- and anti-reformists prepared for a confrontation. After the Bratislava conference, it became widely known in Prague that most of Dubcek's opponents would be ousted from the Central Committee, and a "blacklist" was prepared and circulated by the Prague municipal party organization. The anti-reformists, faced with mounting domestic opposition, could not hope to stay in power without Soviet assistance. These elements sought to convince the Soviets that the danger of political instability and "counterrevolution" did indeed exist.

The Central Committee's Information Bureau, headed by Jan Kaspar, prepared an extensive report on the general political situation in Czechoslovakia concerning the upcoming Party Congress. The Kaspar Report concluded that a firm and stable leadership and Central Committee could not be guaranteed as the outcome of the congress. The Party Presidium received the report on August 12, and assigned two of its members, Alois Indra and Drahomir Kolder, to evaluate it for the August 20 session.

Kolder and Indra, both hard-line conservatives, drew predictably alarming conclusions from the Kaspar Report, and are believed to have communicated this to S. V. Cherovnenko, the Soviet ambassador. As the KSČ Presidium convened on 20 August, the anti-reformists were ready to make their bid for power, exploiting the threat of an impending "counterrevolution." Kolder and Indra put forward a resolution proclaiming a state emergency and calling for "fraternal assistance," but their resolution was never put to vote. Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia that same day.

On the night of 20 August, Ruzyne Airport in Prague was, as usual, relatively calm. After a scheduled Polish Airlines flight left for Warsaw, no air traffic was expected for three hours. At 1030 P.M., however, an unscheduled AN24 was expected by special arrangement with the Soviet airline Aeroflot. This was not an uncommon event, and the same plane had in fact come into Prague the day before.

Aboard the plane were more than 100 agents who would prepare the way for a precision airmobile operation. After the plane arrived, a group of the men, some in Red Army uniform, deplaned and drove away. In the terminal's departure lounge, a group of supposed tourists suddenly drew weapons, left two men on guard, and disappeared. Another group arrived in Russian Volga automobiles and went directly to the AN24 on the apron. The "tourists" reappeared, seizing the control tower and shutting down its operation.

The crew in the AN24 then took over traffic control. A constant stream of AN12 heavy transports, accompanied by MIG fighters, flew into Prague at the rate of one per minute, carrying Soviet airborne troops, artillery, and light tanks. The arriving troops secured the airport, marshaled their units, unloaded their equipment, and began to march toward the city. The commander of the Warsaw Pact invasion forces, Soviet Army General Ivan G. Pavlovsky, Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Ground Forces and a Deputy Minister of Defense, established his headquarters. In the Prague suburb of Sporilov, Red Army naval infantry and airborne troops dropped along a new section of highway. Columns of armored vehicles entered the city from the airport. One column went to Hradcany Palace, another surrounded the Central Committee headquarters, and a third went to the Premier's office. Troops secured Wenceslas Square, main roads, and the bridges over the Vltava river.

Similar events played out all over the country. Polish MIGs set up a base at Pardubice airfield. At Hradec Kralove a lone MIG-15 landed, a high-ranking Soviet officer got out, and then refused to give his name or to state the reason for his presence. This became apparent later as forty more MIGs landed, accompanied by helicopters full of Soviet and Polish troops.

The Warsaw Pact forces outside the borders of Czechoslovakia on "exercises" entered the country. By dawn the first of these had reached Prague, joining up with the airborne troops. In all, there were 15 to 20 Soviet divisions, four Polish, two East German, two Hungarian, and one regiment from Bulgaria. There was no resistance.

At 11:30 P.M. on 20 August, the assembled members of the Presidium learned that the troops had entered Czechoslovakia. Dubcek is quoted as saying: "It is a tragedy. I did not expect this to happen. I had no suspicion, not even the slightest hint that such a step could be taken against us . . . I have devoted my entire life to cooperation with the Soviet Union, and they have done this to me. It is my personal tragedy."[9]

Dubcek and his colleagues drafted the Presidium's proclamation on the invasion. Karel Hoffman, Director of Communications, however, tried to prevent its broadcast. His subordinates rebelled. At 1:40 A.M. on 21 August, Czechoslovak Radio began to repeat this bulletin:[10]

"Esteemed listeners, stay at your receivers, wake your friends now, in the night, because in a moment Czechoslovak Radio Prague will be transmitting an extraordinarily important news item . . ."

"Yesterday, 20 August 1968, around 11:00 P.M., the forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Hungarian People's Republic, and the Bulgarian People's Republic violated the national borders of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. This has occurred without the knowledge of the President of the Republic, the Chairman of the National Assembly, the Chairman of the Government, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSČ, and without the knowledge of these organizations. In these hours the Presidium of the Central Committee of the KSČ is meeting and is engaged in the preparation of a Fourteenth Party Congress. The Presidium of the Central Committee of the KSČ urges every citizen of the republic to preserve peace and not to show resistance to the advancing forces, because at this time the defense of our state borders is not possible. Therefore, not even our Army, security forces, and People's Militia have received orders for the defense of our country. The Presidium of the Central Committee of the KSČ considers this act not only a violation of the basic principles of contact between Socialist states, but also a disavowal of the basic norms of international law. All leading functionaries of the party and the National Front remain in their positions, to which they were elected as representatives of the people by the members of their organizations, according to the laws and directives in effect in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. A congress of the National Assembly and the government of the republic is called by the constitutional officials, and the Presidium of the Central Committee of the KSČ summons the Plenum of the party to conduct a discussion of the situation."

The conservatives within the KSČ, however, had not accurately informed Moscow about the true scope and strength of the reform movement. During the night of 20-21 August, the KSČ Presidium met and condemned the invasion, but rejected the option of opposing the invasion militarily. The KSČ Central Committee opposed the Soviet intervention by a two-thirds majority.

It was 7:05 P.M. in Washington when Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin called the White House and was put through to President Johnson's Special Assistant for National Security, Walt Rostow. Dobrynin informed Rostow that he had an important message to be delivered personally to the president. The president, of course, already knew what was happening. Reports and reconnaissance had shown the large-scale refueling of Soviet military transport. NATO Headquarters had presented a West German Intelligence Service report that the large-scale Warsaw Pact Maneuvers were a front for a possible invasion.

Dobrynin arrived at the White House at 8:00 p.m. and entered the cabinet room with President Johnson and Rostow. After the exchange of formal courtesies, Dobrynin read from a long, prepared statement. He informed them that Soviet troops, together with four other Warsaw Pact countries, had entered Czechoslovakia in "fraternal" response to a request by Czechoslovak "party and government leaders." He explained that Communist rule in Czechoslovakia had fallen under heavy attack from counter-revolutionary and anti-socialist forces. The action, he said, was a Soviet internal action, and their own affair.

After Dobrynin left, President Johnson called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council. Officials contacted the American Embassy in Prague and studied intelligence reports. Dobrynin was summoned back to the State Department, where Secretary of State Dean Rusk read the Ambassador a strongly worded American protest.

On 21 August at the United Nations, the Soviet delegate, Yakov Malik, gave the Security Council this statement: "The armed units of the Socialist countries, as is known, entered the territory of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic on the basis of the request of the government of this state, which applied to the allied governments for assistance with armed forces."[11] The news quickly reached all the world's capitals, of course. Strong statements were issued by the United States and other Western nations, and there was much posturing and bluster - none of which, of course, had any effect.

Foreign Minister Jiri Hajek was vacationing in Yugoslavia on 20 August. He was later able to fly to New York to state his country's case before the United Nations. The Soviet Union was able, however, to block a United Nations resolution condemning the invasion.

Somewhat more important to the Soviet Union was the condemnation from fellow communist countries: Romania, Yugoslavia, and Red China. These, however, failed to influence Moscow's course of action. Most surprising was the angry outcry from the strong Western Communist Parties in Italy and France and the unexpected protests in Belgrade and Bucharest, and from sections of the East German population.

By the evening of 21 August, all major cities in Czechoslovakia had been occupied. By the next day, Warsaw Pact troops had made their presence known throughout the country and were in control of most border crossings. The number of troops was estimated at 500,000 during the initial invasion, and would later peak at 650,000 - more than the number of American troops in Vietnam at the time.

The Red Army sent three armies into Bohemia and one into Slovakia. The army invading Slovakia was expected to encounter little resistance. Slovak language and culture were closer to the Russian than was the Czech. Slovak nationalism was thought to have been considerably weakened by the number of its Hungarian, Ukrainian, gypsy, and Jewish minorities. Its population was a mere 4.5 million. Its largest population center and capital, Bratislava, was only a few kilometers from the Hungarian border. Even though Dubcek, a Slovak, was at the forefront of reform, the majority of Slovaks were thought to be conservative and indifferent. It was Vasil Bilak, a hard-line Slovak, who was believed to have advised the Soviets that resistance would be less in Slovakia.

Even if the Soviets had anticipated resistance from the Slovaks, they expected none from the Hungarian minorities. For this reason, the Soviet High Command decided to send Hungarian troops into Roznava, a major Hungarian population center in Slovakia, and assured them a warm reception from their countrymen. Instead of the expected hero's welcome, the Hungarian troops were met with contempt. Food, water, and other facilities, which they had expected as "liberators," were denied them. The Hungarian commander finally went to see the mayor, and they worked out an agreement. The Hungarians were provided with a large technical school that was not in use because the students were on holiday. They could stay there, and would be provided with necessities, on the condition that they, too, obey the curfew. After nightfall the Hungarian troops were locked in the school, and the mayor himself came by each morning to let them out for inspection.

In Bratislava, some sat down in the roads to block the advance of the tanks. They left quickly when it became clear that a few dead bodies would not block their passage. Rationing was introduced as hoarding began. Girls distracted the invading troops with provocative poses and gestures as Slovak youths went among the columns damaging the vehicles and their loads. The fuel tanks on one tank were successfully set alight. Impromptu barricades were placed in front of the tanks, but to little effect. Citizens tried to reason with the troops, but the troops, though perplexed, could only answer that they were obeying orders.

The Soviet intervention gave the Czechoslovak population an almost unanimous purpose - opposition to the Soviet interference. While the public complied with Svoboda's warning against acts that might provoke violence, it began a massive campaign using many forms of passive resistance. A symbolic one-hour general work stoppage took place on 23 August. Popular opposition most often took form in spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistance.

Everywhere in the republic, instead of the anticipated armed resistance, Warsaw Pact soldiers faced arguments and reproaches. The invaders saw no sign of the "counterrevolutionary forces" they had been sent to eliminate. They had not been prepared to learn the truth that the local population had not invited their "fraternal assistance." They had not been prepared to "restore socialism" to a country with a higher standard of living than their own.

The populace denied the invaders any form of assistance. Food and water were withheld, and sources the Soviets established for themselves were sabotaged. No matter where a Soviet soldier looked, he saw signs, banners, and graffiti which left no doubt as to the public's opinion of his presence. The captions and slogans denounced him, his leaders, and suspected collaborators. Pictures of Dubcek and Svoboda appeared everywhere.

Throughout Czechoslovakia patriots began a successful campaign to deprive the invading troops of even knowledge about their location. Towns and cities tore down their signs and renamed themselves; the city of Lidice was recreated all over the country, and many towns renamed themselves "Dubcek" or "Svoboda." Common town names replaced distinctive ones and the Red Army, forced to rely on poor maps and even poorer land navigation skills, often found itself forced to ask for directions, which were - of course - equally unreliable.

Reporters filed stories of amazing acts of defiance. Soviet tanks were bombarded with flour bombs, decorated with swastikas, and their gunsights were blocked with chalk. One youth rammed a pole bearing a Czechoslovak flag down the muzzle of a tank's main gun. A young girl crawled beneath a line of Soviet troops with fixed bayonets, drew a swastika on a tank, and crawled back out.

Warsaw Pact troops were under orders to show restraint. They avoided Czechoslovak military garrisons and left small towns alone, stationing themselves outside them. In large cities they deployed in parks.

A first priority for the invasion force, of course, had been the neutralization of the Czechoslovak army. This task proved easy, as the military obeyed the policy of nonresistance decided on by the Czechoslovak leadership. The Defense Minister, General Dzur, had decreed that Czechoslovak troops would take orders only from President Svoboda. Czechoslovak troops became prisoners in their own barracks, but they were not disarmed - on the orders of the Warsaw Pact command. After three weeks, the Soviet troops surrounding the Czechoslovak army garrisons withdrew, leaving behind suspicions, bad blood, and feelings of betrayal.

Considering the tenseness of the situation, most of the Soviet troops showed remarkable restraint. But this discipline was sometimes breached, resulting in bloodshed. Bitterness turned to hate.

In Bratislava, students gathered at the university to watch the tank columns. One, a fifteen-year-old student nurse, watched as a crowd hurled abuse, and then stones, at the troops. Suddenly a shot was fired at the crowd, and the girl fell dead. The crowd reacted violently; more shots were fired. Four more died. Throughout the invasion, about seventy people were killed and 1,000 wounded in such incidents.

Outside the Prague Radio building, resistance turned violent. Buses and streetcars were used as barricades against the tanks. Molotov cocktails and flaming rags were used to set several tanks and vehicles on fire. Youths climbed on the invading tanks, stuffed tin cans down their barrels, and painted graffiti on them. Anything that was not nailed down was thrown at the invaders. The tanks eventually occupied the Radio Prague building, but, as we shall see later, could not silence the free voice of Czechoslovak Radio.

Wenceslas Square was another center of resistance. Political discussions filled the square, leaflets were disseminated, and posters covered every surface and filled every window. It was here, too, that the one-hour national strikes were most apparent, as sirens and car horns announced their start and all traffic came to a halt.

In the small village of Upa, the population formed a human chain across the bridge to block a Soviet convoy. They held from 6:30 A.M. until 3:00 P.M., when the Soviets gave up and turned back.

Another tale told of a Soviet freight train - number 5599 - that was carrying direction finding equipment to locate clandestine radio and television stations. One such radio station broadcast an appeal to all railwaymen to find a way to prevent the train from reaching Prague. Later that day, the station announced that the train had gained only 20 miles from its departure point before it was stopped.

In Bratislava, another effective form of passive resistance was found. Bored of staring down their invaders or attempting to sway them with political dialogue, young Slovaks searched out all the pornographic material they could find in the city. They offered this to the Soviet troops freely. Some troops accepted, others maintained their discipline and refused. For these troops, the crowd displayed the pornography so that they could not avoid it. The Soviet commander, when he learned of this, ordered the soldiers into their armored vehicles with the hatches closed, with their observation to be conducted through the vehicles' periscopes. The crowd quipped that after several days of abusing the Czechoslovak population, the soldiers were no doubt abusing themselves. To add insult to injury, they immediately taped up the vision devices, leaving the Soviets blind and immobilized.

