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THE CZECHOSLOVAK MEDIA AND THE 1968 INVASION

Jerry R. Redding

Late in the evening, on August 20, 1968, the armed forces of

Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and the Soviet Union crossed the borders of fellow Warsaw Pact member Czechoslovakia. The invasion was completely unexpected by the Prague government. Among the first places occupied by the invaders were the facilities of the media throughout the country. Yet, for the entire duration of the occupation Czechoslovak Radio continued to broadcast clandestinely. Czech- oslovak Television also Operated intermittently.

It would appear that the importance of the media Operation under the occupation was: 1) that they were able to operate at all, and; 2) the type of programming they carried. The problem then was to ascertain how the media within Czechoslovakia were able to broadcast as official government voices when that government was under detention and media facilities were in the hands of occupation tr00ps.

Also, what was the tenor of the programming; what kind of popular behavior was suggested and endorsed by these official radio and television stations while operating clandestinely.

Jerry R. Redding

This study first examines the death of censorship and the growth of freedom of information in the Czechoslovak media during

1968. Next the invasion is examined by looking at the immediate media.occupation. The clandestine Operation of both radio and television is then detailed from emergence to demise; both the technical inventiveness required and the types of programming carried. The

Warsaw Pact rationale for the ability of the Czechoslovak media to operate underground is also surveyed. Finally, the return to censorship and subservience is detailed.

The method used to delve into the problem was descriptive analysis. Contemporary news accounts of the events were consulted along with ex post facto opinions on the invasion and occupation by journalists and political scientists. The actual programming content of the media was researched through monitoring reports containing excerpts, summaries and entire broadcasts from regional and national radio and television stations in Czechoslovakia during this period.

The background files of Radio Free Eur0pe were also consulted.

From this thesis it can be concluded that three major factors enabled the media in Czechoslovakia to Operate clandestinely during the occupation. First, a network of compact transmitters had been decreed in 1948 to be used by partisans in the event of an invasion from the West. Second, the Czechoslovak armed forces provided mobile equipment and advisory help to the underground media. Third, the reaponse of the average Czech and Slovak was so favorable to the

Operation that it was possible to establish efficient information networks between news sources and transmitter location. These civilian Jerry R. Redding

assistants also provided additional help and logistic supply nec-

essary to sustain the multiple mobile transmitters and their opera-

ting personnel.

The media operation during the occupation in general was very responsible. They broadcast throughout the occupation as the

continuing "free and legal" voices of the elected government of the

country. They followed Government and Party line without deviation

and with few embellishments. By constantly appealing for calm, non-violence, and responsible actions from their listeners, the

clandestine Czechoslovak media also played an important role in holding bloodshed to a minimum during the initial invasion. Perhaps the

greatest usefulness Of the media was in providing a sense of unity and national pride to the Czech and Slovak peoples during a period of dis—

location and tension. Accepted by the faculty of the Department of Television and

Radio, College of Communication Arts, Michigan State University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree.

‘ I

Dir ctor of Thesis THE CZECHOSLOVAK MEDIA AND

THE 1968 INVASION

Jerry R. Redding

A THES IS

Submitted to ‘Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Television and Radio

1971 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Dr. J. David Lewis, thesis advisor and confidant; to my

parents for multiple reasons; to my long-suffering typist and proof-

reader; to the many who supplied help and assistance by not annoying me during the gestation of this thesis; to the friends made while

researching this study; to these I acknowledge an unSpeakable debt

of gratitude.

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

1. THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF FREEDOM . H

I O I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 O 0

II 0 O O O O O O O 0 O O O O 0 O 0 O O O O O O O O 0 III ...... IV ......

P‘\J£~P‘

2. THE NIGHT OF SILENCE ......

I ...... 18 II . 22 III . 34

3. THE BLOOD-SPATTERED MORNING. 4O

I ...... 40 II ...... 42 III ...... 48 IV ...... 50 V ...... 57

4. THE OPERATION OF CLANDESTINE CZECHOSLOVAK TELEVISION . 67

I . 67 II 7O III 73 IV 78

5. THE OPERATION OF CLANDESTINE CZECHOSLOVAK RADIO. 82

I 82 II 84 III 88

iii CHAPTER PAGE

6. CLANDESTINE CZECHOSLOVAK MEDIA PROGRAMMING . 100

I 100 II 103 III 104 IV 110 V 112 VI 116

7. WARSAW PACT CLANDESTINE MEDIA OPERATIONS . 123

8. NIGHT DESCENDS AGAIN ...... 132

I 132 II 133 III 136

BIBLIOGRAPHY . 146

APPENDICES

A. CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS . 148

B. RADIO AND TELEVISION FACILITIES. 153

C. AN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION OF POST-JANUARY MEDIA DEVELOPMENT. 158

D. EASTERN-BLOC REACTIONS TO CLANDESTINE CZECHOSLOVAK RADIO . 162

E. POST-INVASION CENSORSHIP POLICY. 173

iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

TABLE PAGE

1. RADIO AND TELEVISION FACILITIES ...... 153

FIGURE

1. PRIMARY NETWORK LINKAGE ...... 9

2. CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND SURROUNDING AREA ...... 13

3. CZECHOSLOVAKIAN CITIES ...... 23

4. PRAGUE VICINITY ...... 43

5. PRIMARY TRANSMITTER LOCATIONS ...... 59 CHAPTER ONE

THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF FREEDOM

Friday morning, August 23, 1968: Prague, capital of the

Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was an occupied city. Russian armored cars and tanks nervously patrolled the thoroughfares; Sporadic gunfire rattled across the Vltava River; the cold embers of pyro-barricades showed twisted steel where invasion tanks had smashed through the burning buses and cars. The helmets of Russian soldiers gleamed row upon row behind military vehicles guarding official buildings. Czechs gathered in front of the barricades, baiting the foreign trOOps with epithets questioning their lineage and ethnic quality. Inside Hradcany

Palace a harried President Ludvik Svoboda placed last-minute telephone calls trying to locate Party First Secretary Alexander Dubcek and others of the country's leaders who had been carted off by Soviet agents during the hectic morning of August let. Svoboda was going to Mescow and wanted the other members of the ruling clique with him when he confronted Russian leaders across the Kremlin "negotiating" table. Word of the forthcoming trip had been leaked to the underground

"Free and Legal" Czechoslovak Radio which promptly relayed it to angry

Czechs and Slovaks. It was assumed that the Czechoslovak leadership was being kidnapped. Workers in the vast industrial complex surrounding Prague ignored their work, gathering instead around radio sets. Youths boldly wearing the national colors, transistor radios pressed to their ears, paraded up the main boulevards of Prague passing shOps and stores displaying portraits of Dubcek and Svoboda.

