KORPUS 21 · REVISTA DE HISTORIA Y CIENCIAS SOCIALES, VOL. I, NÚM. 1, 2021, 127-142 DOI: https://doi.org/10.22136/korpus2120218

PRAGUE SPRING’S DEMISE: THE INVOLUNTARY EMIGRATION OF THE JOURNALIST VLADIMÍR TOSEK

LA DERROTA DE LA PRIMAVERA DE PRAGA: LA EMIGRACIÓN INVOLUNTARIA DEL PERIODISTA VLADIMÍR TOSEK

Daniela Spenser Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social [email protected]

“What a terrible world it is in which you can choose between a homeland that promises suffering and the suffering that afflicts those who choose to renounce their homeland”. Ivan Klíma1

Ivan Klima1 Abstract

The attempt to reform the authoritarian regime in was aborted by Soviet-led military invasion in August 1968. The television journalist Vladimír Tosek broadcasted the occupation until the transmission was discovered, and he was forced to cross the border to Austria. He did not want to emigrate, but the radical political change forced him to exile. The Czechoslovak authorities made him pay a heavy price for daring to defy the occupiers in 1968 by making public his previ- ous collaboration with the state secret police. The government sought to discredit Tosek and his colleagues who defended vigorously the reform process.

Keywords: Spring, 1968-1969, Vladimír Tosek, emigration.

Resumen

El intento de reformar el régimen autoritario en Checoslovaquia fue abortado por la invasión militar liderada por los soviéticos en agosto de 1968. El periodista Vladimír Tosek transmitió la ocupación hasta que fue descubierto y se vio obligado a cruzar la frontera con Austria. No quería emigrar, pero el cambio político radical, que cul- minó en abril de 1969, lo obligó a exiliarse. Las autoridades le hicieron pagar un alto precio por desafiar a los ocupantes en 1968 haciendo pública su anterior colabo- ración con la policía secreta del Estado. Al hacerlo, el gobierno buscó desacreditar a Tosek y a sus colegas.

Palabras clave: Primavera de Praga, 1968-1969, Vladimír Tosek, emigración.

1 Klíma, Ivan (2013), My Crazy Century, New York, Grove Press, p.258. Tosek was my mother’s second husband; the article is based in part on his archive.

127 DANIELA SPENSER, ’S DEMISE: THE INVOLUNTARY EMIGRATION OF THE JOURNALIST VLADIMÍR TOSEK

Introduction plished. The era’s press and archives, and above all, Tosek’s personal correspondence In this article I wish to contribute to studies provided the evidence to formulate and of the initial stage of the so-called ‘norma- document my arguments. lization,’ which followed the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops Background and which spanned the period from August 1968 to April 1969. ‘Normalization’ sought Vladimír Tosek was born in Prague into a nothing less than to normalize an anomaly: secular Jewish family in 1919 and died in the foreign military occupation of the coun- London in 1987. Born a child prodigy, his try, which turned the historical clock back well-to-do parents cultivated Vladimír’s to the Stalinist era and which the reform learning of languages. By 1938, he spoke process of 1968, the Prague Spring, ideally several, was well-travelled and, to further tried to overcome. This initial stage, dubbed his education, was sent to England in the Alexander Dubček’s ‘normalization,’ ended nick of time before Czechoslovakia ceased with his fall.2 Dubček, who symbolized the to exist and one part was forcibly incorpo- Prague Spring, was replaced in April 1969 rated into the Third Reich. His parents, who by Gustav Husák, who was much more pliant did not accompany or follow Vladimír, were to the Soviet leadership, and who permitted herded to their death in Auschwitz. wholesale censorship to be restored in the In England, Vladimír enrolled in the Man- Czechoslovak mass media. The reform move- chester School of Commerce to study fo- ment of 1968 was over. reign trade and had several jobs in wartime There is no shortage of literature and Britain until 1941 when he joined the Cze- scholarly debates on the subject.3 I choose choslovak army. As part of the Czechoslo- to delve into the experience of Czechoslo- vak armored brigade, he fought in northern vak journalist Vladimír Tosek during the first France under Allied land forces commander months of ‘normalization,’ gleaning through Montgomery. It was in England that he met an examination of his life the ways in which some of the exiled Czechoslovak commu- this anomalous process unfolded and exa- nist leaders, but he did not join the party mining the means by which it was accom- until he returned to Prague, becoming its staunch adherent. In his application for a 2 Williams, Kieran (1997), The Prague Spring and its After- job in the Czechoslovak radio service in July math. Czechoslovak Politics 1968-1970, Cambridge, Cam- 1945, Vladimír extolled his linguistic quali- bridge University Press, pp. 144-191. 3 In addition to Williams’s study, see Sviták, Ivan (1971), The ties and patriotic engagements in England. Czechoslovak Experiment 1968-1969, New York and Lon- He was hired by the radio monitoring don, Colombia University Press; Tigrid, Pavel (1971), Why service and became the head of short-wave Dubček Fell. London, Macdonald; Kusín, Vladimir (1978), broadcasting for the English-speaking From Dubček to Charter 77: A Study of Normalization in Czechoslovakia, 1968-1978, New York, St. Martin’s Press; world but during the wave of the Stalinist Šimečka, Milan (1979), Obnovení pořádku. Koln: Index; Pehe, show trials, Vladimír, a Jew and a soldier in Jiří ed. (1988), The Prague Spring: A Mixed Legacy and New the western army, was sacked from his job. York, Freedom House; Dubček, Alexander with Jiří Hoch- man (1993), Naděje umírá poslední. Vlastní životopis, Praha, In the characteristic language of the time, Svoboda; Pecka, Jindřich and Vilém Prečan (1993), Proměny Vladimír’s secret police file stated that ‘he Pražského jara 1968-1969. Sborník studií a dokumentů o was born into a bourgeois family, that his nekapitulantských postojích v československé společnosti, parents invested in him so that he perfected , Doplněk; Otáhal, Milan (1995) ‘K některým otázkám dějin “normalizace”’, Soudobé dějiny 1, pp. 5-16; Doskočil, foreign languages and that in western coun- Zdeněk (2006), Duben 1969. Anatomie jednoho mocen- tries.’ Furthermore, it was known at the ra- ského zvratu, Brno, Doplněk; Bren, Paulina (2010), The dio station that he was not firm enough ‘to Greengrocer and his TV: The Culture of Communism after 4 1968 Prague Spring, Ithaca and London, Cornell University persuade the masses.’ Press; Petráš, Jiří and Libor Svoboda eds. (2017), Jaro’68 a nástup normalizace. Československo v letech 1968-1971, 4 Vesely, Jar. ‘Vladimír Tosek-poznatky,’ Prague, November České Budějovice and Praha, Ústav pro studium totalitních 27, 1951, Archiv Bezpečnostních Složek (State Security Ar- režimů. chive (hereafter ABS), file 12402-326.