When Soviet Colonel Kovalyov was ordered to occupy the Bratislava "Hrad," or castle, he also faced effective resistance. One of the senior officials of the museum approached him, asking to check on the exhibits. Wanting to be seen as a protector of Slavic culture, he readily agreed, and dispatched a lieutenant to escort the official. The exhibits were fine, and the official managed to "misplace" his escort. He went to the cellar and shut off the water main. Similar events took place all over Bratislava, and the Soviets find themselves faced with the results of the resistance slogan, "Not even a drop of water for the occupiers." The Colonel had fresh water flown in by helicopter for his staff, from Hungary.

"Friendly" Czechoslovaks would warn the Soviet soldiers that the local water supplies had been tainted by counterrevolutionaries, and was not potable. The troops would resort to collecting rainwater, or taking water from the Danube, which was quite polluted by the local industry.

As Czechoslovak nationals and Western tourists began to make their way outside the borders of their country, unrestricted by the Soviets, who felt that in this manner they could rid themselves of troublesome and dissident elements, the press began to work its way in to report on the situation.

One such journalist was Murray Sayle[12]on the first plane and drove to the Znojmo border crossing. A throng of people was leaving Czechoslovakia, and the Border Guards were quite surprised to find Westerners seeking admission to the country. Only 20 kilometers from the border, Sayle met the first Soviet convoys. The convoy, made up of armored personnel carriers and towed artillery, was lost. The signposts had been removed.

In Havlickuv Brod, Sayle came upon a makeshift roadblock of farm wagons. The occupants were busy painting over road signs and putting up posters. Once the locals learned of his mission, he was provided with a guide who took him via side roads to Prague.

Coming through the main parts of Prague, tanks were stationed at all important sites and crossroads. Wenceslas Square was strewn with wreckage. The National Museum was covered with bullet scars and many of its windows had been shot away. Sayle saw burned-out Soviet tanks being towed away. The Czechoslovak police stood aside as the crowds expressed their hatred toward their "liberators." Signs and posters rapidly proliferated - "Wake up Lenin, Brezhnev has gone mad," "Leonid, send ten more tanks - twenty more counterrevolutionaries arrived here today," and "Peace, Unity, and Steady Nerves," and "Dubcek - Svoboda."[13] These were accompanied by signs commemorating those who had fallen to the guns of the occupiers.

Though the Soviets "searched" the offices of the mass media - newspapers, radio, even the Writers' Union - they had not come prepared to take over the roles of the uniformed and plainclothes police, and could not hope to enforce their rule or control the underground press and clandestine broadcasters.

Even the members of the StB contested possession of their headquarters and its extensive personal files with the Soviet KGB. It was not until 24 August that the Soviets gained access to the building, only to discover that the files, with their lists of names, informants, and suspects, had been removed.

During this conflict, 15 StB members supposedly disappeared, who according to the Czechs were arrested by the Soviets, who then denied having them.

The true heroes of the period, however, were the members of the mass media - specifically, radio and television. Their resistance, guided by the knowledge gained when the Soviets "practiced" their occupation in July, inspired the Czechoslovak people and raised their spirits. Though the Soviets tried repeatedly to silence their clandestine transmitters, they failed, utterly.

In what was probably the world's first clandestine television service, newscasts and interviews with prominent politicians kept the public informed. While radio concentrated on direct news, television took up the editorial offensive.

The Soviet efforts to silence the television broadcasts were frustrated through several means. The studios and broadcasting centers were spread out all over Prague. The first Soviet troops occupied a studio just hours after the invasion, and tried to convince the director to run the studio for them. He refused, and later escaped.

Soviet soldiers would occupy a television studio and hack away with wire-cutters, ignorant of which wires they should cut. Stories circulated of teams who occupied one such studio, cut numerous wires, and then settled down to sleep, unaware that the station was still broadcasting emergency news programs.

Mobility prevented detection. The television crews moved from one secret location to another - from studios to cinemas, and then on to factories to keep their subscribers informed. An Interior Ministry official, Jan Zaruba, committed suicide rather than provide the Soviets evidence on the locations of the transmitters. Radio equipment was borrowed from the military, transmitted on the same frequencies they had used before the invasion, and featured the same voices. Tapes were delivered for the broadcasts by volunteers and youth groups.

The invaders countered with their own radio broadcasts. One such was Radio Vltava. These transmissions came, not from anywhere near the Vltava river in Prague, but from Karl Marx Stadt in East Germany. Their only broadcasters were a woman who spoke Slovak, rather than Czech, and a male who struggled with Czech in a heavy Russian accent for the first days, but eventually gave up and broadcast in Russian. Radio Vltava used news from official TASS and Pravda sources. Such obvious propaganda did not have much effect, and Radio Vltava, along with the occupation newspaper Zpravy, quickly outlived their usefulness. Radio Vltava went off the air one week after the invasion began.

The Soviet Union had hoped the Presidium would meet the evening of the invasion, oust First Secretary Dubcek and Premier Cernik, and replace them with Presidium member Drahomir Kolder and Party Secretary Alois Indra, respectively. Kolder and Indra would be the "government" which had requested Soviet "assistance." Alois Dubcek and Cernik could then be tried for "treason" and executed.

The extent of the general public's resistance forced the Soviet Union to reconsider this plan. During a Presidium meeting on 20 August, however, The plotters in the Presidium were unable to depose Dubcek. There was an increased chance of anarchy. None of the Soviet Union's attempts to find quislings to lead a puppet government succeeded.

The Soviets' alternate plan called for intervention by pro-Soviet leaders in Prague, who would have used CTK to broadcast the appeal for "assistance." This plan also failed. Miroslav Sulek, head of CTK, was assigned the task, but when he tried to transmit the document, his teletype operators refused.

The final option was to seize the liberals and force President Svoboda to confirm a Soviet-approved government. The "requesters" of the "assistance" were never identified.

Dubcek, Cernik, Smrkovsky, and many of their colleagues were arrested just hours after the invasion began. They were flown to Slovakia and imprisoned in a barn near Sliac, with a Soviet guard. Dubcek later said that he was certain that they would not live.

President Svoboda refused to give constitutional sanction to a coup. He demanded that the legitimate government be restored. The Soviet attempt to silence the Czechoslovak press was defeated. The Soviet final option failed, and the political cost and international repercussions of the invasion were escalating.

Svoboda feared a complete Soviet military dictatorship if outright defiance continued, and wondered what could be done. Perhaps a compromise government could be found.

On 22 August, a small group of conservatives met under Soviet military protection, but could not agree among themselves who should be their new leader. Eventually, Kolder, Indra, and Vasil Bilak formed a directing trio.

The same day, the underground free members of the KSČ secretly held a Party Congress at the huge CKD factory in Prague, guarded by the People's Militia. They elected a new liberal leadership headed by Dubcek. Professor Venek Silhan, an economist, was deputized to act in his stead until Dubcek could return to his duties. They passed a resolution proclaiming loyalty to Dubcek's Action Program, denouncing Soviet aggression, and demanding withdrawal of the troops. It called for a general strike if the troops did not withdraw. The Congress had one drawback - most Slovak representatives were unable to attend.

At 7:00 A.M. on 23 August, in his official residence in Hradcany castle, Svoboda met with the Soviet Ambassador, S. V. Cherovnenko. Cherovnenko told Svoboda that the Kremlin wanted him to go to Moscow, provided that he took some of the hardliners, including Bilak and Indra, with him. Defense Minister Dzur, Piller, Husak, and Kucera also accompanied Svoboda.

They were greeted at Vnukovo Airport with banners, Czechoslovak flags, and a 21-gun salute. Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev, Premier Alexei Kosygin, and President Nikolai Podgorny greeted Svoboda and his companions in their first public appearance since the invasion. They made their way in a motorcade through Moscow streets crowded with spectators and lined with banners lauding "Soviet-Czechoslovak friendship."

Arriving at the Kremlin, talks began immediately. Svoboda refused to negotiate unless Dubcek was also present. Talks adjourned for the night, and the Czechoslovak delegation was housed within the Kremlin.

The talks continued the next morning. Dubcek, Cernik, and Kriegel had been flown to Moscow. Dubcek and Cernik were driven to the Kremlin to join the talks, but Kriegel, a Jew, was denied participation. Brezhnev, having failed to install a new government, proposed several ideas.

One was the "Polish variant" which entailed a permanent Soviet military presence, internal independence (so long as it complied with the interests of the Soviet Bloc), rigid control of the media and communications, and strict supervision of Czechoslovakia's intellectuals.

Brezhnev also threatened the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Its lands would be absorbed by the Soviet Union and resettled by Soviet citizens. Its people would be integrated into the Soviet Union.

Dubcek, Svoboda, and their companions were powerless. They had no real choice but to accept the Soviet ultimatum, being unable to bargain for their country - or for their lives.

The Moscow Protocol allowed Dubcek to remain in power for a time, even though the Soviet leaders disagreed with his policies. Dubcek was told that Czechoslovakia would have to renounce all credits from capitalist countries, reimpose censorship, purge foreign correspondents from Prague, tighten control of the media, cool off relations with Romania and Yugoslavia, and eradicate the newly friendly relationship with West Germany. The KSČ was to be strengthened and the Social Democratic Party suppressed.

Svoboda left the Kremlin that night to fly back to Prague. He was accompanied by Dubcek and Cernik, but Doctor Kriegel was missing. Svoboda refused to leave without him. When Kriegel, who had been labeled as a "Jew from Galicia" and was also a diabetic requiring insulin treatment, arrived, it was apparent that he had been tortured. He could not speak or write coherently, and did not regain his faculties for several days. Indra did not return with them. He had reportedly suffered a heart attack when told by Moscow that he would have to return to the country he had betrayed. He did not return to Prague until late September.

The leadership of Czechoslovakia's thwarted Prague Spring, the creators of "socialism with a human face," returned to Prague physically, mentally, and morally exhausted.

When the invasion began, Deputy Premier Sik was in Belgrade, as were Foreign Minister Jiri Hajek, Minister of Economic Planning Frantisek Vlasak, Minister of Public Works J. Trokan, and the President of the Czechoslovak State Control Commission, Stefan Gasparik. Before leaving Belgrade, an appeal was signed urging the world's Communist Parties to assist the Czechoslovak party and people. Sik, Vlasak, and Gasparik were in Bucharest two days later to hold talks with Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu.

Pravda published a blacklist on 24 August, in which Sik was named an economic heretic. Sik, a Jew, had more to fear than repercussions from his "heresy," however, as evidenced by the treatment Kriegel received at the hands of the Soviets. Sik resigned as Deputy Premier soon after the Moscow Protocol. Tass announced his resignation in Pravda and Izvestia on 5 September, denouncing Sik as a close ally of the counterrevolution. The articles accused him of meeting in Belgrade with Jiri Hajek, Novotny's Minister of Education and Dubcek's Foreign Minister until 19 September, to prepare a government-in-exile.

The Soviet denunciation of Sik produced a daring response from some of Czechoslovakia's leading economists, who defended Sik publicly in the 16 September edition of Prague's Pravda. It was too late, however, to save Doctor Sik or his reforms.

In the meantime, passive resistance continued in Prague, but apprehension grew. The people did not know when, or if, their leaders would return from Moscow, and none knew the fate of Dubcek and the others arrested on 20 August. What would the final result be?

They left Moscow on 26 August. When they arrived in Prague at 4:00 A.M., they went directly to the Central Committee building. They had very limited choices: resign, and perhaps the Kremlin would find willing puppets to lead the government; or face the population with the news of the Moscow Protocol and try to gain their help in carry on as best they could.

They chose to stay. The media were given off-the-record briefings of the agreement. Once this information got out, many liberal writers, professional men, and members of the intelligentsia left the country.

The Federal Assembly was informed of the text of the agreement, including these points:

The realization of the decisions of Cierna nad Tisou, apparently referring to decisions that were not publicly announced.

The invading troops would withdraw, subject to Czechoslovak compliance with the terms of the agreement.

Two Soviet divisions would be permanently stationed along the West German border.

The reform program begun in January 1968 would continue, but controls would be imposed on information and the media.

A loan would be provided by the Soviet Union to pay for the damages caused by the invasion.

That Czechoslovak representatives remove the matter of the invasion from the agenda of the United Nations Security Council.

The Soviets refused to recognize the extraordinary Congress of the KSČ held on the first days of the invasion, or the deputies elected there. This meant that they did not recognize Dubcek as the First Secretary of the party, and placed his political future in the hands of the following Congress.

Later that morning, President Svoboda broadcast to the Czechoslovak people. Speaking slowly, formally, and solemnly, he told them that moral and intellectual resistance was their last resort. He said that bloodshed had to be avoided at all costs. He knew that the time when an unarmed populace could overthrow a modern army was past, and that the sort of carnage that would result would serve no purpose.

The atmosphere in Prague slowly turned from one of courageous defiance to gloom and foreboding, then, finally to disillusionment. Some - the older, perhaps, who could remember the hopelessness of Hungary - knew such a compromise was inevitable, but the young were enraged.

Then, three hours later, Dubcek spoke. Often overcome with emotion, he pleaded with his fellow citizens to keep faith, to maintain public order, and avoid provocation. This was the only way to rid Czechoslovakia of her occupiers - to speed "normalization." Dubcek spoke from Hradcany; the regular studios were still silent. The Soviets were forced to rely on the clandestine radio stations, which they had not been able to silence, to carry his speech. They could not very well let Dubcek broadcast from the discredited Radio Vltava.

The public was not convinced. This apparent capitulation brought thousands into the streets. They marched on the Federal Assembly. Demonstrators tore down and ripped apart portraits of Dubcek and Svoboda. The demonstrations brought Soviet tanks back into the streets, as conflict began anew. The deputies of the Federal Assembly appealed to the crowd to restrain itself, as did the media. Violence was averted.

[1] Harry Schwartz, Prague's 200 Days (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969) 42.

[2] Harry Schwartz, Prague's 200 Days (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969) 43.

[3] On the same day the attack on Masaryk appeared, Czechoslovak officials announced that one of Prague's main streets would be renamed after Masaryk.

[4] Colin Chapman, August 21st: the Rape of Czechoslovakia (Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1968)

[5] It was General Prchlik who warned Dubcek in December of plans for a military coup.

[6] On 25 July, Prchlik was relieved from his post, suppposedly due to the scheduled abolition of his department; in truth, this was probably a concession to Moscow.

[7] Progress in detente in 1968 had resulted in a Soviet-American Consular Agreement, completion of a long-awaited nuclear proliferation treaty, and regular air travel between New York and Moscow.

