Word: kratochvil
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Czech officials snapped like kindling under the purge ax. After arresting former Foreign Minister Clementis as a "spy," Czechoslovakia's Red bosses went after his appointees. The Czech ambassador to India, Bohuslav Kratochvil, refused to go home, instead chose freedom in Britain (TIME, March 12). Less smart were three of his colleagues. When called to Prague for "consultation," they obeyed, and were promptly shunted to minor jobs. The three...
...long arm of Czechoslovakia's Red police stretched all the way to India, there reached for the Czech ambassador, Bohuslav Kratochvil, who had been appointed to his post a little over a year ago by his good friend Clementis...
...Sanskrit scholar and devotee of Hindu philosophy who frequently spices his brilliant conversation with quotations from Hindu scripture, Ambassador Kratochvil had become one of New Delhi's most popular diplomats. Pinkish Indian intellectuals used him as evidence that Communists were all right. But when Clementis was arrested, the ambassador's pale, haunted face (he had spent five years in Nazi concentration camps) grew a lot more haunted. To an announcer on the New Delhi radio, Kratochvil said: "Will you please announce my death when it takes place shortly...
...Kratochvil was summoned home to Prague for "consultation." Quietly last week he packed his bags (16 of them) and with his wife, two-year-old son and governess took a train for Bombay, traveling under the name of Smith. Later, the Smith family was reported on board a ship bound for Britain. London announced that Kratochvil had asked asylum as a political refugee. In a letter of resignation, Kratochvil denounced his country's Red regime and called on his fellow citizens to rise against it. The Czechoslovak embassy in New Delhi promptly denounced his flight as "a betrayal...
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