Clandestine Czechoslovak Radio had called for a strike from noon to one o'clock to protest the illegal invasion and occupation of that country by forces of the Warsaw Pact. As noon approached, the radio reminded the frustrated but not cowed Czechs that this was to be a peaceful strike, everyone should get off the streets; for one hour Prague was to become a "dead" city. At exactly 12 o'clock every siren in the city wailed, every church bell tolled; then complete silence. The crowds had melted into homes, churches, shOps, factories; the occupation trOOps alone remained, uncomprehending witnesses to the mute evidence of their own brutality of the past two days.

Porici Street, outside the offices and printing plant of the

Communist Party daily Rude Pravo, was deserted. Inside, leaning against the silent presses were forty soldiers, handpicked to occupy and close the newspaper. Across the street, from the shelter of another building, a reporter from the news-magazine Politika, pencil jotting quickly on his paper pad, watched two Soviet armored personnel carriers pull up in front of the Rude Pravo building. Soldiers leaped out the back of the trOOp tranSports, rifles firing wildly at the facade. Machine guns at0p the vehicles spurted tracer rounds at the doors and windows of the publishing house. For several minutes the reporter was incredulous; everyone knew that the only peOple inside the building were Russians, it had been occupied two days ago. Then he noted down his assessment of the activity:

But everything became clear when a Soviet cameraman appeared on tap of one of the armored vehicles and began to take pictures of the action. Next week Soviet movie-goers will be shown a news- reel about a fight with counterrevolutionaries in Czechoslovakia. This very film is going to tell pe0ple how the revanchists or imperialists attacked the building housing the central publication of the Communist Party. And looked at from the other side, it will be the truth. It was, indeed, an imperialistic attack.1

What was happening in Prague? Since 1948 Czechoslovakia had been one of the Kremlin's most docile satellites. During the 1950's in Czechoslovakia the repression of Stalinism had outlasted its Soviet namesake. The endemic sub-surface broiling of the East EuroPean

Communist states had never appeared in Czechoslovakia. The rebellions of East Germany, Poland and Hungary had passed with hardly a sympa- thetic ripple in Prague. And what of the mass media in Czechoslovakia?

Firmly under the thumb of Novotny's censors, radio, television and the press were obsequious parrots of Pravda and Radio Moscow. Technically the media's capabilities and Operation surpassed those of all other bloc nations. The headquarters of the International Radio and Tele- vision Organization (OIRT) and its subsidiary East European international television network, Intervision, were located in Prague. The capital, the country and the media were showcases of the economic and ideological superiority of communism. Yet, here a psychological and physical war was being directed from Mbscow against the political system of the country, and one of the major battles was against the

1Politika, No. 2, August 28, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, The Czech Black Book, trans. Robert Littell (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1969). pp. 115-116. Czechoslovak media. The operation of Czechoslovak Radio and Television under this siege should have a profound effect on the planning and conduct of invasions similar to that of the Russian's in Czechoslovakia and thus may be of interest to those outside the media. By the same token, media planners in countries anticipating activities like the

1968 invasion directed at them might be well-advised to make contingency preparations which would allow them to Operate clandestinely. How the

Czechoslovak media acted and reacted during the Warsaw Pact invasion of

1968 is the subject of this study. To begin, we must travel back eight months.

On January 5, 1968, word leaked out of Czechoslovakia that

Antonin Novotny had been replaced as First Secretary of the Communist

Party. Novotny, a durable pro-Soviet leader, had ruled Czechoslovakia with an iron fist and not even the upheavals in the Communist world during the 1950's had shaken his authority or modus Operandi. However, by the end of 1962, the Party structure had begun to experience a few tremors. At this time several factors began building toward the culmination of August 1968. The long mismanaged economy was on the verge of total collapse; de-Stalinization across the Soviet-bloc placed pressure on Novotny's style of leadership; frictions and divisions in the Czechoslovak Party were eroding the unity of the 1950's; and the atmOSphere of terror, instrumental to the Party's authority, was on the ebb.2

Faced by political and economic crisis, Novotny began, in 1963, to attempt some reforms while maintaining his power base within the

Party. During this period of partial reform, non-Party elements began to exert more influence in the political power structure. By mid-1967,

Novotny was faced with a situation where wideSpread repressive measures would again have to be taken to regain control of the situation. He attempted some police measures in order to again assert his authority, however, the morale within the country had reached such a low point that this factor, combined with the disastrous state of the economy, forewarned of change. The most important fact of internal politics in

Czechoslovakia during the 1960's was that the Communist Party ceased to hold the initiative in society.3

Under Novotny the press in Czechoslovakia was docile, its function merely to explain government policy and bring about prescribed domestic and foreign reaction to Novotny's policies. In looking back on the 1960's, even a hard-line Communist was forced to admit that,

"the political press and the journalistic and information sectors of radio and television were in general used to a passive, routine

2Fred Eidlin, "January, August and After: »Czechoslovakia's Triumph and Tragedy," Radio Free Europe Research, Czechoslovakia/21, August 14, 1968.

3ibid. passing-on of 'official' views..."4 Censors sat in all press and media offices waiting to red-pencil the slightest deviation from Party policy or the attempt to slip new ideas or unconventional thoughts into print or over the air. Censorship was so tight that the weekly publications of the Writers' Union, Prague's Literarni Noviny and Bratislava's

Kulturny,Zivot, always kept a selection of stock alternative articles

on hand to replace censored ones.5 A new press law was adOpted in

June 1967, as the Novotny regime again became more repressive, which legalized the behavior of the censors and gave them sweeping powers over the media. At the 4th Congress of the Writers' Union held that month, a member of the editorial board of-Literarni_Noviny rose.to com- pare the recently adOpted press regulations with the press law issued one-hundred years earlier by the Austrian Emperor.6

By late 1967 the Czechoslovak Communist Party was so divided that it couldn't even agree on a consistent strategy of repression.