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After the relative relaxation of the strin- to a military transmitter in southern Bohe- gent political atmosphere in Eastern Eu- mia. This became the last makeshift studio rope following the XXth Congress of the from which he and the technical team could Soviet Communist Party in February 1956, convey news on the foreign occupation to Vladimír was offered a job as a journalist on local and international viewers. When they Czechoslovak television. When Jiří Pelikán, a learned that Soviet tanks were approaching, reform communist avant la lettre, became the journalists abandoned that transmitter its director, he brought fresh air into the as well. On the sixth day of the occupation, ideologically asphyxiated medium.5 It was on Monday 26, they crossed the frontier to under Pelikán’s directorship that Tosek Austria with the help of the Czechoslovak became a television star as foreign news local border patrol. The technical team re- commentator. He interviewed the Cuban turned to Prague with their equipment soon revolutionary Fidel Castro and his Argen- after, while Vladimír stayed on in Vienna. His tinean comrade Che Guevara; he shook wife Ruth joined him on Thursday 29.6 They hands with the American black singer Paul adopted a wait-and-see attitude, while at Robeson; from Vietnam he returned with a home in Prague a witch-hunt against jour- piece of an American aircraft shot down by nalists was underway. the North Vietnamese soldiers; and in Italy he shot picturesque scenery to delight his In Limbo audience. In sum, Vladimír brought to his viewers forbidden to travel abroad a world Vienna in the fall of 1968 was a beehive they could not see for themselves. of refugees from occupied Czechoslova- But in 1968, without doubting for a mo- kia, some of whom scurried from embassy ment, Vladimír boarded the train conducted to embassy in search of the most suitable by the Slovak party leader Alexander Dubček country for emigration. and his close allies whose aim was to libe- Others stayed put, waiting to see if the ralize the dead-end system. As a journalist, conundrum back at home would take a turn he contributed to opening up the windows for the better, hoping that party and go- onto the country’s hidden reality, forcing the vernment leaders would take a firm stand rules of censorship to a breaking point and vis-à-vis the occupiers; or for the worse, promoting freewheeling discussions about accepting and implementing the dictates, people’s problems and views on a myriad signed in Moscow under military duress, de- of acute social, economic, political and per- manding an end to the process of reforming sonal issues. Then, just as the pathbreaking socialism and replacing its implementors.7 radio and television initiatives were getting While awaiting one outcome or another, off the ground, the Soviet-led invasion of reading the news, exchanging information Czechoslovakia on 21 August 21 1968 put an end to them. 6 ‘Vyšetřovací spis k osobě Vladimíra Toska’, ABS, file Tosek was one of those television jour- V-34970; Cysařová, Jarmila (2003), ‘V Československé tele- vizi,’ Jiří Pelikán 1923-1999, Prague, OPS občanský dialog, nalists who, in defiance of the invaders, took pp.45-46; Svejkovský, Jiří (2010), Čas marných nadějí. Roky matters into their own hands and improvised 1968 a 1969 ve zpravodajství ČST, Prague, Epocha, pp. 17- broadcasts covering the occupation of the 74; Pulec, Martin (2013), ‘Nestandardní jevy u Pohraniční Warsaw Pact armies until they could no lon- stráže v posrpnovém období roku 1968,’ Úřad doku- ger broadcast. After changing places from mentace a vyšetřování zločinů komunismu, Prague pp. one television studio to another in Prague, 9-61; Štoll, Martin (2019), Television and Totalitarianism in Czechoslovakia. From the First Democratic Republic to the he moved to a transmitter outside the capi- Fall of Communism, New York, Bloomsbury, pp. 181-182. tal city. When the invading troops discove- 7 Daneš, Ladislav (2005), Můj život s múzami, televizí a tak red his location, he and his team travelled vůbec, Praha, Malá Skála, pp. 112-114; Kosta, Jiří (2002), Život mezi úzkostí a nadějí, Praha, Paseka, pp. 132-135. 5 Štoll, Martin (2019), Television and Totalitarianism in When abducted to Moscow at gunpoint, Dubček and the Czechoslovakia. From the First Democratic Republic to the other Prague Spring leaders were forced to sign an agree- Fall of Communism, New York, Bloomsbury, pp. 169-174. ment to legitimize the invasion.

129 DANIELA SPENSER, PRAGUE SPRING’S DEMISE: THE INVOLUNTARY EMIGRATION OF THE JOURNALIST VLADIMÍR TOSEK

with friends and acquaintances, Vladimír fight for civil rights and for freedom and and Ruth looked for temporary jobs. Nei- national sovereignty, turned the Olympic ther had difficulties with German or other games into an overt political statement in languages spoken in central Europe. In no a country in which an authoritarian regime time, a network of journalists was formed headed by President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz and sprang into action. Vienna, London, Mu- sought to showcase the nation as peace- nich, Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich and Rome ful, stable and orderly. But a few days prior turned into hubs and labor exchanges for to the inauguration of the Olympic games, those who had become targets of the early the president ordered the army, the police, normalizers.8 Ruth, a jack of all trades, found the paramilitary and the elite presidential a job at United Press International in Vienna guards to repress a youth movement at Pla- as desk editor and performed odd office za Tlatelolco, which resulted in the assassi- duties. Vladimír obtained a temporary job in nation of an unknown number of citizens. Mexico where, on behalf of the consortium Tosek witnessed the way Mexico’s image as , he helped in the preparation a relatively democratic nation was tarnished of the 1968 Olympic games in September before the eyes of the entire world. and their execution in October. During his In early November, Vladimír turned up in six weeks in Mexico City, he was busy with Paris. He was anxious to find a job, which planning and organizing accommodations would entitle him to an extension of a legal in hotels and transportation of delegates to permit to remain abroad from his employer and fro, with no spare time to see anything in Prague. He kept on writing letters left, of the country or savor the Czech gymnast right and center to different European press Věra Čáslavská’s bitter-sweet triumphs. and broadcasting agencies, but to no avail. It was on October 25, 1968 that the mul- Jobs that had been offered to him were just tiple gold medalist Čáslavská stood next to as easily cancelled. He was too well known, the Soviet gymnast with whom she shared and agencies feared diplomatic retalia- a gold medal in one of the disciplines. The tion without specifying from whom. Gloom two national flags were raised simulta- was also overtaking him as he watched the neously but the Czech anthem was played events across the border.10 first. At the sound of the Soviet anthem, On October 28, the fiftieth anniversary of Čáslavská tilted her head in repudiation of the founding of the Czechoslovak Republic the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the So- following the dismemberment of the Aus- viet Union, for which it should have been tro-Hungarian Empire, protests erupted in excluded from the games for behaving most major cities; in Prague, the police tried contrary to the humanitarian mission of the to persuade the throng to disperse, but in Olympic charter, ran the headlines of the lo- the end resorted to truncheons. On Novem- cal newspapers.9 A few days before, during ber 7, the anniversary of the Bolshevik revo- their medal ceremony the African-Ameri- lution, small groups in Prague pulled down can athletes Tommie Smith and John Car- Soviet flags and burned them; once again los, who won gold and bronze medals res- the government deployed police with trun- pectively in the 200-meter running event, cheons, fire hoses, and reinforced them with heard the American national anthem with a the People’s Militia. As November 17 (the raised black-gloved fist. Both gestures, the International Students’ Day) was approa- ching and with it the anniversary of the Nazi 8 Jiří Pelikán, director of Czechoslovak television until the shooting and subsequent death in 1939 of Soviets demanded his resignation, left Czechoslovakia in September, took a diplomatic position at the embassy in the student Jan Opletal, the leaders feared Rome and owing to his wide net of acquaintances among what the media might do to inflame the European media networks, helped whom he could. atmosphere and bring back Soviet troops 9 For Čáslavská’s performances at the Olympic Games, to the cities’ centers. Thus, it was time to see the documentary film by Olga Sommerová, Věra 1968, vzlety a pády nejslavnější české gymnastky Věry Čáslavské 10 VT to Viktor Růžička, Vienna, November 20, 1968, per- (2012). sonal archive (thereafter pa).

