Word: ludvik
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Absorbing Maneuver. In some ways, their preparations were eerie reminders of the buildup to last summer's invasion. The two top leaders, Party Boss Gustav Husák and President Ludvik Svoboda, returned last week from an eight-day meeting with Soviet officials in the Crimea. They were probably exposed to some of the same demands tor strict party control that awaited Dubček last year at the showdown sessions in Cierna and Bratislava. More ominously, Soviet troops were reported to be conducting large scale maneuvers in Poland and East Germany along their frontiers with Czechoslovakia. Within...
Meanwhile, Czechoslovakia's two top leaders, Party Boss Gustav Husák and President Ludvik Svoboda, are on "vacation" in the Crimea, where they have met with Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev and President Nikolai Podgorny. In all likelihood, the Russians openly pressed Husák to sign a statement formally approving the invasion; so far, he has stopped just short of doing that. But undoubtedly, they added a final warning that Moscow has ordered Aug. 21 to be a cool...
...line. At a meeting in Prague's historic Hradčany Castle, the Soviet visitors demanded a pledge from the Czechoslovak government that there would be no recurrence of anti-Soviet outbursts. Otherwise the Soviets would use their own, all-too-familiar methods for imposing order. President Ludvik Svoboda, the gray-haired old soldier, rejected the ultimatum as an "unacceptable threat." But Dubček, the unhappy compromiser, sensed the gravity of the crisis and gave the Soviets his pledge. Said one Czechoslovak who attended the meeting: "It was a cold, tough session, with the Russians making it clear...
Duplicate Martyrdom. What caused that view to change was a feeling, even in the government, that Palach's death had to be taken as a serious political protest. While President Ludvik Svoboda pleaded against the repetition of "this horrible deed," he declared sympathetically on television that, "as a soldier, I am able to assess the self-denial and the personal courage of Jan Palach." Student and some union leaders quickly moved to channel the nation's horror and sympathy for Palach into full-scale political protest. First in Prague and then in other cities, they staged memorial marches...
...Moscow gave barely 24 hours' notice and demanded the strictest secrecy. Not even the flag flying over Hradcany Castle-a sign that the President is in residence-was permitted to be lowered. Most residents of Prague consequently assumed that all was normal. In fact, Czechoslovak's President Ludvik Svoboda and Party Chief Alexander Dubcek, along with three other leaders, had flown hurriedly to the Ukrainian city of Kiev for their fourth summit meeting with Soviet Communist Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev since the Russian invasion. Only after the session ended last week were Czechoslovaks informed that it had been...