[8] Harry Schwatrz, Prague's 200 Days (New york: Frederick A. Praeger Pub, 1969)

[9] Harry Schwartz, Prague's 200 days (New York: Frederick A. Praeger Pub, 1969)

[10] Jiri Dienstbier, et al., Srpen 1968 (Prague: Vydavatelstvi a Nakladatelstvi Prace, 1990)

[11] Harry Schwartz, Prague's 200 Days (New York: Frederick A. Praeger Pub, 1969)

[12] Colin Chapman, August 21st: the Rape of Czechoslovakia (Philadelphia and New York, .. Lippincott, Co., 1968)

[13] Jindrich Marco, Soudruh Agresor (Prague: Mlada Fronta, 1990)

Last update: 08/05/2006
Last update: 08/05/2006
		III. A Revolution Dies "This nation's history in past centuries is a history of slavery. Except for two short intervals, we were condemned to creating our national existence illegally. Indeed, several times we were on the brink of extinction . . . the moment has arrived when, after centuries, our country has again become the cradle of hopes, and not only of our hopes. The moment has come when we can prove to the world that socialism is the only true alternative for all civilized mankind. "We expected that all members of the socialist camp particularly would welcome this fact with sympathy. Instead, we are being accused of treason. We are handed ultimatums by comrades who continue steadily showing their ignorance of our evolution and our situation. We are accused of crimes we did not commit. We are suspected of intentions we do not have and never had. "The threat of an unjust punishment hangs over us. And whatever shape it may assume, it may rebound like a boomerang also on our judges, destroy our effort and - above all - leave a tragic blot on the idea of socialism anywhere in the world for years to come." - Pavel Kohout, in a Literarni Listy article - 26 July 1968 The Reform Movement Novelist Ladislav Mnacko and other dissidents gained control of the Second Writer's Congress in April and elected a liberal Presidium, but their short-lived rebellion was suppressed and the conservatives were reinstated. Mnacko wrote openly of the intricately detailed police dossiers kept on each citizen, and advocated that they be publicly burned. He wrote of a huge iron and steel combine that had been begun in Slovakia, at huge investment, and then abandoned, and the innocent people imprisoned as scapegoats for the affair. He appealed to his fellow writers and journalists to become the public's conscience, but the time was not yet right. The populace was still very much under the control of the Stalinists and the StB. On May Day, student demonstrations in Prague and Bratislava demanded freedom of speech and access to the Western press. These actions resulted in a backlash from the Novotny regime, which moved the country into a period of neo-Stalinism. The 1958 KSČ Party Congress reaffirmed and formalized Stalinism. During the early 1960s, Czechoslovaks were disaffected with their social, political, and economic climate. The economy slowed seriously, with the lowest industrial growth in Eastern Europe and food imports straining the balance of payments. Czechoslovakia's standard of living started to lag. Pressure to reform came both from Moscow and from within the KSČ. In 1963 openly critical articles by reform-minded communist intellectuals began to appear. Criticism soon proliferated, first directed against economic policies, but later spreading to party bureaucracy and ideological conformity. The leadership of the KSČ had no choice but to respond. It reviewed the purge trials of 1949-54 and rehabilitated some of the victims. Younger Communists, with more liberal views, replaced some of the hardliners at the top levels of government. In September 1963, Premier Vilam Siroky was replaced by Jozef Lenart. The KSČ formed committees to review economic policy. In 1965, Ota Sik, an economist, theoretician, and former Director of the Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, sought formation of a New Economic Model. His program, which the KSČ approved, sought to revitalize the economy through a second, intensive stage of economic development that emphasized technological and managerial improvements. It limited central economic planning to determining overall production and investment indexes as well as price and wage guidelines, and included management personnel in decision-making. Production would be driven by the realities of the market and profitability, and prices would be based on supply and demand. Incentives would be based on profit criteria instead of planned production. Wage differentials were to be introduced. Sik's New Economic Model, however, went against Moscow's rigid thinking. Concurrently with the debate over economic reform came discussion of political and legislative reform. This centered around a means to introduce a system of political pluralism within a one-party state. Michael Lakatos, a Slovak legal philosopher, led this discussion. He stressed the importance of interest groups to generate healthy conflict and debate over issues concerning society. Despite what could have been regarded as heresy in Moscow, he received cautious support from some high-ranking officials. The economic reform program should have gone into effect in January 1967, but Novotny and the conservatives moved to block its implementation. The measure stalled as amendments were introduced to reinforce central control. Those who felt threatened by the new program responded by trying to sabotage the reforms and retain as much of the old system as possible. Pressure to enact the legislation increased from reformists in every sector. In December, 1965, the KSČ published its "Theses" as a response to the call for political reform. The principle of democratic centralism was redefined with more emphasis on democracy. The KSČ retained its leading role, but with limits, and the National Assembly was to receive increased legislative responsibility authority. Slovakia's executive and legislative bodies, the Board of Commissioners and SNR, were to participate actively in the central government's planning and take responsibility for implementing programs in the region. Government administration at all levels from federal to local would receive more authority and limited autonomy within their jurisdictions. The KSČ agreed not to usurp the authority of economic and social organizations, but retained control of cultural policy. Apart from economic reform, Novotny's old guard made an important concession in the field of ideology at the Thirteenth Party Congress in June 1966. A working party would be formed to draft a paper on the correct role of the Communist Party, based on a return to true Leninism. It accepted, at least in theory, that this could lead to the Leninist Doctrine of a separation of State and Party. What Novotny did not anticipate was that this could also lead to a separation of his dual role as head of the party and of the state. Ladislav Mnacko wrote a book titled The Taste of Power, an open attack on Novotny. Though the censor deleted some passages and returned the manuscript, he neglected to say that it should be resubmitted. The book was published in this form. A Soviet crackdown on dissident writers also took place. Conservatives controlled the Soviet Writer's Congress in May, 1967. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote a long and eloquent letter protesting censorship and demanding rights and freedoms for writers, but it was suppressed. The Six-Day War and the reactions of the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak government further alienated the journalists and intelligentsia in Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Israel and supported the Arab forces. Novotny's regime was the first among the East Bloc to follow the Soviet lead. This had special significance for a number of Czechoslovak intellectuals. They were well aware that Czechoslovakia had assisted in the establishment of Israel by supplying arms and military instructors in the 1940s. They also knew that, under Soviet influence, arms were shipped to Egypt which contributed to the 1956 Middle East war. The propaganda campaign against Israel reminded them of the anti-Semitism of the 1950s purges. The easy Israeli victory was a major blow to Novotny and the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia's intellectuals and dissidents rejoiced in the David and Goliath-like triumph. The authorities, however, moved immediately to help Egypt, Jordan, and Syria recover economically and militarily. Czechs and Slovaks groaned inwardly, already tired of the constant drain of foreign aid money to the North Vietnamese and the Middle East. Though unvoiced in the press, the discontent of the public became widely known. The Egyptian Ambassador, unable to contain his anger, denounced Czechoslovak journalists during a press conference for their failure to write "objectively" about the Middle East crisis, and for what he considered to be their support of Israel. He said, however, that he understood this, since "the Czechoslovak press remains infested with many Jews."[1] The incident was ignored by officials and went unmentioned in the press, but the news quickly swept dissident circles. It was in this foreboding atmosphere that an extremely stormy Fourth Writer's Congress opened on 27 June 1967. The congress played a key role in polarizing, and then mobilizing, the forces that would end Novotny's reign. Intellectuals demanded freer contact with the rest of the world. They had begun to doubt the ability of the KSČ to renew itself from within, and felt the Party's attempts to dictate opinion and suppress debate were inappropriate for a country facing complex problems never dreamed of by Marx or Lenin. The Congress ended with an open revolt against the chief Party ideologist present, Jiri Hendrych. Hendrych furiously stalked out, saying: "You have lost everything - everything."[2] Three leading writers, Liehm, Klima, and Vaculik, all progressives, were expelled from the KSČ. Václav Havel, Ivan Klima, Pavel Kohout, and Ludvik Vaculik were removed as candidates from the election for the Central Committee of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers. The Union's newspaper, Literarni Noviny, was banned pending a new editor, and eventually placed under the control of the Ministry of Culture. The subsequent publication was boycotted by the majority of its readers. The controversy of the Fourth Writer's Congress might have gone unnoted in the outside world. Foreign radio stations that could be received in Czechoslovakia learned of the scope of the writers' revolt and began to broadcast the news. A 1,000-word manifesto of Czechoslovak writers appealed to popular world opinion for moral support in the struggle against censorship. It accused Novotny and the KSČ leaders in Prague of conducting a witch hunt and using terrorist methods against writers. It called upon well-known writers for help, among them Bertrand Russell, Arthur Miller, John Steinbeck, Jean-Paul Sartre, John Osborne, and Gunther Grasse. It was published in the Sunday Times on 3 September 1967 and reprinted throughout the world. It was labeled a hoax in Prague and elsewhere, and it was later determined that not all of the alleged signatories had actually signed the document. Doctor Ivan Pfaff, a Czech historian, admitted drafting the text, and also that he had estimated who would have approved of it and added their names. Despite its dubious authenticity, it focused world attention on Czechoslovakia. Mnacko, appearing in the west in mid-August, announced his intention to move to Israel. Mnacko's statement to the press, which was very widely reported and broadcast into Czechoslovakia, was extremely damaging to the regime. Within a week, the government had revoked his citizenship, expelled from the party, and stripped him of all his literary prizes and honors. Novotny made another serious error which eliminated any hope of support from the Slovak population. Slovaks already felt grossly maligned and misused by the policy-makers in Prague; Novotny added insult to injury. The Matica Slovenska, a Slovak cultural tradition which had been twice suppressed, maintained in its library a hand-inscribed album of Slovak manuscripts, dedicated to Novotny when he visited the Matica Slovenska. Inside the album lay a postal rejection slip signed by Novotny - "Send back - addressee does not wish to receive." At the Central Committee meeting in October, a young reformer named Alexander Dubcek, who had risen to head the Slovak regional government, began to challenge Novotny. At the 30 October Central Committee meeting, Dubcek challenged a resolution presented by Hendrych, the chief speaker. Dubcek charged that the resolution differed significantly from the original version agreed upon by the Presidium. Dubcek went further in his challenge, adding that these changes were typical of the sort of cheating Novotny's group used when dealing with Slovak issues. Novotny exploded. He accused Dubcek and his followers of bourgeois Slovak nationalism. Novotny's lack of control and fury at Slovak nationalism immediately united Slovak politicians around Dubcek. In the resulting arguments, Dubcek called for separating party and state, and some Czechs rallied to the Dubcek alliance, sensing a chance to unseat Novotny. Novotny made another error as the Plenum of the Central Committee was ending its meeting on 31 October. On a bitterly cold evening, students at the Prague Technical College in Strahow met with editors of the youth daily Mlada Fronta to complain about their living conditions; specifically, the lighting and heating systems, and the school administration's refusal to heed their protests. During the meeting, the electricity and heating in the dormitory failed. Their morale already destroyed due to the prospect of low earnings after years of study in engineering or medicine, the students angrily assembled. They organized a candlelight procession into the city, marching toward Hradcany castle. The Novotny regime reacted repressively. After minor scuffling, the students were dispersed. But when they returned to find that many of their group had been detained by the police, a genuine riot broke out. In violence presaging that of November 1989, police used clubs and tear gas to quell the riot. Student demands spread, rapidly escalating beyond complaints about living conditions and moving into the political arena. The brutality of the police reaction was widely reported, angering the populace and spreading dissent to other campuses. On 8 November, students of the Philosophical Faculty at Charles University held a five-hour protest meeting. They drew up a petition demanding academic immunity and calling for identification and punishment of the police responsible for the beatings. They also demanded that police wear numbered badges for identification, that they not be allowed to use chemicals, and that the results of a thorough investigation be published. By mid-November, the regime was showing its alarm at this trend. The rector of the Prague Technical University accused the students of letting themselves be used politically against the government. The editor of the party cultural newspaper said the students showed a perfect knowledge of western anticommunist propaganda. The students also received support, however. Faculty members belonging to the Czechoslovak Youth League met to protest the actions of the police. The University Committee of the Communist Party demanded an investigation. At the Philosophical Faculty on 20 November, a meeting turned into a nine-hour sit-in. They considered proposals to put more pressure on the regime. Remarkably, Rector Oldrich Stary and Deputy Rector Eduard Goldstuecker met with the students, engaging in meaningful, sympathetic discussions. They gave the students advice and guidance, resulting in an ultimatum to the government: grant the student demands by 15 December, or all university students in Prague would take action. On 15 December, just before the deadline, authorities published the results of their investigation into the events of 31 October. The report was a partial victory for the students. It acknowledged the legitimacy of some grievances, such as the heating and electrical failures, and punished or fired some officials. But it also accused the students of encouraging brutality by attacking the police officers verbally, and even physically. No criminal charges were filed, either against police or students. The Novotny regime had alienated nearly the entire populace - writers, economists, students, Slovaks, and the common man. He was rapidly losing his control of events as opposition grew on every side. In November, the presidium had met to consider the plan for socialist reform begun at the Thirteenth Party Congress in June 1966. In early December, the Presidium prepared for a vote; Novotny's future as party boss was at stake. The vote was deadlocked at five to five. Reportedly voting with Novotny were: Premier Jozef Lenart, who had originally been considered a progressive; Michal Chudlik, another leading Slovak; Deputy Premier Otakar Simunek; and Assembly Chairman Bohuslav Lastovicka. Voting with Dubcek were: ideological chief Jiri Hendrych; Drahomir Kolder, who headed the Central Committee Economic Commission; Jaromir Dolansky; and Deputy Premier Oldrich Cernik, who headed the State Planning Commission. Novotny appealed to Moscow for assistance. Leonid Brezhnev flew into Prague on 8 December. He spoke to members of both factions, but - mistakenly - saw nothing he felt would disturb Soviet interests. Reliable conservatives were among Novotny's opponents. Brezhnev departed, knowing that Novotny might fall from power, but left it to the KSČ as its own affair. A Military Coup? The political maneuvering was interrupted by a new crisis - military maneuvers. The plenum had not met as expected on 15 December. On the 16th, word arrived that a Czechoslovak tank division at Brdy had begun movement to the heights around the city. Other tanks reportedly were en route to Bratislava. The military was being used to apply political pressure on behalf of Novotny. The rumored director of this