130 KORPUS 21 · REVISTA DE HISTORIA Y CIENCIAS SOCIALES, VOL. I, NÚM. 1, 2021, 127-142 crack down on journalists, accused of ins- unspecified internal and political problems. piring this organized disorder and adopt a In Italy, he was told, it would be difficult ‘‘firm course.” Dubček warned against the to find employment because of conflicts ‘‘rightist danger,” while in the same breath between the Socialist and the Communist he urged people not to succumb to skepti- parties. The Italian Communists would not cism that the new course of the party had hire a Prague Spring journalist because they been abandoned. Citizens should ‘‘remain wanted to avoid polemics with Soviet com- optimistic but disciplined”11. However, per- rades about the reform process and its de- sonalities identified with the reform cause mise. They also believed that Communists had to leave the central organs of the party should return to Czechoslovakia and that as did the presidents of the Czechoslovak if they did not, the Italian comrades should radio and television services12. The govern- sever contacts with them, never mind help ment adopted the formula of ‘‘temporary them.17 control of the press”13. Knowing all this, the well-connected Vladimír watched the fight for the conti- Pelikán, sheltered at the Czechoslovak em- nuation of several journals as well as the ban- bassy in Rome as a cultural attaché, was ning of critical programs on television and helping Vladimír overcome unending diffi- radio. While Dubček tried to salvage some culties. He approached his friends at Radio- semblance of continuity with the reform televisione Italiana (RAI), where the obs- process, his nemesis Husák condemned the tacle might be labor Unions’ resistance to continued activity of antisocialist forces, hiring a foreigner. When Pelikán was writing imitating Soviet-dictated language about this letter, Vladimír received a ray of hope anti-Soviet and rightist threats to the coun- by way of a note from Fabio Borrelli, direc- try and their infiltration into the mass me- tor of foreign relations of RAI, offering him dia.14 The press was singled out as a threat a plane ticket to go to Rome for an inter- to the regime at the time when students view.18 Vladimír’s soon to expire Austrian and factory workers publicly defended the visa did not allow him to go to Italy at that policies of the Prague Spring and its lea- moment in December and he had to wait ders. But the leaders, like the popular Josef until he was certain that he could return to Smrkovský, begged workers in a television Vienna safely. broadcast not to strike on his behalf, while It is noteworthy that in Pelikán’s letter Dubček was undermining what hopes there of December 1968, his perception was that remained among people by urging caution the supporters of the military occupation in so as not to provoke the Soviets.15 Czechoslovakia had been weakened by the Vladimír in Vienna was nauseated by firm stand taken by industrial and cultural what he saw on the television screen, heard workers; that the regime was not contem- on the radio and read in the newspapers.16 plating jailing the opposition and that there To add to his dejection was the cancellation was still hope. Pelikán, wrongly as it turned of another promise of a job at the BBC for out, believed that the coming détente be- tween the superpowers could lead to a re- 11 Williams, Kieran, (1997), The Prague Spring and its After- duction of tensions in Europe, which would math. Czechoslovak politics 1968-1970, Cambridge, Cam- bridge University Press, pp. 174-176. weaken the position of the dogmatists and 12 Dubček, Alexander and Jiří Hochman (1993), Naděje the cold warriors on both sides of the ideo- umírá poslední. Vlastní životopis, Praha: Svoboda, p. 225. logical spectrum.19 13 Dubček, Alexander and Jiří Hochman (1993), Naděje umírá We now know that the opposite happe- poslední. Vlastní životopis, Praha, Svoboda, pp.219-233. 14 Williams, Kieran. (1997), The Prague Spring and its After- ned: as international tension was reduced, math. Czechoslovak politics 1968-1970. Cambridge: Cam- Leonid Brezhnev, who masterminded the bridge University Press, pp. 175-183. invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the dogma- 15 Kavan, Jan (1988), ‘From the Prague Spring to the Long Winter,’ in Pehe, Jiří ed., The Prague Spring: A Mixed Lega- 17 Pelikán to VT, Rome, December 13, 1968, pa. cy, New York, Freedom House, pp. 108-113. 18 Fabio Borelli to VT, Rome, December 10, 1968, pa. 16 VT to Pelikán, Vienna, December 9, 1968, pa. 19 Pelikán to VT, Rome, December 13, 1968, pa.

131 DANIELA SPENSER, PRAGUE SPRING’S DEMISE: THE INVOLUNTARY EMIGRATION OF THE JOURNALIST VLADIMÍR TOSEK

tists of his ilk, felt free to act without inter- measures relative to mass media, such as national inspection or interference in their restoring control over what could be aired sphere of influence. The continuing Cold or published, without implementing a full- War in fact stabilized relations between the scale censorship. Control over the media superpowers in Europe.20 would be the responsibility of editors; and there would be no dismissal of journalists January or repressive measures against newspapers and journals. However, by the middle of the Vladimír made the trip to Rome on January month, Dubček talked about enforcing the 8. Radiotelevisione Italiana offered him a principle of ‘democratic centralism,’ me- one-year contract as an external collabo- aning accepting decisions taken by state rator, with a salary equivalent to that of an organs, limiting debates and denouncing Italian journalist and with a starting date in ‘‘petty bourgeois radicalism” and anarchis- the middle of February. The work content tic tendencies among the youth.23 Journa- was not specified, but it was agreed that he lists knew only too well the meaning of such would collaborate in tasks relative to tele- menacing words; they harked back to the vision journalism and documentary produc- Stalinist past. The atmosphere in Prague tion, and RAI would take advantage of his was thick with rumors and turned heartren- linguistic skills for its stories about interna- ding after the student Jan Palach set him- tional relations. It was Vladimir’s decision self on fire in protest against the foreign that neither his face nor his name would occupation and its gradual regularization on ever appear in public; he was and wanted January 16 and died on January 25. to remain a Czechoslovak journalist, with le- His burial turned into a mass demonstra- gal residence abroad, among other reasons tion against the invasion. Tragically, ‘‘though so that his children could visit him. The co- stunning in its dignity, this approach brought llaboration with RAI would have many ad- no political rewards.”24 vantages for Czechoslovak television, he Vladimír was aware that going to Prague claimed, for he would learn new technical, was risky, but it was the only alternative he programming and publicity skills, would be had if he wanted to legalize his stay abroad. able to shoot documentaries, produce re- There was a reason to be concerned. His ports about Italy and, last but not least, the and Ruth’s exit permits were soon to expire, job would enable him to write a book with so he sent their private passports to Prague the ingenious working title ‘Ukážu ti cestu with the application for renewal but was RAIem-kniha o Italii, jejím rozhlase a televizi.’21 notified that their permits had been denied Vladimír painted an idyllic situation. How- and their passports retained by the authori- ever, before moving to Italy, he needed to ties. Fortunately for both, they still had their go to Prague to settle practical matters, official passports. Vladimír hoped that his above all to replace his soon to expire offi- cial passport with a new one.22 23 ‘Záznam o jednání předsednictva Svazu českých novinářů o některých okamžitých opatření UV KSC v oblasti hromad- Shortly before Vladimír’s trip, the lea- ných sdělovacích prostrědků (1.13.1969),’ typescript, pa. dership of the Union of Czech Journalists 24 Hochman, Jiří (1988), ‘Words and Tanks: The Revival, met to acquaint themselves with the new the Struggle, the Agony and Defeat (1968-1969),’ in Pehe, Communist Party Central Committee’s Jiří ed., The Prague Spring: A Mixed Legacy, New York, Freedom House, pp. 108-113; Kavan, Jan (1988), ‘From 20 Vinen, Richard (2019), The Long ‘68. Radical Protest and the Prague Spring to a Long Winter,’ in Pehe, Jiří ed., The Prague Spring: A Mixed Legacy, New York: Freedom House, Its Enemies, London, Penguin Random House, pp. 302-303. pp. 109-111; Dubček, Alexander and Jiří Hochman (1993), 21 ‘I’ll show you the road through RAI- a book about Italy, its Naděje umírá poslední. Vlastní životopis. Praha: Svoboda, radio and television.’ Ráj in Czech is paradise. 22 VT, ‘Informace o mé návštěvě v Římě a námety z ni vy- pp. 236-237; Williams, Kieran (1997), The Prague Spring plývající,’ Vienna, January 15, 1969, pa. Next to their private and its Aftermath. Czechoslovak politics 1968-1970. Cam- passports, Vladimír, Ruth and people who travelled on busi- bridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 188-190. The story ness abroad were issued passports for travel on behalf of of Jan Palach was dramatized by Agnieszka Holland in the the institutions they represented. filmThe Burning Bush (2013).

