Word: vlasta
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Vlasta, however, is anxious to keep politics and propaganda out of the case. She has adamantly refused to see Czech journalists or pose for photographs. "This is a private matter," she told TIME Correspondent Strobe Talbott. "I just want my children to come back home and live with their mother. I can give them love and a good home." Indeed, the home to which the children would return seems secure and wholesome. Vlasta, a component designer for a construction company, and her second husband, who is working his way through catering school, share with her parents a comfortable six-room...
...Vlasta refused to go along when the rest of her family fled or to join them later because, she now says, she did not want to leave her home and country. She also claims she was advised by Czech legal authorities that she would be able to get her children back. Vlasta filed for divorce in Czechoslovakia, sued for the custody of the children, and asked the International Red Cross to help her get them back...
First Round. The divorce and decree theoretically awarding Vlasta custody were granted in October of 1968, and she later remarried. There the matter would probably have rested had not Bedrich died, since it is unlikely that a U.S. court would have ordered the children home while their father was living. But his death left the children wards of the court, since his mother was unable to care for them...
During Gabriel's illness, the children-named after their parents, Bedrich, now 7, and Vlasta, 8-were often cared for by a local couple, Mr. and Mrs. Roy Smith. Smith, an Air Force Reserve sergeant, and his wife, a nurse's aide, eagerly added them to their own household of three children upon Gabriel's death and filed suit for legal guardianship. The couple's claim was based on Gabriel's deathbed wish that the children remain in the U.S., and also on the argument that they were too Americanized to return home. Vlasta pressed...
...Good Home. The Czech press headlined Vlasta's setback and for three days blasted away about the "kidnaping." Then the Czech government apparently decided to cool the publicity and generate some diplomatic heat instead, even though the State Department is powerless to intervene, or even comment, while the case is in a U.S. court. If the court ruled against Vlasta, a Czech Foreign Ministry official warned, "Czech-American relations will be disturbed for a long time to come." The Czechs also say that they are prepared to put pretty Vlasta, 31, on display at a press conference...