Word: czechoslovakias
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia entered its third week, the political and military leaders of the West began to grapple with the hard truth that many of their old assumptions and priorities no longer applied. The Soviet Union reacted angrily last week to the U.S. State Department's judgment that the events of August had drastically altered the balance of power in Europe. The U.S., said Pravda, was merely warmongering. The fact is, however, that the balance of power has indeed been dangerously tipped by the massive infusion of Soviet troops and tanks into Central Europe at a point where...
European Solution. As a consequence of Czechoslovakia, NATO headquarters is caught up in a flurry of new studies, new reports, new plans. For all the motion, the immediate changes are likely to be fairly small. The U.S. will probably send back to Germany the 35,000 men it pulled out earlier this year, putting them in place on extended maneuvers beginning this fall...
Soviet Threats. Soviet ambassadors were under special instruction last week to once more inform the West that Czechoslovakia was a purely domestic affair and that no invasion was under consideration for that other errant East bloc country, Rumania. Even so, Soviet actions were less than reassuring. In addition to tightening their hold on captive Czechoslovakia (see following story), the Soviets kept up the pressure on Rumania by insisting that it open new talks on their bilateral "friendship treaty," which President and Party Boss Nicolae Ceauşescu had resisted for nearly a year. Ceauşescu last week caved...
NATO Nightmares. There are now more Soviet combat troops in Central Europe than at any time since 1945. The arrival of 275,000 Soviet soldiers in Czechoslovakia drastically unbalances what for two decades had been a relative parity between the opposing NATO and Warsaw Pact forces. Furthermore, the new Soviet presence along the Bavarian border of Czechoslovakia turns the flank on NATO's ground defenses, erected and maintained to meet an attack across the flat plains of East Germany...
...would risk the start of World War III by attacking a NATO member, the West Germans nonetheless worry that the Soviet leaders might try to intimidate them with a further show of force that could, perhaps by accident, turn into an invasion. Reports of Soviet tactical nuclear missiles in Czechoslovakia could only increase West German anxiety. Says Helmut Schmidt, the Socialists' parliamentary leader: "We cannot rule out the possibility that momentum of Soviet propaganda attacks might snowball into armed action...