effort was Miroslav Mamula, head of the Central Committee's Eighth Department, the security watchdog which overlooked the party, the military, and the state. Major General Jan Sejna, a Mamula subordinate, had drawn up a letter supporting Novotny, signed by many high-ranking officers, and had allegedly ordered the troop movement to ensure that the Central Committee voted "correctly." Another officer involved was Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Vladimir Janko, second in the Defense Ministry. The troops never reached the city. Dubcek received warning from Lieutenant General Prchlik and faced Novotny with the evidence. Novotny denied knowledge of the plan and ordered the troops recalled. The explanation offered was that the units were on routine training for the parade commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Czechoslovak revolution on 25 February. Novotny Begins to Fall The Central Committee finally met on 19 December, but the deadlocked Presidium had no resolution to propose, and there were no prearranged speakers. The committee chose free debate, resulting in confrontation and an exchange of insults as the power struggle intensified. Sik attacked the old guard, demanded that the Central Committee be allowed to form separate and distinct sections to create in-party opposition, and called for political and economic liberalization. Novotny's followers responded with their own attacks, but Josef Smrkovsky made a speech which turned the tide against Novotny. The meeting adjourned on 22 December. Novotny's supporters fought for time, arguing that, since it was almost Christmas, the Central Committee should adjourn until after the holiday. The measure was adopted, and both sides used the time for intensive politicking. On 23 December in Trencin, the first grass roots effort against Novotny began. The local Party Secretary called 500 officials to a secret meeting in a cinema. They decided that Novotny would have to go. They sent a petition to the Slovak Party Secretary calling for Novotny's ouster on the grounds of his insulting attitude toward Slovaks. The Presidium met in the first days of January to prepare for the Central Committee meeting, which would begin on 3 January. Kolder immediately proposed that Party Secretary Lubomir Strougal succeed Novotny as First Secretary. Strougal declined and nominated Cernik, who also declined. Novotny then proposed Lenart, who declined. Novotny, perhaps expecting the declinations to continue, nominated Dubcek. Dubcek accepted, and became the nominee to the Central Committee. After three days of talks, Novotny's "resignation" as First Secretary was announced. Novotny's opposition had put the break to good use, and Dubcek was unanimously elected First Secretary. Dubcek assumed leadership of the KSČ. Four additional members were elected to the Presidium: Jan Piller, Deputy Minister for Heavy Industry; Josef Spacek, party chief of the Brno region, who had protected the liberal magazine Host do Domu; Emil Rigo, head of the KSČ organization at the vast East Slovak Iron Works; and Josef Boruvka, a collective farm chairman. Oldrich Cernik was named Premier, and Sik became one of three Deputy Premiers. Novotny was able to retain the presidency. During January 1968, Dubcek remained silent. No purge of Novotny's appointees and supporters took place. Dubcek, at the head of a government run largely by Novotny's followers, and being, as a Slovak, immediately suspect to a great many Czechs, was also very closely watched by the Soviets. Their coolness toward Dubcek could be seen in the insignificant placement of the article that announced his appointment in Moscow's Pravda. Though couched in properly optimistic terms of socialist fraternity, it carried only a small photo of Dubcek and appeared under an article marking the fiftieth anniversary of the small Communist Party of Argentina. It was three weeks after his election before Dubcek was able to visit the Kremlin. The silence of January created a political vacuum which reformers took advantage of to put forward new ideas for discussion. Into this vacuum came three new political figures, all veteran communists. They quickly became major spokesmen for the new democratic trends of the nation. Gustav Husak, a Slovak, had been head of Slovakia's government from 1946 to 1950. Condemned by Siroky during the Stalinist purges, he was imprisoned for bourgeois nationalism. Finally freed, he was restricted to work as a historical researcher. A week after Dubcek's election, Husak published an article in the Slovak periodical Kulturny Zivot that called for genuine democracy guided by the citizens of Czechoslovakia. Josef Smrkovsky, who had been a leading Communist who helped to direct the uprising at the end of World War II, had also been purged. He had later been politically and judicially rehabilitated, and was already a member of the Central Committee and Minister of Forestry and Water Economy in Premier Lenart's cabinet when Novotny fell. Smrkovsky published and article in the trade-union daily Prace on 21 January. He called for the administration to execute the will of the people, not vice versa, and for the truth to be told to the population. He also called for decisions to be made and conflicts to be resolved democratically. The third, Eduard Goldstuecker, a Jew, had been convicted of "Zionism." Also a victim of the purges, Goldstuecker had been an envoy to Israel before he was arrested and "confessed" to being a spy and a traitor. Rehabilitated, he became a Deputy Rector and professor of German literature at Charles University. Goldstuecker was elected Chairman of the Writer's Union on 24 January. His Vice Chairmen were Jan Prochazka, writer and dismissed Central Committee alternate member, and Slovak writer Miroslav Valek, head of the Slovak Writer's Union. Goldstuecker, who would become a radio and television star, called for clemency for Jan Benes, serving five years in prison as a victim of the regime's angry reaction to the June revolt at the Writer's Congress. Conservatives also appeared in the forefront of the political scene during January, most notably Vasil Bilak, who succeeded Dubcek as the Slovak First Secretary. He would become the most conservative of the leaders within the inner circle of the government. Bilak's thinking on subjects such as freedom of the press would have been at home in the Kremlin, and ran completely contrary to Dubcek's. Drahomir Kolder, a Czech member of the Presidium, also gained importance. Kolder's views too, were in line with Moscow, and earned him much favor with the Kremlin. Then, on 15 February, Czechoslovak hopes for the future were embodied in an Olympic hockey game. Czechoslovakia faced the undefeated Soviet team during the championship at Grenoble, France. Czechoslovakia had just lost its first game to Canada. Czechoslovakia's defeat of its "fraternal" neighbor five to four elated Czechs and Slovaks nationwide. The pro-reformists, Communists and non-Communists alike, had almost complete control of the media. Anti-reformists existed in the press as well, but the majority of anti-reformist opposition was created in the high- and middle-echelon bureaucrats and government officials who did what they could to impede change, spread rumors, and make speeches. An example was the new weekly Literarni Listy, which the Writer's Union received formal permission to publish. Once in print, there was no doubt that the newspaper would be a powerful and eloquent voice for reform. Therefore, conservative officials tried to delay its publication and minimize its influence. When the editors requested a paper allocation sufficient for 150,000 sixteen-page copies a week, they were offered only enough for 50,000 ten-page copies a week. The Writer's Union finally got the paper, but only after the battle which reduced the early impact of Literarni Listy was widely publicized. By mid-February, hints began to appear in the press that it would be a good time for Novotny to resign as President, but Novotny ignored them. Rumor had it that he was seeing the Soviet Ambassador and hoped to make a comeback. Other positions changed. Conservative Frantisek Havlicek was dismissed as head of the Central Committee's ideology department on 16 February, and replaced by Jaroslav Kozel. Kozel was on record opposing leniency in ideological methods, but perhaps had also reformed, or soon would do so given the example of his predecessor. Havlicek's superior, Jiri Hendrych, remained. Lieutenant General Prchlik, as a reward for warning Dubcek of the possibility of a military coup, was promoted from Chief of the Army Political Administration to head of the Central Committee Eighth Department. Four days later, Prchlik's successor as head of the Army Political Administration, Major General Egyd Pepych, published an article in Obrana Lidu, the army weekly. His article hinted that a military coup had been planned to save Novotny. Efforts to destroy Novotny politically were underway. The Defection of Major General Sejna On 1 March 1968, shocking news was published by the Czechoslovak media. Major General Sejna, previously obscure to the Czechoslovak public, had fled Czechoslovakia into Hungary. Sejna, who had ordered the troop movements of December, had been under investigation for the alleged theft of $20,000 worth of grass seed. The General, his 18-year-old son, and his 21-year-old mistress traveled from Hungary, through Yugoslavia, and then to Italy. On 5 March, it was learned that he had defected to the United States, the highest-ranking East Bloc officer to do so since the Cold War began. More questions were raised as it became known that Sejna had traveled on a diplomatic passport - he had obviously been warned - while authorities were waiting for his immunity as a member of the Federal Assembly to be revoked. Czechoslovakia's journalists seized the opportunity to exercise their new freedoms, and investigated the Sejna case. Sejna, a former farm laborer with little education, had a skill for making highly-placed friends who could advance his career. One of these was Antonin Novotny, Jr., son of the President. Stories of misappropriation, fraud, blackmail, and theft from the government surfaced. The scandal took Prague by storm, and Sejna and the younger Novotny quickly came to embody corruption. Amid the discoveries of Sejna's criminal activities, General Prchlik publicly announced that a tank division had been mobilized to prevent Novotny's loss of power. Since Sejna had been head of the Main Party Committee of the Ministry of Defense - the very organization accused of trying to influence the Central Committee at the height of effort to remove Novotny - it became quite clear to the public that Sejna was involved in the plans for a coup. As a government investigation began, Colonel General Janko shot himself once in the chest, was revived, and then shot himself again, this time fatally - as good as a confession to the people of Czechoslovakia. Sejna, in the United States, denied the charges against him. Novotny's chances for a political comeback died amid the scandals. Neither Novotny nor his son refuted the accusations or made an effort to state their case. General Bohumir Lomsky, Defense Minister, did appear on television to deny that he knew anything about the plot, but said nothing about Novotny. The country's verdict was: guilty. As Novotny fell, so did those around him. On 5 March, when it was learned that Sejna was in Washington, the Presidium dismissed Jiri Hendrych as Central Committee Secretary in charge of party ideological affairs, and replaced him with Josef Spacek - the liberal head of the Brno Party organization. Interior Minister Josef Kudrna apologized to Prague's students on 12 March and made major concessions to their demands, including the use of badges to facilitate claims against police. That same day, the three top trade union leaders resigned. Minister of Foreign Affairs Vaclav David was publicly criticized on 13 March by the Ministry's Communist Party cell. Michal Chudlik, a Novotnyite Politburo member, resigned as Chairman of the Slovak National Council on 14 March. That day, the Federal Assembly passed a vote of no confidence against Interior Minister Kudrna and Prosecutor General Jan Bartuska. President Novotny himself relieved Prosecutor General Bartuska and Interior Minister Kudrna from their posts on 15 March. Novotny's support fell away at an increasing pace, and rallies demanded Novotny's resignation. It came just one week later. On 22 March, Prague Radio announced that Novotny had stepped down as President for "health reasons." Alarmed at the ouster of Novotny, the Soviet leadership hurriedly convened a pact summit in Dresden, East Germany, on 23 March. All member states attended the one-day meeting except Romania. Dubcek presented his plans to the Soviet Bloc leaders. Brezhnev, Kosygin, and Suslov were in attendance. By this time, it was apparent to all that it was too late to slow the reforms. Dubcek conceded that the press had gotten out of control, but assured the pact leadership that the reforms would be reigned in. By appearing at the summit and defending his positions, however, Dubcek had all but conceded that the pact had the right to intervene in internal political affairs. Dubcek returned from Dresden and asked the press to play down the reforms, but it was too late. During the week following the Dresden summit, attention turned to the election of a new president. Three leading candidates emerged: Ludvik Svoboda, Josef Smrkovsky, and Cestmir Cisar. Cisar, with a reputation as a liberal, found support among the youth and students. But, Cisar had been all but banished to Bucharest as the ambassador to Romania. Intellectuals favored Smrkovsky as a strong advocate of democracy. During the campaign, East German ideologist Kurt Hager attacked Smrkovsky as serving West German interests. The Czechoslovak Foreign Minister called the East German Ambassador before him to demand an apology for this interference in internal domestic affairs. Hager's actions gave Smrkovsky an unexpected boost in his candidacy. Svoboda, now a retired general, was an obscure Lieutenant Colonel who had fled Hitler's takeover when he was selected to head the Czechoslovak troops fighting alongside the Red Army in the Ukraine. He got to know Nikita Khrushchev during the war. He was a non-partisan Defense Minister under Benes, but when he took no move to use his troops when the Communists seized power in 1948, he gave tacit assent to the coup. In spite of his Soviet decorations and past contributions to the Soviet Union, he was imprisoned in the Stalinist show trials of the 1950s. He became a bookkeeper on a collective farm after being released, until Khrushchev visited Prague and asked to see Svoboda. Thus rehabilitated, Svoboda was given a position as head of a military academy. Svoboda had the support of the veterans' organizations, and was the choice favored by the Soviets. Dubcek knew that he had to placate Moscow. He also knew he must offer something to the Czechoslovak populace. Therefore, all three candidates received top posts. The presidential nomination went to Svoboda on 30 March. Smrkovsky was appointed to the Presidium, and Cisar became a Party Secretary with responsibility for education and culture. The students were not satisfied and marched in support of Cisar. Appearing at the KSČ headquarters at midnight, they shouted for Dubcek, who was summoned from home. He answered the students questions and reassured them. He revealed to them that Gustav Husak would become a Deputy Premier. Dubcek did not satisfy the students, however. They staged a sit-in two days later when the Federal Assembly met to approve Svoboda's nomination. Political Reactions Throughout the month of April, suicides among hardliners and StB members increased as the hopelessness of their situation became more and more evident. The body of Dr. Jozef Brestansky, Vice President of the Supreme Court, was found hanging in a woods near Prague in early April. Brestansky had been involved in the rehabilitation of those unjustly convicted during the Stalinist purges. He apparently feared the discovery of the fat that he had also approved unjustified sentences during that period. During the rest of April, suicides averaged one per day, mostly among members of the StB who had been linked to the brutality of the 1950s. Dr. Josef Sommer, a doctor involved in torture at the infamous Ruzyne Prison in Prague, hanged himself in his Prague apartment. One of Sommer's victims in the 1950s was General Josef Pavel, who had become the Minister of Interior at the time of Sommer's suicide. Not all of the hardliners gave up so easily. The Central Committee met in late March and early April, where the conservatives counterattacked. Bohus Chnoupek denounced the rightist excesses in the country and issued a veiled threat of counter-demonstrations or worse. Chnoupek's vehement speech was quoted in the Moscow Pravda article about the meeting. The liberals pushed for an extraordinary congress, so that the large number of Novotnyites left in the upper ranks of the leadership could be replaced. This effort was prosecuted via the mass media, with meetings and man-in-the-street interviews carried live on radio and television. A popular movement to remove the Communist Party's leading role - constitutionally guaranteed - grew rapidly. Many new groups appeared, with the potential to wield extensive political power. One of these, Club 231, was established on 31 March. This group of approximately 3,000 former political prisoners, named their organization after the article of the penal code under which they had been convicted. They spoke publicly of their persecution, torture, and imprisonment. The group demanded rehabilitation and compensation for their treatment. On 2 April, in the Prague weekly Student, philosopher Ivan Svitak demanded an investigation into the death of Jan Masaryk. Svitak cited evidence that Masaryk had not jumped to his death, but had been thrown out of that window in the Czech tradition of defenestration. Material had been