Word: czechoslovakia
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...Czechoslovakia also had men like Havel, who has waged a long and frustrating battle against the Communist regime, serving more than four years in jail for his pains. If anyone had suggested two weeks ago that a mass movement to overthrow Jakes would be led by him and his artistic and literary confreres, Havel would have been the first to laugh. But as the most prominent figure in Prague's rapidly coalescing opposition, Havel has rocketed to near cult status. "I am a writer and human rights activist, not a politician," insisted Havel. But as a Western diplomat in Prague...
Havel and his fellow intellectuals led Czechoslovakia's peaceful revolution in part because no one else was prepared to. Purges following the 1968 invasion wiped out all potential reformers within the party, and a continued hard line kept any progressive new party figures from emerging. The government also used Czechoslovakia's relative prosperity to buy off the workers, who proved reluctant, if not downright timid, about demanding change. Last week the workers listened to men like Havel and agreed to join in. Said a truck driver: "They showed us not to be afraid." That coalition of intellectuals, students and workers...
...surging crowds that toppled Czechoslovakia's rulers last week were inspired by, among others, Frantisek Cardinal Tomasek, 90, who has become an increasingly militant proponent of change. The ousted Jakes regime, which had permitted the appointment of six new Catholic bishops, only two weeks ago concluded a round of talks at the Vatican. In East Germany, the bloc's only predominantly Protestant state, this year's pro-democracy movement emerged from small church gatherings that, through the 1980s, criticized the Communists' handling of foreign policy, disarmament and the environment. A bishops' statement read from every pulpit Sept. 10 detailed "long...
Despite Bush's sweeping rhetoric, his closest advisers predict that he will stick to the cautious script he has followed since Hungary, Poland, East Germany and most recently Czechoslovakia began loosening the grip of Communist repression. But the President was dropping hints that if the chemistry is right, then maybe -- just maybe -- the meeting in Malta could go beyond the modest get-acquainted session he originally envisioned. He dangled that possibility in his televised speech. While stressing that the meeting "will not be a time for detailed arms-control negotiations" and that "there will be no surprises sprung...
...date. As are, an optimist dutifully believes, many thousands of border guards, KGB head beaters and assassins in the real world. Espionage will go on, of course, but presumably it will be of the corporate kind, waged among Japan, Korea and the European Community, which is apt to | include Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, what used to be called East Germany, and (as an associate member) what remains of the Soviet Union. Will thriller fans line up for tales of Samsung or Mitsubishi infiltrating Siemens A.G. and being foiled by plucky marketing execs...