Word: svoboda
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...major political changes, and now an announcement was expected on TV. While waiting, Czechoslovaks were forced to watch the first Soviet film shown since the invasion, a potboiler entitled The Man Without a Passport. Finally, the familiar visage of Czechoslovakia's white-haired President Ludvík Svoboda flashed onto the screen. In an emotion-laden voice, the old general told his countrymen what most of them had been grimly expecting to hear for months. Alexander Dubček, who last year led his country into its shortlived "Springtime of Freedom," had been removed from office under pressure from...
...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...
...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 held...
Next morning, when the country's leaders took a train to Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, another crowd of 10,000 broke police lines, scattered the band and the honor guard, and mobbed the railway station, shouting: "Long live Dubcek!" "Long live Svoboda...