Novotny's power base was completely eroded. Even Soviet Party chief

Leonid Brezhnev, visiting Pargue in the fall, refused to side with

Novotny in the party squabbles. Finally, at the December Party Plenum,

Novotny yielded to pressure and announced he would step down from his

4J. Hajek, "The Strategic Conditions of January and Their Distor- tions," Nova Mysl, No. 7, July 1969 quoted in Radio Free Europe Research, Czechoslovak Press Survey No. 2248 (246), August 13, 1969. Nova M131 is a Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee sponsored monthly on Marxist-Leninist theory. The author is editor-in-chief of Tvorba, also Sponsored by the Party Central Committee.

5"Journalist M," A Year is Eight Months (New York: Doubleday,

1970), p. 6. 61bid. post as Party First Secretary. At the Central Committee meeting on

January 5, 1968, Alexander Dubcek was unanimously elected to step into the vacant post.7

III

The country which Alexander Dubcek now headed had, by all accounts, one of the most extensive and soPhisticated broadcasting systems in the Communist-bloc. Regular radio broadcasting had begun in Czechoslovakia on May 18, 1923. The first transmitter was a modified l-kilowatt telegraph amplifier. Broadcasts originated from a tent pitched in the Kbely district of Prague. In 1925 the Prague radio station acquired a new 5-kilowatt transmitter which allowed the station to be received quite well across the country. In 1934

Czechoslovakia purchased a 30-kilowatt short-wave transmitter to broadcast outside its borders. The new equipment was installed at the Podebrady telegraph center, a health-Spa resort 30 miles east of

Prague. After a year of experimental transmissions, the station went on the air with a regular schedule. Programs in Czech and Slovak for nationals living abroad were well received in Western Europe. Before long the schedule was expanded to include broadcasts in English and

Spanish. After World War II new international facilities were con- structed at Podebrady and Velke Kostolany, 35 miles northeast of

Bratislava, giving Czechoslovakia an important lOO-kw voice on the

.7Eidlin. international bands.8 0n medium-wave, Prague on 638 kHz, Bratislava

on 1097 kHz and the network of transmitters on 1520 kHz were also heard well throughout the European area. By 1968 Prague Radio's International

Service broadcast in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic, Swahili,

Portuguese and Czech/Slovak to EurOpe, the Far East and Australia, South

and Central America and North America.9

Domestically, Czechoslovak Radio broadcasting was divided into

three networks (See Figure 1). "Czechoslovakia I" (CS I) network broadcast from 4:30 A.M. until 12 midnight, seven days a week. Broadcasts were bilingual in Czech and Slovak with nightly classical music concerts.

The Prague transmitter on 1286 kHz fed the CS I network with 100-kilowatts of power. TWO other local Prague transmitters also picked up the CS I signal in the evenings for regional coverage. Other stations carrying the national CS I program were located in Ostrava, Uherske

Hradiste, Usti nad Labem, Ceske Budajovice, Karlovy Vary and Liberec giving nationwide coverage to the bilingual signal.

The second network was "Prague" (Praha) and was fed by the

lSO-kilowatt, 638 kHz Prague transmitter. Praha transmitted from 4:30

A.M. until 2 A.M. (6 A.M.-2 A.M. Sundays) primarily in the Czech language. The Praha network also carried a small amount of programming

8"Information on Czechoslovak Radio," (Prague: Czechoslovak Radio, nd).

9World Radio-TV Handbook, ed. J.M. Frost, (Hellerup, Denmark: World Radio-TV Handbook Co., 1969), pp. 84-85. The 1969 issue of World Radio-TV Handbook is used as the reference source throughout this study. The information in it was assembled throughout the fall of 1968 and thus is contemporary with the events.

Television _ Czechoslovakia I (CSI) Radio British“. Praha Radio Bratislava Radio

Figure l.-PRIMARY NETWORK LINKAGE 10

in Russian, German and Polish. The Praha signal was picked up and re-

layed by other stations in Bohemia and Moravia, notably Brno, Plzen,

Hradec-Kralove and Jihlava.

The third network was restricted to the Slovak areas of the

country. It was fed from the lSO-kilowatt, 1097 kHz Bratislava station.

The network "Bratislava" Operated from 4:30 A.M. until midnight (Sundays

6 A.M.-12 midnight). Except for a few hours of programming in Russian,

Hungarian and Ukrainian each week, only the Slovak Language was used.

In addition to the three Czechoslovak Radio networks, many local

medium-wave outlets carried regional programming. A11 FM transmitters

carried regional programming, although at times duplicating AM pro-

gramming on a regional basis. Czechoslovak Radio had a total of 25 mediumrwave transmitters and 28 FM transmitters which effectively

covered the entire country.

Czechoslovak Television had studios and production facilities

in Prague, Brno, Ostrava and Bratislava. Bratislava TV programming

was in Slovak, shows from the other stations primarily in Czech. Each

television studio fed a small network of booster transmitters scattered

throughout its service area. In addition, the stations were tied to-

gether with microwave facilities for national network programs. Each

station was on the air approximately 60 hours per week; each evening

and five mornings a week.. Advertising was allowed for about 15 minutes

each day to supplement the income from television set license fees. In

1968 it was estimated that there were 2,700,500 receivers in the country.10

(See Appendix B for a complete listing of broadcast facilities.)