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employer would step in and arrange his le- endeared him to someone like Černík who gal stay abroad on behalf of Czechoslovak was bent on getting rid of them. He never television. If not, ‘‘it would mean an artificial received a reply. production of emigrants and moreover of people who had no such intentions.”25 February Vladimír also wrote to the prime minister Oldřich Černík, who, as early as September Vladimír crossed the border on February 1968, was selected by the Soviet leaders 6. His arrival in Prague was preceded by a to undermine Dubček’s authority and who diatribe against him published in the So- asked the Soviets for advice on how to deal viet-manufactured pamphlet called Zprávy with a group of journalists, mostly Jews he (News.) Put out with the help of the Soviet added, whom the Czechoslovak leaders army, a poorly edited collection of slan- wanted to send out of the country for five der and calls for revenge, Zprávy accused to ten years as cultural or trade representa- Vladimír of having collaborated in 1968 with tives, so as to avoid having to take political the British diplomat and press attaché Cyril steps against them and thus making them Jonsen. Even though the details of these ‘‘embittered émigrés.”26 Vladimír assured contacts were unknown to jk, the author the prime minister that he was and wanted of the smear, in August Tosek supposed- to remain a Communist journalist who after ly provided Jonsen with information on a stint abroad would return home. He had party and government positions. ‘‘Vladi- not engaged in any activity contrary to the mír Tosek is allegedly in Vienna. His partner party and state leadership; he had not wri- (sic) is supposed to be working there with tten a single line or made any declaration a Jewish organization Joint. Both of them which would distance him from the reform left Czechoslovakia without a legal travel course of 1968.27 document. How they left is still insufficiently Vladimír knew better: his personal ar- known.”29 Most likely, jk was an interior mi- chive testifies to his knowledge of the de- nistry hack with no scruples about resorting gree to which the Dubček leadership was to lies. Vladimír, in fact, had legal documents retreating from the reform program of 1968 when he crossed the border and Ruth was and the changes that were taking place in not working for a Jewish organization, but Czechoslovak television, removing promi- for the United Press Agency. Facts did not nent journalists from their responsibility in matter. programming, barring others from appea- The same day that Vladimír was on the ring on the television screen or sacking train travelling to Prague, interior minister them altogether. Reportedly, Vladimír’s fate Josef Grösser met with leading party mem- was also on the line. In the same letter to bers from around the country and informed the prime minister, he expressed solidarity them about anti-state groups that had with his television and other colleagues in sprung up. Among them was the so called the media,28 something that could not have ‘control room for Czechoslovak journalists and cultural workers’ in Vienna, led by the 25 VT to Josef Smidmajer, ústrední reditel Cs. televize, Vien- na, January 31, 1969, pa. former employee of Czechoslovak televi- 26 Over the next few months, Černík performed the role sion Tosek, most likely also participating in that he was assigned to the full satisfaction of the Soviets. the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe and He was even offered Dubček’s job, which he turned down in anticipation of the ‘nasty measures’ Dubček’s successor elaborating materials about Czechoslova- 30 would have to take, see Williams, Kieran (1997), The Prague kia. The canard probably referred to the Spring and its Aftermath. Czechoslovak politics 1968-1970, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 173-209. Česka televizní publicistika, svědectví šedesátých let. 27 VT to Oldřich Černík, Vienna, January 31, 1969, pa. Prague: Edice Česke televize 66, p. 123. 28 Arnošt Frydrych to VT and RT, Prague, February 2, 1969, 29 jk, ‘Ve středu zájmů imperialistických rozveděk.’ Zprávy, pa; Svejkovský, Jiří (2010), Čas marných nadějí. Roky 1968 (February 1, 1969) 7; ‘Soviet Attack on Prague Britons.’ The a 1969 ve zpravodajství ČST, Prague, Epocha, p. 87; Daneš, Times, (February 4, 1969). The American Jewish Joint Dis- Ladislav (2005), Můj život s múzami, televizí a tak vůbec, tribution Committee was and is a Jewish relief organization. Praha: Malá Skála, pp. 118-121; Cysařová, Jarmila (1993), 30 ‘Ministerstvo vnitra k případů Vl. Toska,’ Svobodné Slovo.

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informal support network helping Czechos- a legitimate cause, interrupted by an ille- lovak journalists to find jobs that indeed gitimate occupation which the current in- existed. The news travelled across the coun- terrogators represented. A few days later, try as far as to eastern and south- on February 24, still uncontrolled, the daily eastern Moravia.31 What incensed Vladimír Svobodné Slovo carried a few words about most about the newspaper report of the Vladimír’s encounter at the interior ministry, meeting was the reference to him as a ‘for- which the latter dismissed as mere ques- mer’ employee of Czechoslovak television. tioning about his border crossing. Vladimír In Prague, the new but decent television believed the attack on journalists like him director went out of his way to apply to the camouflaged an assault on the leading per- interior ministry on Vladimír’s behalf to se- sonalities of the Prague Spring. cure him a new passport and an exit permit Indeed, reformers still holding on to their for both him and his wife. On February 19, posts had been singled out for removal by Vladimír was summoned for an interview at the so called ‘realists.’ The country was in a the ministry. The meeting with the officials, real crisis, argued Černík, because the power whose job it was to issue passports, turned of the party-state had been weakened. But into an interrogation. The questions swirled make no mistakes, he admonished, any un- around the circumstances of his broadcast rest would be crushed by Czechoslovak during the first days of the occupation; they tanks in order to restore stability.33 wanted to know names, but most impor- tantly they inquired about how Vladimír March crossed the border on August 26, 1968, an action which his interrogators called After this harrowing experience, Vladimír unlawful. Their insistence on the illegality penned a provocative newspaper article, of the border crossing, Vladimír thought, with the title ‘Kterak jsem si šel pro vlnu a vrátil was intended to disqualify the work of the se ostřihán’ or ‘How I went for wool and re- Czechoslovak television team’s broadcas- turned sheared,’ which became an instant ting during the heady days following the talk of the town item.34 But Zprávy was re- military invasion. The border crossing was lentless and went on the attack again on illegal, they concluded, because Vladimír March 15 against those television journa- could not produce the obligatory stamp on lists who like Vladimír spent the war years his exit permit. Then they wanted to know in England and in the western army. It did who he knew from his travels abroad. He re- not matter that the author invented the fact plied that he knew many people but would that Vladimír had a brother who worked for not name names. The next thing his inte- the BBC. What mattered was to hammer rrogators did was to take away his official home the point that people like him ‘‘are passport. 32 in fact carrying out antisocialist and anti- However, the essence of the interroga- Soviet, that is to say counterrevolutionary tion lay elsewhere. The Prague Spring was politics.”35 A poignant proof for the authori- ties was the ‘ice-hockey crisis.’ Prague (February 26, 1969); ‘Vl. Tosek odpovídá,’ Svobodné Slovo. (February 28, 1969); VT, ‘Kterak jsem si šel pro vlnu a vrátil se ostřihán,’ Práce, (March 1, 1969). Founded in 1949 33 ‘Občanský postoj umělců,’ Svobodné Slovo. (February by the U.S. government, Radio Free Europe broadcasted 24, 1969) 4; ‘Ministerstvo vnitra k případu Vl. Toska,’ Svobod- news to Eastern Europe to counter the Soviet-inspired né Slovo. (February 26, 1969) 3; VT, ‘Moje únorové události,’ news making. Reportér, IV/8, (February 27, 1969) ,15; ‘Vl. Tosek odpovida,’ 31 ‘Vaša otázka-naša odpověd,’ Východoslovenské noviny, Svobodné Slovo, (February 28, 1969), 3; Williams, Kieran orgán východoslovenského krajského výboru KSS. Prague (1997), The Prague Spring and its Aftermath. Czechoslovak (February 25, 1969); ‘Aktiv funkcionářů KSC v Hodoníne,’ politics 1968-1970, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, Slovácko (February 26, 1969). pp. 193-194. 32 For the criminalization of border crossing, see Rychlik, Jan 34 ‘Kterak jsem si šel pro vlnu a vrátil se ostřihán,’ Práce, (2016), ‘Překračování hranic a emigrace v Československu a March 1, 1969; Šimečka, Milan (1969), ‘Strategie naděje,’ východní Evropě ve 20. století,’ Securitas imperii, 29, pp. 10- Listy, March 13, 10. 72; VT, ‘Kterak jsem si šel pro vlnu a vrátil se ostřihán,’ Práce, 35 Váňa, Josef (1969), ‘Z televizní kuchyňe a zakulisi,’ Zprávy, (March 1, 1969), 4. March 15, 4.