found linking a Major Schramm, who later became a liaison officer between Czechoslovak and Soviet security forces, to the case. Suspicions turned to Soviet involvement. The next day, the Czechoslovak State Prosecutor announced that he would open an investigation. A further attack on Moscow came when Karol Bacilek, former Minister of National Security and former First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party, declared that the entire staged Slansky trial had been ordered by Stalin. He claimed that Anastas Mikoyan, then a respected elder statesman in Moscow, had come from Moscow to order Klement Gottwald to stage the trial. It was reported that 26 Soviet advisers helped orchestrate the affair. The allegations of Mikoyan involvement implicated other Soviet leaders who had served under Stalin as well. In the midst of these controversies, Dubcek sought middle ground. He maintained that the needed changes should be implemented through a reformed Communist Party. His goal, he announced, was to form a socialist democracy fitting the needs of contemporary Czechoslovakia - socialism with a human face. The Central Committee met, and elected a new Presidium. Those who had supported Novotny in December were removed. So too, were Jiri Hendrych, now compromised, and the aged Jaromir Dolansky, who had requested retirement. Ota Sik, an extreme liberal, was denied a posting. Josef Boruvka, a liberal collective farm chairman, was not reelected. Of eleven elected, only three were "hard-core" liberals: Josef Smrkovsky, Josef Spacek, and Frantisek Kriegel. Dubcek himself and Deputy Premier Oldrich Cernik were centrists. There were six conservative Presidium members: Frantisek Barbirek, chairman of the Slovak National Council; Vasil Bilak, Slovak Communist Party head; Drahomir Kolder, a Central Committee Secretary; Jan Piller, Deputy Minister of Heavy engineering; Emil Rigo, head of the Party organization in the East Slovak Iron Works; and Oldrich Svestka, editor of Rude Pravo. The three candidate members - factory manager Antonin Kapek, Premier Jozef Lenart, and Prague party chief Martin Vaculik - were even more conservative. Changes were necessary in Premier Lenart's government, as well. In the three months that Slovaks had headed both the KSČ and the state, Czech discontent had risen. Cernik, a Czech, was named Premier. Ota Sik became a Deputy Premier, but without portfolio. Liberals held three key posts: Josef Boruvka, Minister of Agriculture; General Josef Pavel, Minister of Interior; and Miroslav Galuska, Minister of Culture and Information. The most prominent liberal, however, was Josef Smrkovsky, who became Chairman of the Federal Assembly. Lieutenant General Dzur relieved the discredited Lomsky as Minister of Defense. Jiri Hajek, formerly Ambassador to London and Chief Delegate to the United Nations, became Foreign Minister. The Prague Spring The new Action Program, subtitled "The Czechoslovak Road to Socialism," was drafted in early April by a team that was headed by Dubcek and included reformers, moderates, and conservatives. The program was published on 15 April and adopted by the KSČ, and, though containing compromises between the liberals and conservatives, proposed a new, democratic, and national "socialism" adapted to Czechoslovak needs and conditions. The new socialism provided for a democratized National Front and electoral system, and a federalized Czechoslovak republic. Constitutional guarantees would protect freedom of assembly and expression. It clearly stated that the StB should be restricted to defending the country from enemy intelligence agencies, and should not be used against citizens based on their political convictions and opinions. The New Economic Model would be implemented; trade with the west would increase. Despite radically progressive reforms and the rejection of Stalinism, the new Action Program remained committed to communism as a goal and reaffirmed Czechoslovakia's alliance with the Soviet Union and other socialist states. The censorship of literature and the mass media was abolished. The media moved to support the reformers, and the movement to democratize socialism in Czechoslovakia rapidly gained popular support. What had been a movement confined to the party intelligentsia soon permeated all of society. The defection of Sejna and the reopening of investigations into the death of Masaryk had helped the new government to gain public support. Hard-line conservatives had been isolated. The victims of Stalinist normalization had been rehabilitated. Travel restrictions had been removed. The openness in Czechoslovakia worried its more conservative neighbors and, most importantly, Moscow. Walter Ulbricht in East Germany began to seal off the East German-Czechoslovak border, canceling tours and banning Volkszeitung, a German-language Prague newspaper from circulation. In Moscow, the Czechoslovak Ambassador was summoned and received a two-hour tirade from Brezhnev. Thinly disguised warnings appeared in the Soviet press. While Soviet apprehension rose, in the United States there was little notice of the changes in Czechoslovakia. Washington made no comment for three months after Dubcek came to power. The Johnson administration was absorbed in the Vietnam War and failed to appreciate the atmosphere in Prague. Some officials feared any show of support from the United States would increase Moscow's fears. The State Department did not take the one course of action desired by Czechoslovakia - it could not prevail over the private interests whose property claims against Czechoslovakia had caused the United States to veto the repayment of $20 million in Czechoslovak gold seized from the Nazis in World War II. When the State Department finally broke its silence in April, a spokesman said simply that the United States was "watching with interest" the developments in Czechoslovakia. This cautious and minimal gesture did little to represent a surge of interest and sympathy that swept through the informed segments of the American public. On 3 May, Dubcek, Cernik, Smrkovsky, and Bilak flew to Moscow. It had been hinted earlier that the trip's purpose was to negotiate a long-rumored Soviet hard currency credit of 400 to 500 million rubles, but this did not ease public apprehension. After a one-day trip, a short, uninformative statement was issued, but the public demanded more information. Dubcek and his colleagues prepared an "interview" - questions and answers they themselves selected, and sent it to the media. Dubcek mentioned the economic situation, but also hinted cautiously at the Soviet anxiety over Czechoslovak reforms. The seriousness of the situation, however, went unmentioned, as did the apparent intent of the Soviet Union to send troops into Czechoslovakia. Dubcek's group had reportedly yielded to Soviet demands to hold large-scale Warsaw Pact maneuvers in Czechoslovakia. They had also met considerable pressure to permanently station Soviet troops within its borders, supposedly to prevent "West German aggression." On 8 May, Gomulka of Poland, Ulbricht of East Germany, Kadar of Hungary, and Zhivkov of Bulgaria arrived in Moscow to meet with Brezhnev and Kosygin. At the meeting, supposedly to attend celebrations of the twenty-third anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, these leaders actually made policy concerning Czechoslovakia. Ulbricht and Gomulka pushed for a hard and speedy solution - only Kadar asked that Dubcek be given a chance. As a result, Polish and Soviet troops began to move toward the Polish-Czechoslovak border south of Krakow. Large-scale Warsaw Pact maneuvers had in fact been planned, but then were canceled at Dubcek's request after the Dresden Warsaw Pact meeting in March. Now, instead of the staff and communications elements expected for the previously scheduled staff exercises, the Soviets and Poles deployed tanks, infantry, and broadcasting and jamming equipment. Soviet editorial pressure continued to increase. Scathing criticism of Masaryk and his "bourgeois republic" appeared in the Soviet press. A Sovetskaya Rossiya attack on Tomas Masaryk on 14 May particularly incensed the Czechoslovak public[3]. Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin arrived in Czechoslovakia on 17 May, ostensibly for a short holiday and an incidental exchange of views on questions affecting both countries, but the implication was clear. Just hours after his arrival, an eight-man military mission headed by the Soviet Defense Minister, Marshal Andrei Grechko, also flew into Prague. In what would turn out to be an eight-day stay, Kosygin repeatedly met with Czechoslovak officials. During a period of high tensions, Kosygin lounged in Karlovy Vary, a popular tourist attraction known for its spas, acting quite the tourist with no cares in the world. Television crews faithfully recorded his walks and his spa visits. His actions, intended to reassure the Czechoslovak public and project an air of normalcy, had limited success. His negotiations with the Czechoslovak leadership had none. It was the Czechoslovak media's turn to declare that an "anti-Czechoslovak" campaign had begun in Moscow. The slanderous anti-Masaryk articles prompted uncounted editorial reactions. The question of the Soviet annexation of the Carpatho-Ukraine was again raised. The effects of the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939 on Czechoslovakia were openly debated. KGB manipulation of the purge trials of the 1950s was also openly debated in the press. At May's Central Committee meeting, Antonin Novotny was expelled from the committee and his KSČ membership was suspended. Six others, who had played a role in the Stalinist purges were also suspended - notably former Premier Viliam Siroky and former Chief Prosecutor Josef Ulvalek. Other conservatives resigned, including former Defense Minister Bohumir Lomsky. The Action Program was to have been implemented cautiously, under KSČ direction, but popular pressure for immediate reforms threatened party control. Radical and anti-Soviet arguments were openly published in the press. The established political order was threatened as the Social Democrats began to form a separate party and new, unaffiliated political clubs formed. Limits on religious activities were eased. Religious groups used the new freedoms of the press, and the story of religious persecution under the previous regime became public. Bishop Frantisek Tomasek received permission to travel to Rome, where he met with the exiled Cardinal Josef Beran. Beran had been imprisoned during the era of tight religious control, but was released in 1963 on the condition he leave Czechoslovakia and never return. Lesser Catholic Bishops were allowed to return to their diocese. Under Tomasek's leadership, the Movement for Conciliatory Resurgence grouped Catholics faithful to Rome. Former political prisoners were granted permission to resume their former occupations. They had previously been restricted to manual labor. Candidates for rehabilitation were considered on a case-by-case basis. Those who were found to have been unjustly convicted would receive 20,000 crowns for each year they were in prison, to be paid 25 percent immediately and the rest over ten years. Economic reform continued. Western capital investment in joint ventures was sought, and eventual full convertibility for the crown was planned. Heavy industries such as steel would receive less emphasis. Contacts with foreign countries and non-Soviet Bloc Communist Parties were increased. Italian Communist Party leader Luigi Longo and Yugoslavian Foreign Minister Marko Mikezic visited Prague in May. Both commented approvingly on Czechoslovakia's reforms. Western businesses, in particular those from the United States and West Germany, opened offices in Czechoslovakia; cultural contacts improved. Party conservatives reacted by calling for the implementation of repressive measures. Dubcek took a moderate line and was able to reemphasize KSČ leadership. He had announced in May that the Fourteenth Party Congress would convene in an early session on 9 September. The congress would enact the necessary legislation to implement the Action Program and federalize the republic. It would also presumably elect a new, more liberal, Central Committee. Worry increased that conservative forces would be able to slow or halt the momentum of the reforms. Anti-reform rhetoric, with its emphasis on the "anti-socialist threat," had begun quietly in early June with a hardline speech by Alois Indra, which was not published but eventually became widely known. An extreme conservative, with the ironic name of Josef Judas, published an even more alarming article expressing fear for the fate of socialism. Ota Sik responded to Judas' article, alerting a wider section of the populace to the conservative threat. The new openness of the press alarmed many party members and functionaries. In Slovakia, a letter to Pravda by an old communist criticized the recent praise of Masaryk and the criticism of the communist past. This produced responses defending the role of the progressive intelligentsia in criticizing the old order. Such polemic debate and attacks against leaders of both wings, often in the form of "anonymous" letters, cluttered the press and confused the issues. Soviet and Polish forces arrived in Czechoslovakia for "maneuvers" on May 30. Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian party's First Secretary, and President Tito of Yugoslavia immediately came to the defense of Czechoslovakia. They challenged Moscow's right to intercede in Prague's internal affairs. Ceausescu and Tito stringently opposed the threat of force, and demanded that the Soviet Union let Czechoslovakia set its own course. As the exercise kicked off in early June, Soviet pressure on Dubcek increased, but Moscow's bullying did not have the intended effect. Quite the reverse, it strengthened Czechoslovakia's independent and nationalistic fervor and rallied the country around its leaders. The position of Dubcek and his reformers was consolidated. On 19 June, ten thousand members of the People's Militia, the party's armed paramilitary worker's group, gathered at Prague-Ruzyne airport from all over the country to be addressed by Dubcek. Dubcek's intent was to win the group over to the idea of reform from within the KSČ. The meeting, however, quickly became a pro-Soviet, anti-reformist demonstration. The members issued a resolution pledging loyalty to the Soviet Union. Dubcek did gain positive press from the event, but it provided great propaganda value to the Soviets. However, even within the militia and the StB, mainstays of the old regime, support for reforms began to appear. It was in this volatile setting that Ludvik Vaculik, noted writer, lifelong communist, and candidate member of the Central Committee, published his "Two Thousand Words." The essay appeared simultaneously on 27 June in Literarni Listy, Prace, Zemedelske Noviny, and Mlada Fronta. Written at the request of a number of scholars and scientists, it was signed by seventy people. It expressed the apprehension and anxiety of a large portion of the Czechoslovak public. Vaculik sharply criticized the party's record, but did give it credit for initiating the Action Program. He expressed concern over the conservative elements of the KSČ, and also referred to "foreign forces" that were threatening "to intervene in our development." Though Vaculik stated that only the party had the necessary organization, experienced officials, and program of reform, he called on the people to act at their own initiative and by their own decision. Dubcek, although he did not refer specifically to the Two Thousand Words, censured the article and, calling for unity, argued that weakening the party would weaken the reform program. Premier Cernik warned of the dangers of extremism from both left and right, and condemned the declaration for agitating both sides. Smrkovsky, in an article called "One Thousand Words," dismissed Vaculik's "political romanticism." Indra went much further, claiming the resolution threatened to break up the party and could create a counter-revolutionary situation. The resolution sharply divided the populace and the government. Husak, Cisar, and Sik condemned it, others endorsed it. Letters flooded the media, most supporting Two Thousand Words. Though the resolution, being the conception of one, at most several individuals, aroused much unwarranted controversy domestically, it was the reaction of the Soviet Union which was most significant. The Soviet Union was clearly very alarmed, but confined its reactions to such indirect forms of pressure as troop movements and strident editorials. In Poland and East Germany, the press began a concerted campaign against the Prague leadership. In the Czechoslovak press, journalists continued to take full advantage of their freedoms, refusing to heed cautions to be discreet. The "war of the press" continued to escalate between the free-speaking journalists of Czechoslovakia and the state-directed editorials of the Soviet Union. In a series of articles and interviews, Ota Sik explained the decaying state of the Czechoslovak economy to the populace. Almost two-thirds of the nation's machinery was obsolete. The newer machinery did not attain its maximum production due to a lack of skilled workers. In housing construction, Czechoslovakia ranked fourth lowest in Europe. Products of heavy industry were exported at less than their cost to produce. Many goods were produced only to find there was no one to buy them. Quality fell far short of world standards. The agricultural regions' young people had moved to the city; two-thirds of agricultural workers were over 47 years old. Less than half the total output was available for consumption within Czechoslovakia. An average Czechoslovak had to work perhaps ten times longer than a West German to purchase the same item. All these critical statements, and the economic policies implicitly denounced, applied also to the Soviet Union, but even more so. Czechoslovakia's standard of living was still higher than the Soviet Union's. On 16 