101b1d. 11

It is unlikely that Dubcek, on becoming Party First Secretary, had any idea that the post-January reform movement would go as far as it eventually did.11

The election of Alexander Dubcek as Party chief heralded the beginning of a new era in Czechoslovakia. In February and March the

first personnel changes began to be slowly carried out; the conserva-

tive elements carefully moved into non-sensitive jobs. During the

spring Dubcek moved tentatively toward abolishing censorship. Censors, who sat in all editorial offices of the press, radio and television, began to relax their vigil and allowed previously outlawed materials

to find their way to the peOple. Protests against censorship were made at several meetings of the Central Committee.12 Meanwhile the old directive of Novotny still stood which gave censors the right to interfere arbitrarily to protect the interests of the Party and the state. Yet, with the changing political mood in Prague:

Czechoslovak censors simply abdicated their function and journalists, awakening from long years of conformism, became a driving force for reform through the newspapers, radio and television. They left no stone unturned, criticizing past and present Party policies, both foreign and domestic, subjecting politicians in power to scrutiny, digging and prodding for information and answering attacks on Czechsolovakia in the media of the Warsaw Pact allies with unre- lenting polemics. The journalists helped to mobilize and focus public Opinion. They thus exercised pressures for action and the leadership, helped to discredit politicians associated with the distortions of the Novotny regime and, in general, to interest and involve the public in politics.13

11Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovakia/10, April 8, 1970.

12"Journalist M," p. 46. 13Eidlin. 12

In April 1968, the Party leadership approved a completely revised political platform called the "Action Program." The Action

Program outlined a radical new approach for a Communist Party: The

Party was to be the "leading force" in society, its support based on

the voluntary will of the peOple, rather than on the exercise of power.

The Action Program of the party further provided for freedom of information which accelerated the change within the Czechoslovak media:

This information explosion, an unfamiliar free discussion of fundamental social problems, caused unusual public activity...In all places of work there were discussions about the previous night's television and radio programs...Editorial offices were flooded with complaints that radio and television broadcast major news programs simultaneously so that peOple had to choose between them when they would have preferred to follow both...The press, radio and television brought the people to a full realization of what had happened in January and what the Party apparatus had tried to conceal. The communications media ended the political career of more than one "statesman" invited before the television cameras, where under pitiless lights and the probing questions of the commentators, his inner poverty was revealed...At the same time, the media performed a human service in the education of the peOple who realized that their own indifference had made them jointly reSponsible for these crimes.

The censors and editors-in-chief of the media continued to draw their pay but, unable to fathom the new developments within the country, party and media, they stOpped directing editorial policy.

As orders ceased from above, the censors allowed anything crossing their desks to be broadcast or printed.

During the spring, as reform gained momentum in Czechoslovakia, its Warsaw Pact allies began to show uneasiness. In March, East German ideologist Kurt Hager Openly attacked deveIOpments in Czechoslovakia.

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The East German media picked up the banner and assailed the Prague

leadership for real and imagined reasons. The charges against

Czechoslovakia were actively answered by the media in Prague. The

height of this ideological war was reached in May when East Germany

began jamming transmissions from Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak

station at Usti nad Labem was jammed while beaming angry editorials

into East Germany.15

In May the Poles began attacking Czechoslovakia also. The

Polish media protested against an alleged anti-Polish campaign in the

Czechoslovak media in addition to criticizing Prague policies. On May

9, 1968, the Russian media joined the anti-Czechoslovak campaign for

the first time, refuting reports that Soviet agents participated in the

strange death of Jan Masaryk. 16 The ridiculous extreme to which the media war between Czechoslovakia and the Warsaw Pact went is illustra-

ted by the skirmish over the supposed existence of U.S. and West

German armed forces on Czechoslovak soil. The East German press

reported in early May that an American armored brigade had crossed

the Czechoslovak frontier and was quartered in Prague. Incredulous,

the Czechoslovak media replied that an American film crew was in

Czechoslovakia shooting "The Bridge at Remagen" and the tanks were

unarmed prOps. East Germany ignored the reply and reported that

15New York Times, May 6, 1968, p. 4.

16Eidlin. 15 additional tank units of the West German army were also ready to cross the border.17

Relations worsened between Czechoslovakia and the other Warsaw

Pact powers during the late Spring and Summer. Yet during this time,

Czechoslovakia's leaders continued to affirm their unswerving loyalty to the Kremlin-bloc in personal meetings with the Russian leaders. On

July 15-16 the East-bloc allies held a meeting at Warsaw and drafted what amounted to an ultimatum to the leadership in Prague. The letter read in part:

Anti-socialist and revisionist forces have gained control over the press, radio and television (in Czechoslovakia) and transformed them into a tribune for attacks on the Communist Party, for the disorientation of the working class and all working peOple, for an unbridled anti-socialist demagogy, for the undermining of friendly relations between the CzeChoslovak SoCialist Republic and other socialist countries.

The cause of the defense of the power of the working class and all working peOple, of the socialist conquest in Czechoslovakia demands...seizure by the party of media of mass information--the press, radio and television, and their utilization in he interests of the working class, all working people, socialism...

The leadership in Prague was a little uncertain about what to do with the media. Instead of leading and guiding the program of "socialism with a human face," the Communist Party was being swept along by the new era of freedom led by the media. The reply addressed to the signatories of the "Warsaw Letter" indicated the indecision on the part of the Dubcek government:

17"Journalist M," p. 130.

18The Czechoslovak Crisis of 1968, ed. Robert Rhodes James (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), pp. 170-172. l6

Now...it happens that voices and tendencies appear in the press and the radio and in public meetings which are outside the positive endeavors of the Party, the State bodies and the national front. We consider the solution of these questions to be a long-term task and are guided by the resolutions of the May plenary session of the central committee according to which "political leadership cannot be imposed by the old administrative and power structures."19

The National Assembly of Czechoslovakia had met on June 26,

1968, and finally passed a new press law which officially abolished

prior-censorship. The next day four Prague neWSpapers published the

"2,000 Words," a militant call for an acceleration of the democratiza-

tion process. During this time the new information freedom extended

not only to broadcasts emanating from within Czechoslovakia, but also

to listening to foreign broadcasts. A Czechoslovak Army officer later

complained about "the mass listening to Radio Free Europe...in a build-

ing occupied by more than 200 soldiers..."20

As relations between Czechoslovakia and the other Warsaw Pact

countries worsened, eleventh hour attempts were made to stave off the

final accounting for the Spring and summer of freedom. From July 29 to

August 1, 1968, the CzechoSlovak and Soviet leadership met at Cierna nad Tisou on the Russian border. After the close of the stormy meetings

National Assembly President Josef Smrkovsky reported to the Czechoslovak

people that the Russians had agreed not to meddle in the internal affairs

of the country. On August 3-4 another meeting was held at Bratislava

19ibid. p. 179.