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In the midst of an energy crisis and coal thoughts in an ironic feuilleton about the shortage in the severe winter cold, the po- hockey team gatekeeper’s responsibility for pulation watched the Czechoslovak hockey the lineup’s triumph and the popular reac- team’s two triumphs over the Soviets at the tion which so infuriated the authorities. world cup on March 21 and 28 in Stockholm, However, the centerpiece of his reflec- triggering an eruption of joyous demonstra- tion was socialism: on the one hand, there tions. The score of 2:0 and a week later of 4:3 was dogmatic socialism, ‘‘based on the hard gave an unexpected impulse to national pa- bureaucratic-police apparatus both in the triotic sentiment and anti-Soviet expressions party and in all the other institutions; with on the streets. They also provoked the dark its permanent suspicion of deviations, of forces of the regime into instigating an ac- flirting with the class enemy, of espionage tion that might have been behind the van- and treason”; and on the other hand, there dalizing of the Soviet airline office of Aero- was ‘‘socialism with a human face, demo- flot in the center of Prague. This time, the cratic, humanistic socialism.”38 Dubček leadership fully identified itself with In the spirit of Marxism, albeit simpli- the Soviet critics and, in doing so, broade- fied, Vladimír conceded that everything ned the gulf between his leadership and the including institutions, opinions and ideas population, whom he had courted for a year. evolved, but failed to recognize the basic Soon after on March 31 and without Dubček’s historical premise that the past lived in the knowledge, Marshal Andrei Grecko, the So- present; a past that would soon haunt him. viet minister of defense landed in Czechos- lovakia and demanded that censorship be April installed and that the Czechoslovak mili- tary forces repress the ‘counterrevolution.’ After the daily Práce published Vladimír’s If not, Grecko threatened, the Soviet army article on March 1 in full, the newspaper would do the job. Dubček understood that asked interior minister Josef Grösser for his head was on the line.36 a comment. There was no reply until April The day after the game, on March 29, ‘‘I 11. When it arrived, it was a tape recording, received a phone call from a man who in- provided by the interior ministry’s head of troduced himself as Šíma,” Vladimír jotted the office for issuing passports and visas down afterwards. ‘‘In a composed and cour- in which, ‘‘without providing concrete ar- teous manner, he blamed me for the agita- guments he intimated that there had been tion of the previous night. He added that all some sort of relations in the past between of us in the mass media are to be blamed the author of the article and Security [or- because we were sowing hate, hysteria and gans].” The newspaper called Vladimír for above all fascism among the people.”37 The a comment but did not find him. The mi- voice on the other side of the telephone line nistry’s reply also indicated that it granted continued: the presence of Soviet forces on Vladimír his passport and the exit permit.39 Czechoslovak soil was justified, the media’s The recorded voice belonged to Colonel activities during the past August were ille- doctor Zdeněk Rajchart, the office chief him- gal and the entrance of the army was co- self. A man of intelligence and cunning, Raj- rrect. After some attempt to debate with chart was probably selected for the task to Šíma, which did not go anywhere, Vladimír perform a role equal to a seasoned publicist. sat at his typewriter and wrote down his If Vladimír asked for explanations about the interrogation that he had been subjected to 36 Dubček, Alexander and Jiří Hochman (1993), Naděje umírá poslední. Vlastní životopis. Praha: Svoboda, pp. 237- the previous month, Rajchart was there to 41; Williams, Kieran (1997), The Prague Spring and its After- provide it thanks to a careful study of that math. Czechoslovak politics 1968-1970, Cambridge, Cam- interrogation which the ministry recorded bridge University Press, pp. 193-198; Tigrid, Pavel (1971), Why Dubček Fell. London: Macdonald, pp. 155-167. 38 VT, typescript, no title, no date, pa. 37 VT, ‘Může za to Dzurilla,’ typescript, pa. Dzurilla was the 39 Rajchart, Zdeněk (1969), ‘Vážený soudruhu redaktore,’ hockey team’s gatekeeper. Práce, April 12, 4.

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without Vladimír’s knowledge. Vladimír rous readers of Práce requested further ex- had not crossed the border at a designated planations which the newspaper asked him crossing point on August 26, 1968, charged to supply. Vladimír objected to Rajchart’s the taped voice that was transcribed in a slight that he was afraid when Soviet tanks long newspaper article. It was true that Vla- were reported as drawing nearer the trans- dimír had the right documents, but on cross- mitter and “even more illustrative were the ing the frontier to Austria, his papers were intimations repeated several times made by not stamped. By then Rajchart knew who Colonel . Rajchart about my ‘alleged rela- helped Vladimír to cross the border. Alle- tions with his ministry.’” In his defense, Vla- gedly, when Soviet tanks were approaching dimír pointed out that during the fifties he the hill from which the team was transmi- was accused of collaboration with British, tting the layout of the troops and the so- American and other foreign organs, and re- cial and political atmosphere it created, cently was smeared on the pages of Zprávy. the border officer offered Vladimír and his But Rajchart chose well where it hurt most. television team a shelter on the Czechos- The ministry issued Vladimír his passport lovak side of the border, but ‘‘Tosek was so and the exit permit, clearing the ministry’s anxious and fearful, and for that reason in- reputation before the public, while at the sisted on an immediate departure abroad.” same time it created an air of suspicion However, by then Rajchart’s central point around Vladimír as an honest journalist with was not whether the transmission was legal consequences for his reputation at home or illegal or why Vladimír crossed the bor- and abroad. der the way he did; what mattered most was The reference to his collaboration with that Tosek spoke arrogantly to his interro- the interior ministry’s secret service was as gators from the moral high ground and criti- low as it could get. Vladimír was concerned cized their daring to treat him as if he were about the effect such a ‘recommendation’ a delinquent.40 Rajchart had a trump card might have on his colleagues and readers hidden up his sleeve. In a well calculated at home and abroad. Before leaving Prague, move, he showed his hand: ‘‘But you know, he thanked the many citizens who sent him don’t you that you did not always have such or conveyed personal manifestations of a negative attitude to Security [organs] as support, trust and encouragement.42 you assume now?.” Could it have been the Vladimír sent his reply to Práce and Rudé case that Vladimír’s attitude then was an právo.43 Práce set the article in print but attempt to atone for his sins from the past, could not publish it due to government ins- Rajchart concluded: ‘‘Now that the whole tructions to all newspaper offices on April 15 affair has been clarified, you will be given that it was not desirable to discuss Tosek’s the exit permit.”41 case any further.44 Vladimír’s rebuttal was Nothing was cleared up during the inte- published on April 30 in Filmové a televizní rrogation and no more information was ob- noviny, which did not heed the instructions. tained than what the secret police already Vladimír denied any connection with the in- knew, but getting information was not terior ministry, which he knew was damning the point; most likely, Rajchart was put in and disqualifying in the public eyes. By the charge of the case because he had valuable time the article came out, he was back in material with which to discredit Vladimír, Vienna. He left Prague on April 24 by train. smearing his past, and thus questioning the As if they had been warned beforehand, the reform process of 1968 which the journalist custom officers at the border searched his and his cohort stood for. luggage inside out.45 Before Vladimír left Prague, he wrote a 42 ‘Závěrečné vyjádření V. Toska,’ typescript, pa. rebuttal to Rajchart’s article. Indeed, nume- 43 The organs of the labor unions and the communist party respectively. 40 Ibid. 44 ‘VT redakci Rudého práva,’ Prague, April 15, 1969; Josef 41 See also ‘Kdo koho ostrihal?’ Rudé právo, Prague, (April Vávra to VT, April 15, 1969, pa. 12, 1969), 2. 45 VT, ‘Kterak jsem si šel pro vlnu a vrátil se ostřihán,’ Film-