June, nearly six months after Dubcek had come to power, the United States finally made a small gesture to assist Czechoslovakia's economic reforms. Though they did not agree to negotiate the return of the $20 million of Czechoslovak gold held in the United States, the government did decide on 16 June to release $5 million in Social Security and other blocked payments to Czechoslovak citizens. The agreement opened the doors for further negotiations on other issues. When the Warsaw Pact maneuvers ended on June 30, the Soviet troops remained. The Czechoslovak Defense Ministry initially announced that the withdrawal was halted due to "abnormal traffic conditions." As July began, the Soviet Politburo had three alternatives. Ideally, Dubcek could be made to deliver on his promises to reign in the reforms and restore proper socialist "discipline." This approach would avoid the worst political and military repercussions for the Soviet Union. Another possibility was an internal coup d'etat removing Dubcek and the reformers from power and restoring a hard-line government. By this time, contingency plans for the third option, direct military intervention, were complete. Reinforced Soviet, East German, and Polish troops were already in place. Even Kadar in Hungary had been forced to take Moscow's line. The Kremlin was confident that the United States was too involved in racial and youth unrest and the Vietnam War to intervene in Eastern Europe. In early July it became known that the KSČ had received letters from Moscow and other East Bloc capitals, which expressed grave concerns over recent events and proposed a meeting in Warsaw. The KSČ Presidium politely, but firmly, declined to attend, rejecting any effort toward political or economic pressure violating Czechoslovak sovereignty, but agreed to discussions. The Presidium proposed bilateral talks working toward an eventual broader meeting. This declination of what was, in fact, a Soviet directive, was a courageous but serious step. The KSČ had never before dared turn down such a Soviet "invitation." This defiance, with thousands of Soviet troops remaining in Czechoslovakia, seems to have been an attempt to regain public confidence lost by the menacing Soviet presence. Numerous departure dates for the troops were promised; they were accompanied by many "explanations" of why these dates were delayed. Soviet Marshal Ivan Yakubovsky, Warsaw Pact Commander, reportedly told Prague's leaders that he was dissatisfied with the performance of the Czechoslovak troops, and wanted to continue the "maneuvers." When Prague objected to this on the basis that it would delay the harvest, Yakubovsky reportedly said that he had no objection to holding the "allied troops" in Czechoslovakia until fall. At this point, according to the reports, Czechoslovak leaders demanded the withdrawal of the troops. During their occupation of Czechoslovak territory, the Soviet Army and its vassals practiced its role as invader. Plans were made and tests conducted in how to most efficiently cut communications, silence the media, and introduce a propaganda campaign. These preparations were apparent to astute observers, however, and allowed for the Czechoslovaks to develop countermeasures, albeit to a limited degree. The Warsaw Letter The Warsaw meeting took place on 14 July, without Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union and its four loyal allies attended. At the end of the two-day meeting, the Warsaw Pact nations drafted a harsh letter to the KSČ which indicated the extent of the differences between Czechoslovakia and its allies. The "Warsaw Letter," as follows[4], appeared in Pravda in Moscow on 18 July, and in Rude Pravo in Czechoslovakia the next day: "We do not want to interfere in your affairs or infringe your sovereignty, but there are forces in Czechoslovakia trying to take the country out of the socialist camp. We will not agree that the historical achievements of Czechoslovakia should be threatened. We will not permit Imperialism to split the socialist camp from inside or from outside, with or without force. There must be no change in the balance of power. In January we believed that you held the situation in control and would take the way of democratic centralism, but you began to ignore this way, which meant that the leading role of the party was threatened. The word `democracy' is being misused in Czechoslovakia and there are campaigns against honest party workers. The aims of these campaigns are to end the leading role of the party, to undermine socialism, and to turn Czechoslovakia against the other socialist countries. New political organizations are being formed outside the National Front. These are centers of reactionary forces and their aim is to take over power in Czechoslovakia and bring back the bourgeois regime. Antisocialist and revisionist forces have taken power in the press and all the mass media and use it as a tribune for attacks against the Communist Party and also antisocialist demagogy designed to undermine friendship with the Soviet Union and the socialist countries. Many mass media exert real moral terror against those who stand firm against reaction. Even after the plenary session in May the attacks got stronger and stronger. Nobody stood up against them. Only in such a situation could a manifesto like `Two Thousand Words' appear. The manifesto was an open attack on the party and on constitutional power. It was an attempt at anarchy and a platform for counterrevolution. "The situation is absolutely unacceptable to the socialist countries. The fact that the bourgeois press writes approvingly of developments in Czechoslovakia indicates that the forces of reaction have foreign links. Do you not see this, comrades? Do you think declarations are enough? How can you organize a campaign against the military maneuvers in Czechoslovakia? There is a threat to the vital interests of other socialist countries. Every Communist Party is responsible not only to its own working classes, but to the international working class as well, and we therefore think that the fight against anticommunist forces, which is necessary to save socialism in Czechoslovakia, is not only your fight but ours too. The defense of the working classes and of all workers requires that the following four points be observed: (1) Mobilization of means at the disposal of a socialist state in the fight against antisocialist forces; (2) Ending the activities of all political organizations which fight against socialism; (3) The party must hold in its hands all mass media and use them in the interests of the working classes; and (4) The unity of the party must be maintained on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and democratic centralism in opposition to people who help enemy forces." The letter left no doubt that the KSČ leadership was expected to reimpose censorship, ban new political organizations, and repress the "rightist" forces within the party. If the KSČ wanted independence from Moscow, it could not accept what Dubcek termed "discredited bureaucratic-police methods." Dubcek argued that the Soviet fears were unfounded, that the party's leading role was in no danger, and that freedom of the press need not be curbed. He maintained that the troubles were actually the result of bureaucratic centralism. Dubcek and the KSČ leaders responded politely, but unequivocally, in a letter from the Presidium. They rejected the Warsaw Pact ultimatum and invited Brezhnev, Gomulka, Ulbricht, Kadar, and Zhivkov for bilateral talks, to discuss not only Czechoslovakia, but the more general issues of the pact. The letter acknowledged certain extremist and negative aspects, but added that the May plenum had already considered these possibilities and had formulated plans to deal with them. It reviewed progress made in recent months and plans for the future. It conceded that the other pact nations had a right to intervene in the affair of a neighbor, but in a verbal exchange of views. The letter also criticized the Warsaw Pact for meeting to judge the policies of one member without its representation. The Soviets attempted to get the Czechoslovak leaders to Moscow, Kiev, or Lvov, but Dubcek refused, perhaps wary of entering the lion's den. Lieutenant General Václav Prchlik[5], head of the State Administrative Department and chief of the Security Department of the Czech Central Committee, publicly demanded a reorganization of the Warsaw Pact on 15 July. Prchlik said the pact's members should be equal and protected against groupings of other members of the pact, an obvious reference to the Warsaw meeting. He noted that the Warsaw Treaty gave no one country the right to station troops within another without written consent. He also said that the leadership of the pact, in effect completely Soviet with "advisers" from the other nations of the bloc, should be changed, and that top posts rotate between pact countries. This, to the Soviets, amounted to sacrilege. They responded that 145,000 Red Army troops had given their lives to liberate Czechoslovakia in World War II, and repeated their demand to station Soviet troops on the Czechoslovak-West German border.[6] Brezhnev demanded on 17 July that the Czechoslovaks agree to a meeting to be held two days later between the entire Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party and the entire Presidium of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. He suggested Kosice, a Slovak city 45 miles west of the Soviet border, but the fact that sizable "withdrawing" Soviet forces had converged on the town made Kosice a dangerous place, and the proposal was rejected. In the 19 July edition of Pravda, two articles provided "evidence" that imperialist and counter-revolutionary forces were ready to overthrow the Czechoslovak government. They claimed that secret Pentagon and CIA documents plotting the coup had been discovered, and that a secret cache of American arms had been found in Czechoslovakia in the Sudetenland. On 23 July, the Soviet Defense Ministry announced a massive military exercise including most of the Soviet Union's western region, including its borders with Czechoslovakia. The Red Army's reserves mobilized. Soviet Defense Minister Marshall Grechko was recalled from an official visit to Algeria. The Soviet threat of force was obvious. The Czechoslovak leadership sought a compromise, and agreed to talks at Cierna nad Tisou, in eastern Slovakia. The Summits Brezhnev was reluctant to resort to military intervention in Czechoslovakia. Though Dubcek's Action Program proposed a new, democratic, and national socialism - "socialism with a human face" - he had not threatened Czechoslovakia's commitment to the Eastern Bloc. While the Soviet Union closely monitored events, its leadership split into two camps, pro- and anti-interventionist. Those who favored intervention did so because of what they viewed as a counterrevolutionary situation in Czechoslovakia, and sought the defeat of Dubcek and his fellow reformers. The pro-interventionists included many from Byelorussia and the Baltic Republics, who feared the Czechoslovak example would awaken nationalist sentiment in their republics. They were headed by the Ukrainian party leader, Pyotr Shelest. Bureaucrats who would be responsible political stability and reliability in Soviet cities and for the ideological supervision of the intelligentsia also feared the spread of reformism, and sided with the interventionists. Within the Warsaw Pact, however, only a minority strongly favored intervention. Walter Ulbricht of the German Democratic Republic and Wladyslaw Gomulka of Poland saw liberalism as a threat to their own positions. Romania supported Czechoslovakia, while Hungary remained neutral, but under the control of the Soviets. Intervention was opposed by those Soviet leaders concerned with international affairs. Premier Aleksei Kosygin knew that armed intervention would threaten the newly-gained detente between the United States and the Soviet Union.[7] Kosygin also wanted to encourage negotiations with West Germany and to prevent a rapprochement between the United States and China. Mikhail Suslov, communist theoretician, feared the reaction of West European communist parties, whose tenets included the concept of independent "national" roads to communism, and were supporting Dubcek's position. The Soviet Union had accepted the Czechoslovak request for bilateral talks in July at Cierna nad Tisou. But the proximity of this city to the Soviet Union caused apprehension in the Czechoslovak public. There was concern that - like Jan Hus in 1415, who was promised safe passage by Sigismund, then arrested, and finally burned at the stake - Dubcek and his party could meet a similar fate. The talks at Cierna nad Tisou began Monday, 29 August, and lasted four days, not one day as had been anticipated. No public announcement left the meeting during those four days, leaving the public open to speculation and rumor. Each morning, a Soviet train crossed from Chop in the Soviet Ukraine to Cierna nad Tisou carrying the Soviet delegation, and each night it returned. The sessions were held in a railwaymens' club refurnished for the occasion. On 31 July, Dubcek and Brezhnev held a long private meeting. That night, a scheduled banquet and a press briefing were peremptorily canceled. During the talks, Dubcek defended the KSČ's reform program, but also pledged commitment to the Warsaw Pact and COMECON. Among the leaders of the KSČ, however, opinion was divided. Dubcek found support among men such as Josef Smrkovsky, Oldrich Cernik, and Frantisek Kriegel. Conservatives such as Vasil Bilak, Drahomir Kolder, and Oldrich Svestka took up a pro-Soviet stance. Much of what occurred during the Cierna nad Tisou summit remains a mystery. History is divided on the subject of the Czechoslovak Presidium's performance at the meeting. Some accounts say the Presidium split in the face of Soviet pressure, others say they presented a common front despite their differences. Brezhnev decided to compromise. The representatives of the KSČ reaffirmed their loyalty to the East Bloc and agreed to curb "antisocialist" tendencies, to prevent the revival of the Social Democratic Party, and to increase control of the press. In return, the Soviets agreed to withdraw the troops stationed in Czechoslovakia since June's maneuvers and to allow the 9 September Party Congress. A Warsaw Pact multilateral summit, consisting of only six of seven member countries since Romania did not attend, was scheduled for 3 August in Bratislava. On 1 August, in the first public speech after Cierna nad Tisou, President Svoboda gave the impression that a victory had been won; that Czechoslovakia would continue on its present course. The next day, Dubcek spoke, echoing Svoboda's speech. He called the results of the meeting "satisfactory," and praised Soviet "good will." He also hinted that prudence and statesmanship should replace "spontaneous actions and meetings for expressions of various anti-socialist and anti-Soviet sentiments."[8] The lack of hard information about the summit and hints at increased press control disturbed Czechoslovaks. The 3 August Bratislava meeting lasted only one day. Romania did not attend, leaving the delegates of only six of seven member states - Soviet, Bulgarian, Polish, Hungarian, East German, and Czechoslovak. By signing the Bratislava Declaration, the delegates reaffirmed their countries' commitment and loyalty to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. The communiqué issued after the meeting was in the typical Communist style - open to many interpretations. The six nations proclaimed a relentless and eternal struggle against "bourgeois" ideology and "antisocialist" forces. The Soviet Union announced its intent to intervene if a bourgeois pluralist system threatened a Warsaw Pact country. Following the Bratislava conference, the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from Czechoslovak territory, but only just outside Czechoslovak borders. Perhaps convinced that armed defense of Czechoslovakia could only cost needless loss of lives and property damage, Dubcek did not mobilize the Czechoslovak army to resist the threatened invasion. While the Soviet Union's armed forces seemed mammoth in comparison to Czechoslovakia's, there had been many instances when even smaller forces had successfully defended against such a large force. The defense of Finland in the "winter war" of 1940-41, Stalin's decision not to invade Yugoslavia during the 1948-53 fight against Tito, and the ongoing Vietnam War all showed that such a defense could be successful. Whether an announced intent to defend itself would have altered Czechoslovakia's fate will remain an unanswered question. Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia arrived in Prague on 9 August. Plans were under consideration to expand Czechoslovak-Yugoslav trade cooperation. Joint export to third countries, efforts to create a common bi-national bank, the import of Yugoslav workers and construction materials, and Czechoslovak investment in Yugoslavia were considered. Some went as far as to call for the revival of the Little Entente, a pre-World War II military and political alliance that grouped Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania. The 9 September Party Congress was still scheduled, and pro- and anti-reformists prepared for a confrontation. After the Bratislava conference, it became widely known in Prague that most of Dubcek's opponents would be ousted from the Central Committee, and a "blacklist" was prepared and circulated by the Prague municipal party organization. The anti-reformists, faced with mounting domestic opposition, could not hope to stay in power without Soviet assistance. These elements sought to convince the Soviets that the danger of political instability and "counterrevolution" did indeed exist. The Central Committee's Information Bureau, headed by Jan Kaspar, prepared an extensive report on the general political situation in Czechoslovakia concerning the upcoming Party Congress. The Kaspar Report concluded that a firm and stable leadership and Central Committee could not be guaranteed as the outcome of the congress. The Party Presidium received the report on August 12, and assigned two of its members, Alois Indra and Drahomir Kolder, to evaluate it for the August 20 session. Kolder and Indra, both hard-line conservatives, drew predictably alarming conclusions from the Kaspar Report, and are believed to have communicated this to S. V. Cherovnenko, the Soviet ambassador. As the KSČ Presidium convened on 20 August, the anti-reformists were ready to make their bid for power, exploiting the threat of an impending "counterrevolution." Kolder and Indra put forward a resolution proclaiming a state emergency and calling for "fraternal assistance," but their resolution was never put to vote. Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia that same day. "Fraternal" Invasion On the night of 20 August, Ruzyne Airport in Prague was, as usual, relatively calm. After a scheduled Polish Airlines flight left for Warsaw, no air traffic was expected for three hours. At 1030 P.M., however, an unscheduled AN24 was expected by special arrangement with the Soviet airline Aeroflot. This was not an uncommon event, and the same plane had in fact come into Prague the day before. Aboard the plane were more than 100 agents who would prepare the way for a precision airmobile operation. After the plane arrived, a group of the men, some in Red Army uniform, deplaned and drove away. In the terminal's departure lounge, a group of supposed tourists suddenly drew weapons, left two men on guard, and disappeared. Another group arrived in Russian Volga automobiles and went directly to the AN24 on the apron. The "tourists" reappeared, seizing the control tower and shutting down its operation. The crew in the AN24 then took over traffic control. A constant stream of AN12 heavy transports, accompanied by MIG fighters, flew into Prague at the rate of one per minute, carrying Soviet airborne troops, artillery, and light tanks. The arriving troops secured the airport, marshaled their units, unloaded their equipment, and began to march toward the city. The commander of the Warsaw Pact invasion forces, Soviet Army General Ivan G. Pavlovsky, Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Ground Forces and a Deputy Minister of Defense, established his headquarters. In the Prague suburb of Sporilov, Red Army naval infantry and airborne troops dropped along a new section of highway. Columns of armored vehicles entered the city from the airport. One column went to Hradcany Palace, another surrounded the Central Committee headquarters, and a third went to the Premier's office. Troops secured Wenceslas Square, main roads, and the bridges over the Vltava river. Similar events played out all over the country. Polish MIGs set up a base at Pardubice airfield. At Hradec Kralove a lone MIG-15 landed, a high-ranking Soviet officer got out, and then refused to give his name or to state the reason for his presence. This became apparent later as forty more MIGs landed, accompanied by helicopters full of Soviet and Polish troops. The Warsaw Pact forces outside the borders of Czechoslovakia on "exercises" entered the country. By dawn the first of these had reached Prague, joining up with the airborne troops. In all, there were 15 to 20 Soviet divisions, four Polish, two East German, two Hungarian, and one regiment from Bulgaria. There was no resistance. At 11:30 P.M. on 20 August, the assembled members of the Presidium learned that the troops had entered Czechoslovakia. Dubcek is quoted as saying: "It is a tragedy. I did not expect this to happen. I had no suspicion, not even the slightest hint that such a step could be taken against us . . . I have devoted my entire life to cooperation with the Soviet Union, and they have done this to me. It is my personal tragedy."[9] Dubcek and his colleagues drafted the Presidium's proclamation on the invasion. Karel Hoffman, Director of Communications, however, tried to prevent its broadcast. His subordinates rebelled. At 1:40 A.M. on 21 August, Czechoslovak Radio began to repeat this bulletin:[10] "Esteemed listeners, stay at your receivers, wake your friends now, in the night, because in a moment Czechoslovak Radio Prague will be transmitting an extraordinarily important news item . . ." And just before 2:00 A.M., the following report was broadcast: "Yesterday, 20 August 1968, around 11:00 P.M., the forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Hungarian People's Republic, and the Bulgarian People's Republic violated the national borders of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. This has occurred without the knowledge of the President of the Republic, the Chairman of the National Assembly, the Chairman of the Government, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSČ, and without the knowledge of these organizations. In these hours the Presidium of the Central Committee of the KSČ is meeting and is engaged in the preparation of a Fourteenth Party Congress. The Presidium of the Central Committee of the KSČ urges every citizen of the republic to preserve peace and not to show resistance to the advancing forces, because at this time the defense of our state borders is not possible. Therefore, not even our Army, security forces, and People's Militia have received orders for the defense of our country. The Presidium of the Central Committee of the KSČ considers this act not only a violation of the basic principles of contact between Socialist states, but also a disavowal of the basic norms of international law. All leading functionaries of the party and the National Front remain in their positions, to which they were elected as representatives of the people by the members of their organizations, according to the laws and directives in effect in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. A congress of the National Assembly and the government of the republic is called by the constitutional officials, and the Presidium of the Central Committee of the KSČ summons the Plenum of the party to conduct a discussion of the situation." The conservatives within the KSČ, however, had not accurately informed Moscow about the true scope and strength of the reform movement. During the night of 20-21 August, the KSČ Presidium met and condemned the invasion, but rejected the option of opposing the invasion militarily. The KSČ Central Committee opposed the Soviet intervention by a two-thirds majority. It was 7:05 P.M. in Washington when Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin called the White House and was put through to President Johnson's Special Assistant for National Security, Walt Rostow. Dobrynin informed Rostow that he had an important message to be delivered personally to the president. The president, of course, already knew what was happening. Reports and reconnaissance had shown the large-scale refueling of Soviet military transport. NATO Headquarters had presented a West German Intelligence Service report that the large-scale Warsaw Pact Maneuvers were a front for a possible invasion. Dobrynin arrived at the White House at 8:00 p.m. and entered the cabinet room with President Johnson and Rostow. After the exchange of formal courtesies, Dobrynin read from a long, prepared statement. He informed them that Soviet troops, together with four other Warsaw Pact countries, had entered Czechoslovakia in "fraternal" response to a request by Czechoslovak "party and government leaders." He explained that Communist rule in Czechoslovakia had fallen under heavy attack from counter-revolutionary and anti-socialist forces. The action, he said, was a Soviet internal action, and their own affair. After Dobrynin left, President Johnson called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council. Officials contacted the American Embassy in Prague and studied intelligence reports. Dobrynin was summoned back to the State Department, where Secretary of State Dean Rusk read the Ambassador a strongly worded American protest. On 21 August at the United Nations, the Soviet delegate, Yakov Malik, gave the Security Council this statement: "The armed units of the Socialist countries, as is known, entered the territory of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic on the basis of the request of the government of this state, which applied to the allied governments for assistance with armed forces."[11] The news quickly reached all the world's capitals, of course. Strong statements were issued by the United States and other Western nations, and there was much posturing and bluster - none of which, of course, had any effect. Foreign Minister Jiri Hajek was vacationing in Yugoslavia on 20 August. He was later able to fly to New York to state his country's case before the United Nations. The Soviet Union was able, however, to block a United Nations resolution condemning the invasion. Somewhat more important to the Soviet Union was the condemnation from fellow communist countries: Romania, Yugoslavia, and Red China. These, however, failed to influence Moscow's course of action. Most surprising was the angry outcry from the strong Western Communist Parties in Italy and France and the unexpected protests in Belgrade and Bucharest, and from sections of the East German population. By the evening of 21 August, all major cities in Czechoslovakia had been occupied. By the next day, Warsaw Pact troops had made their presence known throughout the country and were in control of most border crossings. The number of troops was estimated at 500,000 during the initial invasion, and would later peak at 650,000 - more than the number of American troops in Vietnam at the time. The Red Army sent three armies into Bohemia and one into Slovakia. The army invading Slovakia was expected to encounter little resistance. Slovak language and culture were closer to the Russian than was the Czech. Slovak nationalism was thought to have been considerably weakened by the number of its Hungarian, Ukrainian, gypsy, and Jewish minorities. Its population was a mere 4.5 million. Its largest population center and capital, Bratislava, was only a few kilometers from the Hungarian border. Even though Dubcek, a Slovak, was at the forefront of reform, the majority of Slovaks were thought to be conservative and indifferent. It was Vasil Bilak, a hard-line Slovak, who was believed to have advised the Soviets that resistance would be less in Slovakia. Even if the Soviets had anticipated resistance from the Slovaks, they expected none from the Hungarian minorities. For this reason, the Soviet High Command decided to send Hungarian troops into Roznava, a major Hungarian population center in Slovakia, and assured them a warm reception from their countrymen. Instead of the expected hero's welcome, the Hungarian troops were met with contempt. Food, water, and other facilities, which they had expected as "liberators," were denied them. The Hungarian commander finally went to see the mayor, and they worked out an agreement. The Hungarians were provided with a large technical school that was not in use because the students were on holiday. They could stay there, and would be provided with necessities, on the condition that they, too, obey the curfew. After nightfall the Hungarian troops were locked in the school, and the mayor himself came by each morning to let them out for inspection. In Bratislava, some sat down in the roads to block the advance of the tanks. They left quickly when it became clear that a few dead bodies would not block their passage. Rationing was introduced as hoarding began. Girls distracted the invading troops with provocative poses and gestures as Slovak youths went among the columns damaging the vehicles and their loads. The fuel tanks on one tank were successfully set alight. Impromptu barricades were placed in front of the tanks, but to little effect. Citizens tried to reason with the troops, but the troops, though perplexed, could only answer that they were obeying orders. The Soviet intervention gave the Czechoslovak population an almost unanimous purpose - opposition to the Soviet interference. While the public complied with Svoboda's warning against acts that might provoke violence, it began a massive campaign using many forms of passive resistance. A symbolic one-hour general work stoppage took place on 23 August. Popular opposition most often took form in spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistance. Everywhere in the republic, instead of the anticipated armed resistance, Warsaw Pact soldiers faced arguments and reproaches. The invaders saw no sign of the "counterrevolutionary forces" they had been sent to eliminate. They had not been prepared to learn the truth that the local population had not invited their "fraternal assistance." They had not been prepared to "restore socialism" to a country with a higher standard of living than their own. The populace denied the invaders any form of assistance. Food and water were withheld, and sources the Soviets established for themselves were sabotaged. No matter where a Soviet soldier looked, he saw signs, banners, and graffiti which left no doubt as to the public's opinion of his presence. The captions and slogans denounced him, his leaders, and suspected collaborators. Pictures of Dubcek and Svoboda appeared everywhere. Throughout Czechoslovakia patriots began a successful campaign to deprive the invading troops of even knowledge about their location. Towns and cities tore down their signs and renamed themselves; the city of Lidice was recreated all over the country, and many towns renamed themselves "Dubcek" or "Svoboda." Common town names replaced distinctive ones and the Red Army, forced to rely on poor maps and even poorer land navigation skills, often found itself forced to ask for directions, which were - of course - equally unreliable. Reporters filed stories of amazing acts of defiance. Soviet tanks were bombarded with flour bombs, decorated with swastikas, and their gunsights were blocked with chalk. One youth rammed a pole bearing a Czechoslovak flag down the muzzle of a tank's main gun. A young girl crawled beneath a line of Soviet troops with fixed bayonets, drew a swastika on a tank, and crawled back out. Warsaw Pact troops were under orders to show restraint. They avoided Czechoslovak military garrisons and left small towns alone, stationing themselves outside them. In large cities they deployed in parks. A first priority for the invasion force, of course, had been the neutralization of the Czechoslovak army. This task proved easy, as the military obeyed the policy of nonresistance decided on by the Czechoslovak leadership. The Defense Minister, General Dzur, had decreed that Czechoslovak troops would take orders only from President Svoboda. Czechoslovak troops became prisoners in their own barracks, but they were not disarmed - on the orders of the Warsaw Pact command. After three weeks, the Soviet troops surrounding the Czechoslovak army garrisons withdrew, leaving behind suspicions, bad blood, and feelings of betrayal. Considering the tenseness of the situation, most of the Soviet troops showed remarkable restraint. But this discipline was sometimes breached, resulting in bloodshed. Bitterness turned to hate. In Bratislava, students gathered at the university to watch the tank columns. One, a fifteen-year-old student nurse, watched as a crowd hurled abuse, and then stones, at the troops. Suddenly a shot was fired at the crowd, and the girl fell dead. The crowd reacted violently; more shots were fired. Four more died. Throughout the invasion, about seventy people were killed and 1,000 wounded in such incidents. Outside the Prague Radio building, resistance turned violent. Buses and streetcars were used as barricades against the tanks. Molotov cocktails and flaming rags were used to set several tanks and vehicles on fire. Youths climbed on the invading tanks, stuffed tin cans down their barrels, and painted graffiti on them. Anything that was not nailed down was thrown at the invaders. The tanks eventually occupied the Radio Prague building, but, as we shall see later, could not silence the free voice of Czechoslovak Radio. Wenceslas Square was another center of resistance. Political discussions filled the square, leaflets were disseminated, and posters covered every surface and filled every window. It was here, too, that the one-hour national strikes were most apparent, as sirens and car horns announced their start and all traffic came to a halt. In the small village of Upa, the population formed a human chain across the bridge to block a Soviet convoy. They held from 6:30 A.M. until 3:00 P.M., when the Soviets gave up and turned back. Another tale told of a Soviet freight train - number 5599 - that was carrying direction finding equipment to locate clandestine radio and television stations. One such radio station broadcast an appeal to all railwaymen to find a way to prevent the train from reaching Prague. Later that day, the station announced that the train had gained only 20 miles from its departure point before it was stopped. In Bratislava, another effective form of passive resistance was found. Bored of staring down their invaders or attempting to sway them with political dialogue, young Slovaks searched out all the pornographic material they could find in the city. They offered this to the Soviet troops freely. Some troops accepted, others maintained their discipline and refused. For these troops, the crowd displayed the pornography so that they could not avoid it. The Soviet commander, when he learned of this, ordered the soldiers into their armored vehicles with the hatches closed, with their observation to be conducted through the vehicles' periscopes. The crowd quipped that after several days of abusing the Czechoslovak population, the soldiers were no doubt abusing themselves. To add insult to injury, they immediately taped up the vision devices, leaving the Soviets blind and immobilized. When Soviet Colonel Kovalyov was ordered to occupy the Bratislava "Hrad," or castle, he also faced effective resistance. One of the senior officials of the museum approached him, asking to check on the exhibits. Wanting to be seen as a protector of Slavic culture, he readily agreed, and dispatched a lieutenant to escort the official. The exhibits were fine, and the official managed to "misplace" his escort. He went to the cellar and shut off the water main. Similar events took place all over Bratislava, and the Soviets find themselves faced with the results of the resistance slogan, "Not even a drop of water for the occupiers." The Colonel had fresh water flown in by helicopter for his staff, from Hungary. "Friendly" Czechoslovaks would warn the Soviet soldiers that the local water supplies had been tainted by counterrevolutionaries, and was not potable. The troops would resort to collecting rainwater, or taking water from the Danube, which was quite polluted by the local industry. As Czechoslovak nationals and Western tourists began to make their way outside the borders of their country, unrestricted by the Soviets, who felt that in this manner they could rid themselves of troublesome and dissident elements, the press began to work its way in to report on the situation. One such journalist was Murray Sayle[12]on the first plane and drove to the Znojmo border crossing. A throng of people was leaving Czechoslovakia, and the Border Guards were quite surprised to find Westerners seeking admission to the country. Only 20 kilometers from the border, Sayle met the first Soviet convoys. The convoy, made up of armored personnel carriers and towed artillery, was lost. The signposts had been removed. In Havlickuv Brod, Sayle came upon a makeshift roadblock of farm wagons. The occupants were busy painting over road signs and putting up posters. Once the locals learned of his mission, he was provided with a guide who took him via side roads to Prague. Coming through the main parts of Prague, tanks were stationed at all important sites and crossroads. Wenceslas Square was strewn with wreckage. The National Museum was covered with bullet scars and many of its windows had been shot away. Sayle saw burned-out Soviet tanks being towed away. The Czechoslovak police stood aside as the crowds expressed their hatred toward their "liberators." Signs and posters rapidly proliferated - "Wake up Lenin, Brezhnev has gone mad," "Leonid, send ten more tanks - twenty more counterrevolutionaries arrived here today," and "Peace, Unity, and Steady Nerves," and "Dubcek - Svoboda."