20Major Jaroslav Krejci, "We Have Had Our Cross to Bear!" Tribuna, July 23, 1969 quoted in Radio Free EuropeiResearch, Czechoslovak Press Survey No. 2249 (243), August 18, 1969. 17 with other Warsaw Pact representatives. On August 4, 1968, Alexander

Dubcek went on national television to discuss the Bratislava meeting which was viewed in Czechoslovakia as a negotiation victory and the end of the internal crisis in the Warsaw Pact.

After this, an atmOSphere of real detente set in Czechoslovakia... Polemics against Czechoslovakia in the Warsaw press media stopped and the Czechoslovak leadership settled down to business.

However, within two weeks the Soviet press renewed attacks on Czechoslovak deveIOpments and Sixteen nights later tragedy struck across Czechoslovakia.

21Eidlin. CHAPTER TWO

THE NIGHT OF SILENCE

The warm zephyrs skirting the Carpathians and funneling into the valleys of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, turned the Czechoslovak

snowcap into tiny Sparkling freshets in the Spring of 1968. The

trickles picked up intensity and volume as they raced toward the Elbe,

the Mbrava, the Vah Rivers; to empty finally into the distant sea.

In much the same way the 'Dubcek thaw' of that Spring sent

tremors through the monolithic Party apparatus and melted away many of

the arbitrary restrictions which had inhibited life in the country

since 1948. The mass media, more than any other group, felt the first warm breezes precipitating the thaw and began chipping away at the repressive Statutes and regulations governing them. -0ne by one these

anachronistic devices were sent rushing along into history together with other refuse released by the change in the political climate of

the country.

The success of chipping at the iceblock gave greater encourage— ment to the media and they began attacking formerly sacrosanct institu-

tions less precisely and more dramatically. ‘Media blasting at the

initiative freezing regulations, organizations and individuals,

created a good deal of well-founded fear in many formerly secure

"apparatchiks." Some of these who were fearful for their jobs and

18 19

lives were themselves entrenched at various levels within the media

structure. They viewed with increasing anxiety developments in the

country and the media. Then, as the polar night began descending

again with the arrival of the Warsaw Pact forces, these functionaries

were relieved and showed their joy at the darkness as soon as it was

practicable.

Among these were top management personnel such as former

Minister of Culture Karel Hoffman, head of the Central Communication

Authority in Prague; Miroslav Sulek, chief of CETEKA, the Czechoslovak

News Agency; and Oldrich Svestka, editor-in-chief of Rude Pravo, the

Prague daily. Some rank and file media employes and journalists also

Opposed the liberalization. Nine months after the invasion a group

of these working press members issued a "Manifesto of 130 Journalists"

published in Rude Pravo (17 May 1969), an apologia for the events of

August 20th and after. One of the signatories to this 'Manifesto' was

Jiri Preininger, editor of the CETEKA branch office in Ceske Budejovice.

In March 1969 Preininger stated at a meeting of the Czechoslovak-Soviet

Friendship League in that city, that the only thing he blamed the

Russians for was that they had not come earlier.1

So, the media were neither equally nor universally happy with

the Spring thaw of 1968. A minute percentage of management and employes

actually did everything possible to assist the invasion and thus a quick

return to the stultifying atmosphere in which they felt secure.

1Reporter, March 20, 1969, quoted in Radio Free Europe Research, Czechoslovakia/75, September 9, 1969. Reporter is the publication of the Czechoslovak Journalists' Union. 20

In Prague on the afternoon of August 20, 1968, a final planning

conference on the invasion took place. At 4 P.M. a secret meeting of

Mbscow-leaning Czechoslovak State Security officers, led by Deputy

MHnister of the Interior Viliam Salgovic, was held. Salgovic claimed

later that this was the first he learned of the invasion, now just

hours off, when "the representative of the Warsaw Pact Joint Command

invited us over and informed us that allied troops would cross our

frontiers at midnight."2 The secret police chiefs were given their

assignments for that night. One of the primary tasks discussed

during this afternoon meeting was how to prevent Radio Prague from

broadcasting.3 There was fear that the radio, by transmitting Central

Committee bulletins and appeals, might prove a major obstacle to the

quick and painless occupation of the country. The details were left

to Salgovic to work out.

2Pravda, October 7, 1969, quoted in Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovakia/87, October 8, 1969. Pravda is the Slovak Communist Party daily. Viliam Salgovic was a reliable Stalinist Party functionary. He was appointed Deputy Minister of the Interior in June 1968, possibly as the result of Soviet pressure. As Such, he was in charge of the State Security Force, the secret police. The Czech weekly Politika referred to him as a "former NKVD Colonel" on August 24, 1968. On August 24th Salgovic was dismissed from his post by the government because of his involvement in the invasion. He may have taken refuge in one of the Warsaw Pact countries at this time. Sometime in 1969 he was appointed military attache at the Czechoslovakian Embassy in Budapest, Hungary.

3Isaac Don Levine, Intervention (New York: David McKay, 1969), p. 57 and, Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, The Czech Black Book, trans. Robert Littell (New York: Praeger, 1969), p. 5. 21

Early that evening, a group of friends and co-conSpirators met in the study of Karen Hoffman, Director of the Office for Control and Administration of Communication, and the invasion news was relayed to them. Hoffman then issued orders that the main transmitting station of Prague Radio at Chesky Brod, was to halt all transmissions during that night.4

At about 6 o'clock the evening of August 20th, Miroslav

Sulek, Director-General of the Czechoslovak News Agency (CTK or Ceteka), returned unexpectedly from a vacation in the Soviet Union. He was associated with the Stalinist wing of the Party and had participated in mutual accusations with his deputy over the misappropriation of official funds. The combination of these two factors caused the Party organization of CTK to express its lack of confidence in him and

Sulek went on leave to Russia where he was the guest of the

4Colin Chapman, August let: The Rape of Czechoslovakia (Philadelphia: J.B.-Lippincott, 1968), p. 37. The switch was not actually pulled until a few seconds after the Presidium announcement of the invasion began to be read at 1:58 A.M. Normal sign-off would have been at 2 o'clock. Hoffman evidently had the transmissions closely monitored during the night hOping to complete the evening's broadcast schedule without interrupting the service. This was a sound idea since the pOpulace would have had no reason to suSpect anything amiss had it not been for the last 5 minutes or so of transmission. The Mbscow orders, relayed through Salgovic, not to allow Central Committee bulletins or appeals to be broadcast, was followed to the letter. 22 director of Eggg, the Soviet news agency. Sulek's leave was to have continued until the affair was cleared up.5

Sulek went to the central office of Ceteka in Prague and immediately ordered that all news was to be brought to him for check- ing before its release. Sharp exchanges with the editors followed their refusal to comply with the order.6 Sulek then evidently left the building to return later that night when the invasion was in progress.