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By then, the pieces that completed the There were no purges, jailing, or perse- ‘normalization’ process were all in place. To cution of law-abiding citizens who opposed the relief of his opponents, Dubček resigned the ‘normalization’ until Husák became the as the Czechoslovak Communist Party se- party’s secretary. The press had been rela- cretary apparently on his own free will and tively free; no scientist or journalist had to gave his blessing to Husák as his replace- wash windows to earn a living, the cultural ment, thus fulfilling the president’s promise scene was lively and travel abroad was per- to Marshal Andrei Grecko. By resigning, in mitted until December 1969. With Husák at order to contribute to the alleged struggle the helm of the party, the ‘normalization’ against the anti-socialist and rightist oppor- process was thorough. Journalists were tunist forces, and to strengthen party unity dismissed and replaced by lackeys of the and to build better relations with the USSR, system; journals were shut down and jail- Dubček accepted Soviet pressures lock, ing of oppositionists returned to become a stock and barrel.46 Throughout the months practice or a threat. The atmosphere of the that followed the foreign occupation, Dubček repressive fifties was restored, though with- used his moral capital to gradually lower the out the hanging. But according to Dubček, population’s expectations, trade off some April 1969 was the final act of treason of the aims on the promise of future rewards and Prague Spring.48 At the time, he did not fa- persuade the majority to demobilize. In the thom his own contribution for it to happen. belief that they were salvaging the reform course, Dubček and others who resisted the The State Secret Security Files Soviet demands to dismantle that process facilitated the restoration of authoritarian So, what did Rajchart have in mind in his rule by providing powerful incentives for cryptic allusion to Vladimír’s collaboration public self-restraint in demanding an end with the secret police? And why reopen- to the foreign occupation. Dubček’s under- ing the case is relevant for the analysis of standing of political reality was that the Tosek’s trajectory? country would settle down, foreign troops On May 25, 1958, Jiří Čermák, an employee would leave, and reforms continue, but for of the state secret security, reported to his this to happen the public had to comply and superior: ‘‘I have carried out a personal ac- continue to back the leadership. quaintance with comrade Tosek Vladimír, Many journalists complied with the re- Prague television journalist. I met Tosek quest for self-censorship on condition that through another television journalist, who the party leaders produce substantial re- is our informant, and was introduced as the sults and that the measures be temporary. informant’s friend.” Čermák was impressed Dubček’s abdication in April was the culmi- by Vladimír’s intelligence and the love of nation of the defeatist policy of the Prague his family. Tosek seemed to be the type of Spring leadership, generating a sense of a person who fulfilled ‘‘our requirements frustration in the population and facilitating to become a collaborator.” His recruitment ‘normalization.’ Dubček, unwittingly, woun- would not be a problem, because he was ded the reform in an effort to save it.47 ‘‘rationally and I think emotionally on our side.”49 His tasks as an agent were to work ové a televizní noviny, 3 (April 30, 1969), 6; VT, ‘Zpráva o prohlídce zavazadel V. Toska příslušníky pohraniční stráze in the area of ‘westerners,’ but also to re- Ministerstva vnitra,’ typescript, pa. Czechoslovak politics 1968-1970, Cambridge: Cambridge 46 Williams, Kieran (1997), The Prague Spring and its After- math. Czechoslovak politics 1968-1970, Cambridge: Cam- University Press, pp.45-58; 144-148. bridge University Press, pp. 206-208. 48 Williams, Kieran (1997), The Prague Spring and its Af- termath. Czechoslovak politics 1968-1970, Cambridge: 47 Prečan, Vilém (1993), ‘Lid, veřejnost, občanská společnost Cambridge University Press, (226-243); Dubček, Alexander jako aktér Pražského jara 1968,’ in Pecka, Jindřich and and Jiří Hochman (1993), Naděje umírá poslední. Vlastní Vilém Prečan, Proměny Pražského jara 1968-1969. Sborník životopis, Praha: Svoboda, pp.221-224; Wilson, Paul (1993), studií a dokumentů o nekapitulantských postojích v ‘Unlikely Hero,’ New York Review of Books, September 23. československé společnosti, Brno: Doplněk, pp. 13-36; Wi- 49 Čermák, Jiří. ‘Záznam o osobním poznání,’ Prague, May lliams, Kieran (1997), The Prague Spring and its Aftermath. 25, 1958, ABS, file 43891-020-0029.

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port on people who worked in the foreign to us propped up at the world hockey cup section of Czechoslovak radio and on for- where he will act as a translator for western eigners arriving in Czechoslovakia. Given foreign journalists and hence will be in day- his relations abroad, he was to be used as to-day contact with them.” Tosek was inter- a liaison person during his travels. He could ested in teamwork with the security organs, be trusted and would be recruited ‘‘on the and given his character and linguistic skills, strength of his ideology,” his belonging to ‘‘here is a total guarantee of a good collabo- the party and ‘‘devotion to the popular dem- rator.” His cover name was to be Cornel.52 ocratic regime.” Since Vladimír was com- However, in early November 1959, Vladi- promised by his previous personal contacts mír was asked to report on the political and with people liquidated during the Slánský ideological profile of female announcers on trial in 1952, with people who escaped from Czechoslovak television and his colleagues. Czechoslovakia after the Communist take- In an interview with one of them in Novem- over in February 1948, including his sister, ber 2017, Kamila Moučková, the former news and by having served in the western army presenter abounded in glowing compli- during the war, it was believed that Vladimír ments about Vladimír and the entire tele- would be a loyal collaborator. When Čermák vision team which she joined in 1957. She interviewed him, Tosek ‘‘understood cor- might have never learnt about Vladimír’s rectly the state security political tasks and report, it might have had no impact on her committed himself to working with us.”He career in the Czechoslovak television, or if promised to communicate information he she knew, she might have forgotten it.53 gleaned from contacts with foreigners and Vladimír described Moučková as someone was ready to reestablish written contacts with who came from a Communist family, but people he knew from his war-time emigration.50 whose political profile was questionable: ‘‘in Before the actual recruitment took place, her attitude to life and work she lacks com- several people who knew Vladimír were munist spirit. She is a typical petty bour- consulted as to his character and politi- geois lady, too much interested in money cal standing. In his favor was the fact that and trying to work as little as possible — and during the Hungarian uprising of 1956 for that in different engagements to earn as ‘‘he stood uncompromisingly against the much as possible — and at times she con- counterrevolution,”51 a euphemism used to ceals her hypocritical feelings with hysteri- denounce the revolt against the communist cal outbursts even during party meetings regime in Hungary. at which she tries to simulate her abundant Vladimír was recruited in February 1959. awareness. She deceives some people, not He met with Čermák in a wine cellar in the all.” About another anchor person he had center of Prague at 1 o’clock in the after- little to say, and in order to say anything he noon; the restaurant was almost empty, so relied on another person’s information. One they could talk undisturbed. Vladimír con- announcer, he reported, was politically un- fided in the handler about his family, his first educated and only interested in her looks, wife’s infidelity and his reluctance to grant while the third one, one of the best, recen- her a divorce, for which she was asking be- tly divorced, was politically passive. Of the cause of the four children they had toge- fourth one he knew nothing, wrote Vladimír, ther. He offered an immediate collaboration: alias Jiří Váňa.54 ‘‘a new opportunity to make himself useful However, denigrating other person’s life 50 Npor. Emil Kovar, ‘Předkládám návrh na verbovku,’ and character worked in both directions. In Prague, December 12, 1958, ABS, file 43891-020-0031. Ru- 52 ‘Záznam o verbovce,’ Prague, 2.26.1959, ABS, file 43891- dolf Slánský and other high-ranking communists had been 020-0034. falsely accused of espionage, sabotage and treason, and in fabricated trials condemned to death by hanging in 1952. 53 Author’s interview with Kamila Moučková, Prague, No- 51 ‘Petr,’ ‘Tosek-Tausig, Vladimír-poznatky,’ Prague, vember 13, 2017. 6.18.1958, ABS, 43891-020-0027. Broadly speaking, the 54 ‘Jiří Váňa,’ ‘Jako hlasatelky v Cs. Televizi v Praze ucinkuji,’ Hungarian October of 1956 was a forerunner of the Prague 11.27.1959, Pracovní svazek, no. 43 891/020, Prague, ABS, Spring of 1968. 43891-020-0053-55.