[13] These were accompanied by signs commemorating those who had fallen to the guns of the occupiers. Though the Soviets "searched" the offices of the mass media - newspapers, radio, even the Writers' Union - they had not come prepared to take over the roles of the uniformed and plainclothes police, and could not hope to enforce their rule or control the underground press and clandestine broadcasters. Even the members of the StB contested possession of their headquarters and its extensive personal files with the Soviet KGB. It was not until 24 August that the Soviets gained access to the building, only to discover that the files, with their lists of names, informants, and suspects, had been removed. During this conflict, 15 StB members supposedly disappeared, who according to the Czechs were arrested by the Soviets, who then denied having them. The true heroes of the period, however, were the members of the mass media - specifically, radio and television. Their resistance, guided by the knowledge gained when the Soviets "practiced" their occupation in July, inspired the Czechoslovak people and raised their spirits. Though the Soviets tried repeatedly to silence their clandestine transmitters, they failed, utterly. In what was probably the world's first clandestine television service, newscasts and interviews with prominent politicians kept the public informed. While radio concentrated on direct news, television took up the editorial offensive. The Soviet efforts to silence the television broadcasts were frustrated through several means. The studios and broadcasting centers were spread out all over Prague. The first Soviet troops occupied a studio just hours after the invasion, and tried to convince the director to run the studio for them. He refused, and later escaped. Soviet soldiers would occupy a television studio and hack away with wire-cutters, ignorant of which wires they should cut. Stories circulated of teams who occupied one such studio, cut numerous wires, and then settled down to sleep, unaware that the station was still broadcasting emergency news programs. Mobility prevented detection. The television crews moved from one secret location to another - from studios to cinemas, and then on to factories to keep their subscribers informed. An Interior Ministry official, Jan Zaruba, committed suicide rather than provide the Soviets evidence on the locations of the transmitters. Radio equipment was borrowed from the military, transmitted on the same frequencies they had used before the invasion, and featured the same voices. Tapes were delivered for the broadcasts by volunteers and youth groups. The invaders countered with their own radio broadcasts. One such was Radio Vltava. These transmissions came, not from anywhere near the Vltava river in Prague, but from Karl Marx Stadt in East Germany. Their only broadcasters were a woman who spoke Slovak, rather than Czech, and a male who struggled with Czech in a heavy Russian accent for the first days, but eventually gave up and broadcast in Russian. Radio Vltava used news from official TASS and Pravda sources. Such obvious propaganda did not have much effect, and Radio Vltava, along with the occupation newspaper Zpravy, quickly outlived their usefulness. Radio Vltava went off the air one week after the invasion began. The Soviet Union had hoped the Presidium would meet the evening of the invasion, oust First Secretary Dubcek and Premier Cernik, and replace them with Presidium member Drahomir Kolder and Party Secretary Alois Indra, respectively. Kolder and Indra would be the "government" which had requested Soviet "assistance." Alois Dubcek and Cernik could then be tried for "treason" and executed. The extent of the general public's resistance forced the Soviet Union to reconsider this plan. During a Presidium meeting on 20 August, however, The plotters in the Presidium were unable to depose Dubcek. There was an increased chance of anarchy. None of the Soviet Union's attempts to find quislings to lead a puppet government succeeded. The Soviets' alternate plan called for intervention by pro-Soviet leaders in Prague, who would have used CTK to broadcast the appeal for "assistance." This plan also failed. Miroslav Sulek, head of CTK, was assigned the task, but when he tried to transmit the document, his teletype operators refused. The final option was to seize the liberals and force President Svoboda to confirm a Soviet-approved government. The "requesters" of the "assistance" were never identified. Dubcek, Cernik, Smrkovsky, and many of their colleagues were arrested just hours after the invasion began. They were flown to Slovakia and imprisoned in a barn near Sliac, with a Soviet guard. Dubcek later said that he was certain that they would not live. President Svoboda refused to give constitutional sanction to a coup. He demanded that the legitimate government be restored. The Soviet attempt to silence the Czechoslovak press was defeated. The Soviet final option failed, and the political cost and international repercussions of the invasion were escalating. Svoboda feared a complete Soviet military dictatorship if outright defiance continued, and wondered what could be done. Perhaps a compromise government could be found. On 22 August, a small group of conservatives met under Soviet military protection, but could not agree among themselves who should be their new leader. Eventually, Kolder, Indra, and Vasil Bilak formed a directing trio. The same day, the underground free members of the KSČ secretly held a Party Congress at the huge CKD factory in Prague, guarded by the People's Militia. They elected a new liberal leadership headed by Dubcek. Professor Venek Silhan, an economist, was deputized to act in his stead until Dubcek could return to his duties. They passed a resolution proclaiming loyalty to Dubcek's Action Program, denouncing Soviet aggression, and demanding withdrawal of the troops. It called for a general strike if the troops did not withdraw. The Congress had one drawback - most Slovak representatives were unable to attend. At 7:00 A.M. on 23 August, in his official residence in Hradcany castle, Svoboda met with the Soviet Ambassador, S. V. Cherovnenko. Cherovnenko told Svoboda that the Kremlin wanted him to go to Moscow, provided that he took some of the hardliners, including Bilak and Indra, with him. Defense Minister Dzur, Piller, Husak, and Kucera also accompanied Svoboda. They were greeted at Vnukovo Airport with banners, Czechoslovak flags, and a 21-gun salute. Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev, Premier Alexei Kosygin, and President Nikolai Podgorny greeted Svoboda and his companions in their first public appearance since the invasion. They made their way in a motorcade through Moscow streets crowded with spectators and lined with banners lauding "Soviet-Czechoslovak friendship." Arriving at the Kremlin, talks began immediately. Svoboda refused to negotiate unless Dubcek was also present. Talks adjourned for the night, and the Czechoslovak delegation was housed within the Kremlin. The talks continued the next morning. Dubcek, Cernik, and Kriegel had been flown to Moscow. Dubcek and Cernik were driven to the Kremlin to join the talks, but Kriegel, a Jew, was denied participation. Brezhnev, having failed to install a new government, proposed several ideas. One was the "Polish variant" which entailed a permanent Soviet military presence, internal independence (so long as it complied with the interests of the Soviet Bloc), rigid control of the media and communications, and strict supervision of Czechoslovakia's intellectuals. Brezhnev also threatened the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Its lands would be absorbed by the Soviet Union and resettled by Soviet citizens. Its people would be integrated into the Soviet Union. Dubcek, Svoboda, and their companions were powerless. They had no real choice but to accept the Soviet ultimatum, being unable to bargain for their country - or for their lives. The Moscow Protocol allowed Dubcek to remain in power for a time, even though the Soviet leaders disagreed with his policies. Dubcek was told that Czechoslovakia would have to renounce all credits from capitalist countries, reimpose censorship, purge foreign correspondents from Prague, tighten control of the media, cool off relations with Romania and Yugoslavia, and eradicate the newly friendly relationship with West Germany. The KSČ was to be strengthened and the Social Democratic Party suppressed. Svoboda left the Kremlin that night to fly back to Prague. He was accompanied by Dubcek and Cernik, but Doctor Kriegel was missing. Svoboda refused to leave without him. When Kriegel, who had been labeled as a "Jew from Galicia" and was also a diabetic requiring insulin treatment, arrived, it was apparent that he had been tortured. He could not speak or write coherently, and did not regain his faculties for several days. Indra did not return with them. He had reportedly suffered a heart attack when told by Moscow that he would have to return to the country he had betrayed. He did not return to Prague until late September. The leadership of Czechoslovakia's thwarted Prague Spring, the creators of "socialism with a human face," returned to Prague physically, mentally, and morally exhausted. When the invasion began, Deputy Premier Sik was in Belgrade, as were Foreign Minister Jiri Hajek, Minister of Economic Planning Frantisek Vlasak, Minister of Public Works J. Trokan, and the President of the Czechoslovak State Control Commission, Stefan Gasparik. Before leaving Belgrade, an appeal was signed urging the world's Communist Parties to assist the Czechoslovak party and people. Sik, Vlasak, and Gasparik were in Bucharest two days later to hold talks with Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu. Pravda published a blacklist on 24 August, in which Sik was named an economic heretic. Sik, a Jew, had more to fear than repercussions from his "heresy," however, as evidenced by the treatment Kriegel received at the hands of the Soviets. Sik resigned as Deputy Premier soon after the Moscow Protocol. Tass announced his resignation in Pravda and Izvestia on 5 September, denouncing Sik as a close ally of the counterrevolution. The articles accused him of meeting in Belgrade with Jiri Hajek, Novotny's Minister of Education and Dubcek's Foreign Minister until 19 September, to prepare a government-in-exile. The Soviet denunciation of Sik produced a daring response from some of Czechoslovakia's leading economists, who defended Sik publicly in the 16 September edition of Prague's Pravda. It was too late, however, to save Doctor Sik or his reforms. In the meantime, passive resistance continued in Prague, but apprehension grew. The people did not know when, or if, their leaders would return from Moscow, and none knew the fate of Dubcek and the others arrested on 20 August. What would the final result be? They left Moscow on 26 August. When they arrived in Prague at 4:00 A.M., they went directly to the Central Committee building. They had very limited choices: resign, and perhaps the Kremlin would find willing puppets to lead the government; or face the population with the news of the Moscow Protocol and try to gain their help in carry on as best they could. They chose to stay. The media were given off-the-record briefings of the agreement. Once this information got out, many liberal writers, professional men, and members of the intelligentsia left the country. The Federal Assembly was informed of the text of the agreement, including these points: The realization of the decisions of Cierna nad Tisou, apparently referring to decisions that were not publicly announced. The invading troops would withdraw, subject to Czechoslovak compliance with the terms of the agreement. Two Soviet divisions would be permanently stationed along the West German border. The Czechoslovak leadership would continue in office. The reform program begun in January 1968 would continue, but controls would be imposed on information and the media. A loan would be provided by the Soviet Union to pay for the damages caused by the invasion. That Czechoslovak representatives remove the matter of the invasion from the agenda of the United Nations Security Council. The Soviets refused to recognize the extraordinary Congress of the KSČ held on the first days of the invasion, or the deputies elected there. This meant that they did not recognize Dubcek as the First Secretary of the party, and placed his political future in the hands of the following Congress. Later that morning, President Svoboda broadcast to the Czechoslovak people. Speaking slowly, formally, and solemnly, he told them that moral and intellectual resistance was their last resort. He said that bloodshed had to be avoided at all costs. He knew that the time when an unarmed populace could overthrow a modern army was past, and that the sort of carnage that would result would serve no purpose. The atmosphere in Prague slowly turned from one of courageous defiance to gloom and foreboding, then, finally to disillusionment. Some - the older, perhaps, who could remember the hopelessness of Hungary - knew such a compromise was inevitable, but the young were enraged. Then, three hours later, Dubcek spoke. Often overcome with emotion, he pleaded with his fellow citizens to keep faith, to maintain public order, and avoid provocation. This was the only way to rid Czechoslovakia of her occupiers - to speed "normalization." Dubcek spoke from Hradcany; the regular studios were still silent. The Soviets were forced to rely on the clandestine radio stations, which they had not been able to silence, to carry his speech. They could not very well let Dubcek broadcast from the discredited Radio Vltava. The public was not convinced. This apparent capitulation brought thousands into the streets. They marched on the Federal Assembly. Demonstrators tore down and ripped apart portraits of Dubcek and Svoboda. The demonstrations brought Soviet tanks back into the streets, as conflict began anew. The deputies of the Federal Assembly appealed to the crowd to restrain itself, as did the media. Violence was averted. [1] Harry Schwartz, Prague's 200 Days (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969) 42. [2] Harry Schwartz, Prague's 200 Days (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969) 43. [3] On the same day the attack on Masaryk appeared, Czechoslovak officials announced that one of Prague's main streets would be renamed after Masaryk. [4] Colin Chapman, August 21st: the Rape of Czechoslovakia (Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1968) [5] It was General Prchlik who warned Dubcek in December of plans for a military coup. [6] On 25 July, Prchlik was relieved from his post, suppposedly due to the scheduled abolition of his department; in truth, this was probably a concession to Moscow. [7] Progress in detente in 1968 had resulted in a Soviet-American Consular Agreement, completion of a long-awaited nuclear proliferation treaty, and regular air travel between New York and Moscow. [8] Harry Schwatrz, Prague's 200 Days (New york: Frederick A. Praeger Pub, 1969) [9] Harry Schwartz, Prague's 200 days (New York: Frederick A. Praeger Pub, 1969) [10] Jiri Dienstbier, et al., Srpen 1968 (Prague: Vydavatelstvi a Nakladatelstvi Prace, 1990) [11] Harry Schwartz, Prague's 200 Days (New York: Frederick A. Praeger Pub, 1969) [12] Colin Chapman, August 21st: the Rape of Czechoslovakia (Philadelphia and New York, .. Lippincott, Co., 1968) [13] Jindrich Marco, Soudruh Agresor (Prague: Mlada Fronta, 1990) Chapter 4
		Copyright © 2004 John Larger

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