The invasion of Czechoslovakia at about 11 P.M. on August 20th took the Government, the Party and the nation by complete surprise.

Fred Eidlin of Radio Free Europe Summarized the immediate reaction to the invasion as "spontaneous and overwhelming."7 Later, writing with a year's perSpective he expanded:

5"Journalist M", A Year is Eight Mbnths (New York: Doubleday, 1970), pp. 158-159 and Rude Pravo, August 23, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 5.

6"Journalist M", p. 159.

7Fred Eidlin, "The Czechoslovak Invasion: A Preliminary Analysis," Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovakia BR/45, October 18, 1968.

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...the invasion, coming without apparent reason and without explanation so soon after the Soviets had virtually promised that there would be no intervention, gave rise to a unanimous feeling of betrayal among the Czechs and Slovaks.8 Their reSponse was one of massive, co-ordinated, passive resistance to the occupation. The original Soviet plan of establishing a collaborationist government within a few hours, which would then justify the invasion, collapsed.

The Central Committee Presidium of the Czechoslovak Communist

Party was in session the evening of August 20, 1968. Under the gavel of First Secretary Alexander Dubcek, Party leaders were formulating plans for the upcoming 14th Party Congress to be held on September 9th.

At 10 P.M. Premier Oldrich Cernik, who was in attendence, received a report that something unusual was happening near the border.

Cernik went to the telephone and called Martin Dzur, Minister of

National Defense, and asked him to find out what the rumor was about.

Dzur was never able to return the call. Shortly after talking with

Cernik, Soviet military personnel10 arrived at Dzur's study, informed him of the invasion and held him incommunicado the remainder of the

8A reference to the concessions regarding internal sovereignty of socialist states which Dubcek wrung from Kosygin at Cierna in July 1968.

9Fred Eidlin, "January, August and After: Czechoslovakia's Triumph and Tragedy," Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovakia/21, August 14, 1969.

10These were not troops of the invading armies since the Russians didn't arrive at Ruzyne Airport in Prague until after this. They were probably from the Warsaw Pact Joint Command headquarters. 25 evening.11 Meanwhile, Cernik continued to seek confirmed reports on the border situation, stepping from the Presidium chamber to the telephone in an anteroom several times. At 11:40 the Premier returned from the phone for the last time, leaned over and whiSpered to Dubcek.

The First Secretary paled, then interrupted the debate in progress:

"You no longer need to Speak. Let Cernik tell you what he learned."12

Cernik said Simply: "The armies of the five parties have crossed the borders of our Republic and have begun occupying our country."13

Sometime after 11 P.M. Soviet Ambassador Stepan Chervonenko called on President Ludvik Svoboda, the titular head of the country, and notified him of the invasion.14 Svoboda was reached by telephone from the Presidium immediately after Cernik's announcement and arrived at the building shortly after midnight together with Interior

Minister Josef Pavel. Both conferred briefly with leading Presidium members then left for their offices. The Presidium then got about the job of drafting a proclamation to the nation. Cernik stayed

11Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1105 GMT, August 26, 1968, on 11990 kHz. From a report by Jiri Ruml, chairman of the Prague committee of the Union of Czechoslovak Journalists. 12ibid.

13From the report of an anonymous Party official who was present; contained in Rude Pravo, August 23, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 16 also, Radio Free Europe Research, Czechoslovakia/87, October 8, 1969.

14Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 26 until the draft was prepared then left to call a meeting of the

Government.15

At about the time that the Presidium heard of the invasion,

Miroslav Sulek again experienced difficulty with his collaborationist

scheme. Shortly before midnight Sulek again showed up at CTR headquarters in Prague, this time with a document which he wanted sent out on the wire. He ordered the teleprinter staff to transmit the document in its entirety, a proclamation of some unnamed "Czechoslovak

statesmen and Party representatives” who appealed to the Russians to join in crushing the counterrevolution going on in Czechoslovakia.

Editors, translators and technicians all categorically refused to have anything to do with the document. Sulek then had to be forcibly prevented from personally Telexing this message to the world. The editors of the major dailies of the invading countries were impatiently awaiting this flash over the CTR wire. Neues Deutschland in East Berlin held its edition until the small hours of the morning before finally going to press without it. In Moscow the presses were also quiet; waiting for the Ceteka appeal which Sulek was never allowed to transmit.16

15"Journalist M," p. 158, also the report of an anonymous Party official in Rude Pravo, August 23, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 17 also from a report by Jiri Ruml on Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1105 GMT, August 26, 1968, on 11990 kHz.

l6"Journalist M," pp. 159-160, also Chapman, p. 38, also Czechoslovak Radio about 1800 GMT, August 21, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 118. 27

Finally at 5:20 A.M. the Soviet news agency released the statement itself:

Mbscow--TASS is authorized to state that peOple and government leaders of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic have asked the Soviet Union and other allied states to render the fraternal Czechoslovak peOple urgent assistance, including assistance with armed forces. This request was brought about by the threat which has arisen to the socialist system existing in Czeshoslovakia and to the statehoOd established by the constitution, the threat emanating from the counterrevolutionary forces which have entered into collusion with foreign forces hostile to socialism.

The events in Czechoslovakia and around here were repeatedly the subject of exchanges of views between leaders of fraternal socialist countries, including the leaders of Czechoslovakia. These countries are unanimous in that the support, consolidation, and defense of the peOple's socialist gains is a common inter- nationalist duty of all the socialist states. This common stand of theirs was solemnly proclaimed in the Bratislava statement.