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May 1960 Josef reported on Vladimír that he had fallen into isolation, he stated that Latin was an extremely intelligent man, with many American journalists acted together with languages under his belt and knowledge of the Czechoslovaks even without belonging the world, ‘‘but he is a typical cosmopoli- to any communist party.57 These might have tan, who cares only about his prosperous been incisive observations, but the handlers livelihood.”55 hoped for more substantial information. Travels abroad to western countries were Doubts existed about Vladimír’s useful- a coveted prize in the 1960s. In the light of ness for domestic intelligence, although what the interior ministry expected of its from time to time he was requested to re- agent, it encouraged Vladimír’s trips, ho- port on individuals at home but not much ping he would bring back useful ‘defensive’ was expected. As a party member ‘‘he is not information. Before each journey, he was trusted by people with enemy intentions and briefed on whom to approach on the un- cannot be given tasks related to them.” One derstanding that the world out there was a official, Mayor Zezula, suggested that Vla- dangerous place, that people from commu- dimír be used only for tasks while abroad.58 nist countries had to be on the lookout for In March 1961, Vladimír was sent to Casa- provocation by ‘reactionary elements’ and blanca in Morocco to interpret at a meeting then accused of provoking violence and de- of the International Student Union leader- briefed on his return. ship. His report consisted of political analy- In October 1960, Vladimír participated in sis of the struggle among different leftist an International Student Union conference groups vying for power in their countries, in Iraq. He duly reported on the political which it was his job to translate from one behavior of both Iraqis and Czechs and ex- language to another. As reports from pre- cused himself for not being able to deliver vious trips, his analysis added to the under- more because he fell ill. Still, the disputes standing of the international tug of ideo- among the delegates from one country or logical war among the participants, divided another, China or Japan, Arabs or Pales- into progressive, reactionary and revisio- tinians and the ideological leanings of one nists like the Yugoslavs; he provided names, or another were useful, serving the minis- nationalities, and organizations to which try as barometers of international tensions. they belonged. A lover of foreign travels, One point of dispute was the inevitability Vladimír used the occasion to shoot scenes of a third world war, which some delegates from Moroccan life and with no money to propagated, and others denied.56 spare he hitchhiked to get to the places he From Iraq Vladimír travelled to a world wanted to get on film.59 meeting of journalists in Austria. Without Vladimír was asked periodically to report citing anyone, he mentioned that some- on people he had met in England during the body in Prague wanted to obstruct his par- war or to write reports on his television co- ticipation by denying him a visa. Did some- lleagues, their character and political views, one want to participate in his stead or was which went hand in hand. In doing so, he had it due to any animosity towards Vladimír? to be on the lookout for who was connected At the meeting, the adherents to the Soviet to whom, when and how as a friend, as a bloc and pro-Chinese journalists were at husband or as a lover; where, with whom loggerheads over the correct interpretation and in what material conditions they lived.60 of what constituted a communist move- ment. Unlike the Chinese communists who 57 Ibid. 58 Mayor Jan Zezula, Prague, February 10, 1961. ABS, file 55 ‘Josef,’ ‘Tosek Vladimír z Cs. Televize-poznatky,’ Prague, 43891-020-0081. 5.30.1960. ABS, file 43891-020-0091. In communist par- 59 ‘Jiří Váňa,’ ‘Od 14. do 31. III. 1961 konal se zájezd skupiny lance, cosmopolitan was a derogatory epithet used prima- pracovníků sekretariátu MSS a externích spolu pracovníků rily for Jews. společně s představiteli některých členských organizaci 56 ‘Pramen se zúčastnil od 5. do 16. října 1960 zájezdu MSS do Maroka.’ Prague, ABS, file 43891-020-0083-91. pořádaného Mezinárodním svazem studentstva do Iraku na 60 ‘Jiří Váňa,’ ‘Karel Veselý,’ Prague, August 11, 1961. ABS, file VI. kongres MSS.’ ABS, file 43891-020-0063-75. 43891-020-0107.

139 DANIELA SPENSER, PRAGUE SPRING’S DEMISE: THE INVOLUNTARY EMIGRATION OF THE JOURNALIST VLADIMÍR TOSEK

Vladimír’s disposition to collaborate with pany —after having been blind for so long the state’s secret service went on without that I gobbled it up and defended it com- blemish. There was no need to dangle any pletely, with errors and crimes— so I, who perks before him or blackmail him into co- am aware of it all, I belong to it, and they operation as happened with so many unsus- are the usurpers. So, any ‘measures’ and pecting informers. Cornel proved trustwor- ‘steps’ will be their responsibility.”62 Vladimír thy, capable and reliable, but his usefulness meant that his belonging to the Czechoslo- was limited for both intelligence and coun- vak Communist Party was permanent, even terintelligence. He did not go out of his way to if the party might expel him from its ranks.63 seek information on other individuals. While Vladimír was sacked from the Czechos- abroad he met many, but always related to lovak television, his permit to stay abroad his work as an interviewer or a documenta- expired, he was expelled from the party and rist, and always with other people close by. stripped of his citizenship. The employment When in 1965 he was requested to report in the Italian television proved an illusion on a television employee whose sister ma- because of internal organizational conflicts. rried an American citizen, he delivered next Even though he was paid a salary, no con- to nothing because the woman in question crete assignment ever materialized. After a was uninterested in having any contact with year in Rome and an intense search for an Vladimír. ‘‘The collaborator acted correctly, alternative occupation, Vladimír landed a is interested in cooperation and fulfills tasks job at the BBC radio monitoring service in with which he is entrusted well.”61 By 1966, England. It was not an ideal job for a sea- information regarding agent Cornel petered soned television journalist, but it paid the out in the interior ministry archive. bills. Furthermore, by listening to the news So, what of it? If it had not been for Raj- from Eastern Europe, day in day out, he chart’s revelation of Tosek’s collaboration kept abreast of events in the home terrain. with the secret police, we would not have However, Vladimír had withdrawn from ac- found out and our understanding of Vla- tive political engagement, for nothing could dimír’s role as a leading journalist on the replace communication in Czech with read- Czechoslovak television during the ers and listeners at home. Even in the land of communist era would have missed impor- free speech, Czechoslovak ‘normalization’ tant elements. His cooperation with the se- managed to silence him. Not until he found curity organs, which oversaw and kept under his voice and venue in the exile journal of the control the entire political system, explains socialist opposition Listy did he publish any- his uncritical reporting during the 1960s all thing and even there he wrote randomly and the way till 1968 when the system cracked most of the time under a pseudonym.64 The from within and the reform movement was fact that he left three children in Czechoslo- initiated. No longer beholden to the old re- vakia also played a role in his keeping a low gime, Tosek participated in building social- profile.65 We shall never know what effect ism with a human face, as the movement the revelation of his association with the was called. Once aborted, Tosek’s world co- state secret police had on his intellectual llapsed. There was no return to the old sys- and emotional disposition in emigration. tem, then ‘normalized’, so emigration was Vladimír Tosek was one of the builders of the only option. the authoritarian system in Czechoslovakia, albeit a minor cog in a big machine. By join- Final reflections ing the reform movement in 1968, he sought

In a letter to his colleague Ladislav Daneš in 62 VT to Ladislav Daneš, Rome, July 17, 1969, pa. 63 Hochman, Jiří (1974), ‘Očista Svazu českých novinářů.’ July 1969, Vladimír wrote: ‘‘I insist that I be- Listy, 5-6, December, pp. 37-39. long to this no matter how proscribed com- 64 Havlíček, Dušan (2008), Listy v exilu, Olomouc, Burian a Tichák. 61 ‘Vyhodnocení spol. Cornela,’ Prague, February 15, 1965. 65 His second son Jan joined him in emigration in Septem- ABS, file 43891-020-0128. ber 1969.

