Word: ek
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...first glance, it seemed as if the Russians had gone a long way toward "normalizing" Czechoslovakia by rescinding most of the personal and political freedoms that had been granted during the heady liberal regime of Alexander Dubček. In fact, the plucky Czechoslovaks were using their wits and will to walk a shaky tightwire between overt compliance and covert resistance to Russia's goals. Last week, as Soviet soldiers settled into winter quarters outside Prague and other cities for what is likely to be a long occupation, it was plain that the Kremlin considered Czechoslovakia far from normalized...
Summons to Moscow. Most impatient of all, it seemed, was Communist Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev. Last week Brezhnev ordered Dubček to report to Moscow with his personal list of Czechoslovak "counter-revolutionaries"-for comparison with Brezhnev's own. Under pressure from Brezhnev and his Kremlin colleagues, Dubček accepted the resignation of Foreign Minister Jiři Hájek, who defiantly demanded withdrawal of Russian troops before the U.N. Security Council last month. He was the third reformer of ministerial rank to be sacked (Deputy Premier Ota Sik and Interior Minister Josef Pavel preceded...
Heretical Clippings. The fruits of such journalism were quickly apparent. Circulation doubled and tripled. Czechs waited in line at newsstands, tuned in excitedly to newscasts on Czech radio and television. To the Kremlin, however, it was all an insufferable threat. In May, Dubček was summoned to Moscow, where Leonid Brezhnev thrust a stack of heretical clippings at him and, shaking with rage, told him that "this sort of thing has got to stop." But it did not stop. Dubček refused to restore censorship, contented himself with asking newsmen to tone down their attacks for a while...
...carried on. After Russian troops marched in to close them down, most Czech papers published underground editions. Television newscasters managed to broadcast from studios over portable army transmitters, and C.T.K., the government news agency, opened a clandestine telex service. Editors sneaked past Russian surveillance to confer with Dubček's cooperative aides, promised to try to appease the Russians by imposing self-censorship...
Temporary Control. The censorship so far has been light. Journalists no longer write direct attacks against the Russians, no longer refer to Russian soldiers as "occupying troops," but their stories are anything but friendly. Rude Pravo reported with oblique subtlety that any agreements Dubček made in Moscow had been dictated by "unimaginably abnormal circumstances," conducted a quick public-opinion poll that showed that Dubček and his reforms had overwhelming popular support...