Further aggravation of the situation in Czechoslovakia affects the vital interests of the Soviet Union and other socialist states, the interests of the security of the states of the socialist community. The threat to the socialist system in Czechoslovakia constitutes at the same time a threat to the mainstays of EurOpean peace.

The Soviet Government and the governments of the allied countries-- the Bulgarian PeOple's Republic, the Hungarian PeOple's Republic, the German Democratic Republic, and the Polish PeOple's Republic-- proceeding from the principles of inseverable friendship and OOOperation and in accordance with the existing contractual commitments, have decided to meet the above—mentioned request for rendering necessary help to the fraternal Czechoslovak peOple.

This decision is fully in accord with the right of states to individual and collective self-defense provided for in treaties of alliance concluded between the fraternal socialist countries. This decision is also in line with vital interests of our countries in safeguarding European peace against forces of militarism, aggression, and revanchism which have more than once plunged the peOples of EurOpe into wars.

Soviet armed units together with armed units of the above-mentioned allied countries entered the territory of Czechoslovakia on 21 August. They will be immediately withdrawn from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic as soon as the threat which has arisen to the gains of socialism in Czechoslovakia, the threat to the security 28

of the socialist community countries, is eliminated and the legal authorities find that the further presence of these armed units there is no longer necessary.

The actions which are being taken are not directed against any state and in no measure infringe on anybody's state interests. They serve the purpose of peace and have been prompted by concern for its consolidation.

The fraternal countries firmly and resolutely counterpose their unbreakable solidarity to any threat from outside. Nobody will be ever allowed t? wrest a single link from the community of socialist states. 7

17TASS International Service in Russian broadcast the statement at 0620 GMT August 21, 1968; Mbscow Domestic Service in Russian at 0700 GMT; the Moscow English Service to North America which began at 0700 GMT was interrupted at 0715 GMT at which time the TASS statement was read in Russian three times. It was broadcast in English for the first time at 0650 GMT in the TASS International Service. Two points in the TASS document bear comment here. 1)The "peOple and government leaders" who supposedly requested the invasion were never mentioned by name. In fact, when Russian Ambassador Stepan Chervenenko tried to form a government of quislings the morning of August 21, the attempt fell flat because those who agreed to serve in it had no support within the Party or the Government. Within a few days Mbscow dropped any pretense of the existence of "people and government leaders" who had requested occupation ("Journalist M,” p. 160). An unsigned report was carried in the Special 'Congress issue' of Rude Pravo, August 23-24, 1968, identifying the pro-Soviet traitors in the Czechoslovak Party leadership. One of those named, Oldrich Svestka, a Party Presidium member at the time and editor-in-chief of Rude Pravo, later identified the author of the article as Dusan Havlicek, who was then head of the press, radio and TV section of the Party Central Committee (Radio Free Europe Research, Czechosloa vakia/21, August 14, 1969). Those identified as pro-Soviet denied any knowledge of, or participation in, the invasion planning. The well-known conservative members of the Presidium, Central Committee and National Assembly issued verbal and written statements that none of them had made such an appeal ("Journalist M," p. 160). However, for some of them, succeeding events Showed, if not complicity, at least sympathy with the invasion. 2)The "collusion" of "foreign forces" was never officially explained. It was generally assumed that West Germany was the target of that statement. East Germany did in fact accuse the Bonn Government of helping the "counterrevolutionary" forces in Czechoslovakia. 29

While Sulek's attempt to turn Ceteka into a propaganda voice

for the Warsaw Pact powers was aborting, diSpatcherS at the central

switching station of Czechoslovak Radio were carefully monitoring

transmissions; poised to cut off any alarm from that quarter. They were under the supervision of State Security Forces from the Interior

Ministry. At midnight selected State Security Force personnel, the

secret police, were informed of the invasion. One group of police was

charged by Lieutenant Colonel Josef Rypl, a Salgovic aide, with pre- venting Czechoslovak Radio from broadcasting Presidium declarations.18

For almost three hours no news of the invasion was heard from the radio.19

No news could be expected from Prague Television since normal Tuesday night close-down time was 10:30, an hour and ten minutes before the

invasion was verified in Prague.

18Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 64.

19An interesting question is why did the radio not say anything of the invasion until almost 2 o'clock, three hours after it occurred? I think we must assume one of two things, probably the latter: l)the stifling beaurocratic system under which Czechoslovakia had been ruled for so long created a hierarchy of apparatchiks, none of whom cared to make the decision and risk wrath from above; or 2)the upper management level of the media, and perhaps even Dubcek, wishing not to Spread alarm and rumor, wanted the first word of the invasion to be the official Party position on it. It's probable however, that rumor was already rife before the official announcement since the invasion had been going on for 3 hours and involved 250,000-350,000 troops, a pretty significant length of time and number of personnel to keep out of sight of the local pOpulace. 30

At the Central Committee Presidium Dubcek was busy with the

unenviable job of drafting a proclamation which would inform the people of Czechoslovakia that history was again repeating itself;

invaders were spreading over the land. By 1:30 the proclamation still was not ready. Journalists present at the Presidium were getting edgy, pointing out that Prague Radio shut-down for the night at 2 A.M.

Finally Dubcek appeared in the chamber and read the draft. It was hurriedly approved with four negative votes and at 1:45 was on the way to the radio.20

At 1:50, in the early morning hours of August 21, 1968, the network "Praha" carried this announcement to Bohemian and Mbravian residents who were still awake:21 "In a short while we shall broadcast extraordinarily important news." Two minutes of music then followed.

Again the announcer cut in:

,Esteemed listeners, stay at your receivers. Although it is night, wake your acquaintances, your fellow citizens, in their houses, because in a short while the Czechoslovak radio, Prague, will broadcast extraordinarily important news.

20Levine, p. 60; also "Journalist M," pp. 160-161; also Rude Pravo, August 23, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 17. Among those casting votes against the Dubcek-drafted Presidium announcement was Rude Pravo editor Oldrich Svestka.