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to correct the system’s vices which, as we ‘Jiří Váňa,’ ‘Jako hlasatelky v Cs. Televizi v Praze now know, not only could not be corrected, ucinkuji’ (1959), Pracovní svazek, no. 43 but whose iniquities continued throughout 891/020, 11.27.1959, Prague, ABS, 43891- the ‘normalization’ era all the way to 1989. 020-0053-55. In 1969, Tosek negotiated his legal status with a government and a party, closely su- ‘Jiří Váňa’ (1961), ‘Od 14. do 31. III. 1961 konal se pervised by the occupiers, which punished zájezd skupiny pracovníků sekretariátu MSS a externích spolu pracovníků společně s him brutally for daring to defy the system představiteli některých členských organiza- during the spring and summer of 1968. It re- ci MSS do Maroka,’ Prague, ABS, file 43891- minded him of his past, which the unrepen- 020-0083-91. tant Vladimír might have wished to remain covered by archival dust. ‘Jiří Váňa,’ ‘Karel Veselý’ (1961), Prague, August 11, ABS, file 43891-020-0107. References ‘Josef,’ ‘Tosek Vladimír z Cs. Televize-poznatky’ Bren, Paulina (2010), The Greengrocer and his (1960), Prague, 5.30.1960. ABS, file 43891- TV: The Culture of Communism after 1968 020-0091. Prague Spring, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press. Kavan, Jan (1988), ‘From the Prague Spring to the Long Winter,’ in Pehe, Jiří ed., The Prague Čermák, Jiří (1958), ‘Záznam o osobním poznání,’ Spring: A Mixed Legacy, New York, Free- Prague, May 25, ABS, file 43891-020-0029. dom House.

Cysařová, Jarmila (1993), Česká televizní publi- Klíma, Ivan. My Crazy Century. New York, Grove cistika, svědectví šedesátých let, Prague, Press, 2013. Edice Česke televize 66. Kosta, Jiří. Život mezi úzkostí a nadějí. Prague, Cysařová, Jarmila (2003), ‘V Československé tel- Paseka, 2002. evizi,’ Jiří Pelikán 1923-1999, Sborník. OPS občanský dialog, Prague. Kusín, Vladimir. From Dubček to Charter 77: A Study of Normalization in Czechoslovakia, Daneš, Ladislav (2005), Můj život s múzami, tel- 1968-1978. New York, St. Martin´s Press, evizí a tak vůbec, Prague, Malá Skála. 1978.

Doskočil, Zdeněk (2006), Duben 1969. Anatomie Otáhal, Milan. ‘K některým otázkám dějin “nor- jednoho mocenského zvratu, Brno, Dopl- malizace”’, Soudobé dějiny 1 (1995). něk. Pecka, Jindřich and Vilém Prečan, Proměny Dubček, Alexander and Jiří Hochman (1993), Pražského jara 1968-1969. Sborník studií a Naděje umírá poslední. Vlastní životopis, dokumentů o nekapitulantských postojích Prague, Svoboda. v československé společnosti. Brno, Dopl- něk, 1993. Havlíček, Dušan (2008), Listy v exilu, Olomouc, Burian a Tichák. Pehe, Jiří ed. The Prague Spring: A Mixed Lega- cy. New York, Freedom House, 1988. Hochman, Jiří (1974), ‘Očista Svazu českych novinářu,’ Listy, 5-6, December. Petráš, Jiří and Libor Svoboda eds. Jaro´68 a nástup normalizace. Československo v le- Hochman, Jiří (1988), ‘Words and Tanks: The Re- tech 1968-1971. České Budějovice and Pra- vival, the Struggle, the Agony and Defeat ha, Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů, (1968-1969)’, in Pehe, Jiří ed., The Prague 2017. Spring: A Mixed Legacy, New York, Free- dom House. Prečan, Vilém ‘Lid, veřejnost, občanská společnost jako aktér Pražského jara 1968,’

141 DANIELA SPENSER, PRAGUE SPRING’S DEMISE: THE INVOLUNTARY EMIGRATION OF THE JOURNALIST VLADIMÍR TOSEK

in Precan, Promeny Prazskeho jara 1968- Váňa, Josef. ‘Z televizní kuchyňe a zákulisí,’ 1969. Sbornik studii a dokumentu o neka- Zprávy, 15 March (1969). pitulantskych postojich v ceskoslovenske spolecnosti, Doplnek, Brno, 1993. Vinen, Richard. The Long ´68. Radical Protest and Its Enemies. London, Penguin Ran- Pulec, Martin. ‘Nestandardní jevy u Pohraniční dom House, 2019. stráže v posrpnovém období roku 1968,’ Úřad dokumentace a vyšetřování zločinů Williams, Kieran. The Prague Spring and its Af- komunismu, 2013. termath. Czechoslovak politics 1968-1970. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, Rajchart, Zdeněk. ‘Vážený soudruhu redaktore,’ 1997. Práce, (12 April 1969). Wilson, Paul. ‘Unlikely Hero,’ New York Review of Raška, Francis D. The Long Road to Victory: A Books, (23 September 1993). History of Czechoslovak Exile Organiza- tions. New York, East European Mono- Recibido: 11 de diciembre de 2020. grahs, 2012. Reenviado: 7 de enero de 2021. Aceptado: 8 de febrero de 2021. Rychlík, Jan. ‘Překračování hranic a emigrace v Československu a východní Evropě ve 20. století,’ Securitas imperii, 29 (2016). Daniela Spenser Šimečka, Milan. Obnovení pořádku. Koln: Index, 1979. Daniela Spenser nació en Checoslovaquia. Emigró a Gran Bretaña en 1968 después de Šimečka, Milan. ‘Strategie naděje,’ Listy (13 March la ocupación soviética. Estudió literatura es- 1969). pañola y latinoamericana en King’s College, Universidad de Londres y antropología en Štoll, Martin. Television and Totalitarianism in London School of Economics and Political Czechoslovakia. From the First Democrat- Science. Llegó a México en 1972. Después ic Republic to the Fall of Communism. de trabajar como antropóloga en Chiapas, New York: Bloomsbury, 2019. Spenser estudió la maestría en la Facultad Švejkovský, Jiří. Čas marných nadějí. Roky 1968 en Ciencias Políticas y Sociales de la UNAM a 1969 ve zpravodajství ČST. Prague: Ep- y el doctorado en historia en la Universidad ocha, 2010. de Carolina del Norte en Chapel Hill. Ha sido profesora e investigadora en el Centro de Sviták, Ivan. The Czechoslovak Experiment 1968- Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en 1969, New York and London, Colombia Antropología Social en la Ciudad de Méxi- University Press, 1971. co desde 1980. Es miembro del Sistema Na- cional de Investigadores, nivel III. Su más Tigrid, Pavel. Why Dubček Fell. London, Mac- reciente libro es En combate: la vida de Lom- donald, 1971. bardo Toledano (México, Penguin Random Tosek, Vladimír. ‘Moje únorové události,’ Re- House, 2018; en inglés: In Combat: The Life portér, IV/8 (27 February 1969). of Lombardo Toledano, Leiden, Brill, 2019; Chicago, Haymarket, 2020). Este artículo Tosek, Vladimír. ‘Kterak jsem si šel pro vlnu a vrátil forma parte del libro en preparación, pro- se ostřihán,’ Práce, (1 March 1969). visionalmente titulado Fragmented Times, Divided Lives: The Itineraries of a European Tosek, Vladimír. ‘Kterak jsem si šel pro vlnu a vrátil Family. se ostřihán,’ Filmove a televizní noviny, 3 (30 April 1969).

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