21The "Praha" radio network included medium-wave stations in Prague (638 kHz, 150 kw), Plzen (953 kHz, 15 kw), Hradec Kralove (1232 kHz, 5 kw), all in Bohemia. ‘In Mbravia: Brno (953 kHz, 100 kw) and Jihlava (1484 kHz, 2 kw). There were no "Praha" network stations in Slovakia. The other two networks: "Czechoslovakia I" and "Bratislava" were already closed-down for the night (World Radio-TV Handbook, ed. J. M. Frost (Hellerup, Denmark: World Radio-TV Handbook Co., 1969), p. 84). 31

Stay at your receivers, wake all your acquaintances. In a short while the Czechoslovak radio will broadcast extraordinarily important news.

Then there was five minutes of music while the radio waited for the Presidium proclamation to be readied for broadcast.23 At approximately 1:58 A.M., two minutes before normal sign-off for

"Praha," the announcer solemnly began to intone the Presidium declaration:

To all the peOple of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic:

Yesterday, on 20 August 1968, around 2300 hours, trOOps of the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the German Democratic Republic, the Hungarian People's Republic, and the Bulgarian PeOple'S Republic crossed the state frontiers of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. This happened without the knowledge of the President of the Republic, the chairman of the National Assembly, the Premier, and the First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee.

In the evening hours the Presidium of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee held a session and dealt with preparations for the 14th Party Congress. The Presidium of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee appeals to all citizens of our republic to maintain calm and not to resist the advancing troops. Hence also our army, security corps, and peOple'S militia have not received an order to defend the country.

The Presidium of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee regards this act not only as contrary to the fundamental principles of relations between socialist states but also as a denial of the basic norms of international law.

22Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0050 GMT, August 21, 1968.

23The proclamation either had to be physically carried from the Presidium to the radio station or else dictated on the telephone. Either way would account for the time lapse between 1:45 when the draft was passed until 1:58 when it was first read over the air. 32

A11 leading functionaries of the state, the Communist Party, the National Front remain in their functions to which they were elected as representatives of the peOple and of members of their organs, according to the laws and other norms valid in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

Constitutional functionaries are immediately convening a session of the National Assembly and the Government of the Republic, and the Presidium of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee is convening the plenum of the Central Committee to discuss the situation that has arisen.

(signed) Presidium of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee.

From the Presidium Jiri Ruml, head of the Prague chapter of

the union of Czechoslovak Journalists, reported that "only the first

sentence (of the proclamation) was heard from the loudSpeaker, and

then never ending, Oppressive silence."25

Karel Hoffman, head of the Central Communication Authority in

Prague, had done his job. Hoffman had been Minister of Culture and

Information under Novotny but was appointed by Dubcek to a Supposedly meaningless job as overseer of communication technical facilities

because of his conservative philoSOphy. Hoffman's diSpatchers, under

orders, cut the connection from the studios to the Prague medium-wave

transmitter. In the vicinity of Prague the announcement was probably

heard only on the wired network of the radio.26 However, the announcement

24Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0050 GMT, August 21, 1968.

25Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1105 GMT, August 26, 1968, on 11990 kHz.

26Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 11. 33

did go out over the regional transmitters of the "Praha" network and

was most likely heard locally in Plzen, Hradec Kralove and Jihlava;

and in the area surrounding Brno over the lOO-kilowatt transmitter

there.27

The Presidium announcement was repeated several times at

intervals of approximately fifteen minutes over the "Praha" network.

The personnel at Czechoslovak Radio remained on the job throughout

the early morning hours of August let although "all the transmitters...

were gradually taken out of Operation."28 Josef Rypl of the secret

police had placed a group of his men under the command of a Soviet

military advisor named Mukhin soon after the invasion began. These

Czech security officers were given responsibility for guiding

Russian troops to the Ministry of Communication and the broadcasting

stations. They did this throughout the night. The Soviets immed-

iately occupied some transmitter sites such as that of Prague's

27Quoting "Journalist M," p. 160: ”The Presidium proclamation was broadcast only by the local Prague radio station." However, since most sources seem to agree that the transmission was interrupted at about 1:58 this would not account for the fact that the transmission was monitored outside the country. Of the Stations on the "Praha" network, only Prague and Brno would be powerful enough to be received outside the country under normal conditions. Thus, if the Prague transmitter was closed down, it would seem likely that at least some portions of the network were still being fed from the Prague studios. Then too, the author of A Year is Eight Mbnths may only be trying to indicate that the proclamation was not physically read in any studio other than Prague; which is true.

28Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0340 GMT, August 21, 1968; also, Mlada Fronta, August 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 18. 34

Channel 7 on Petrin Hill. Other groups, such as the one led to the central radio building near Wenceslas Square, evidently just recon- noitered, not attempting entry.29

The national news agency CTK was also left unmolested that first night. But at the Presidium meeting, deSpite a group decision to remain in the Central Committee building to await the arrival of the foreign trOOps, Oldrich Svestka, editor of Rude Pravo, and one of the dissenters from the Presidium proclamation, left for his office. In the Rude Pravo building Svestka got into a bitter argument with his

Staff over publication of the Presidium statement. It ended only when Svestka left with Soviet soldiers for the Russian Embassy where

Ambassador Chervonenko wanted to include the editor in the collaborationist government he was putting together. The Presidium proclamation appeared in Rude Pravo that morning.30

III

The normal opening time for radio broadcasts on the network

"Praha" was 4:30 A.M. Transmissions began with news headlines.31

29Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 69. It's not clear what the orders to either the Czechoslovak security peOple or the Russian trOOps were. In Prague, TV studios and transmitters were occupied but not radio facilities. Elsewhere it was the reverse. Part of the answer undoubtedly lies in the fact that the Czech secret police just didn't know where all the facilities were located on the Spur of the moment. The Prague radio building may not have been occupied because the police thought Hoffman had neutralized it through the Communication Authority.

30"Journalist M," p. 161.

31World Radio-TV Handbook, p. 84. 35

Wednesday, August 21, 1968, was different only to the extent that part

of the "Praha" network had been on all night. Technicians at Prague

Radio had Spent a hectic night, concerned about the invasion of their

country and the lack of information disseminated about it. Yet,

Hoffman had given orders that radio programming was not to be fed to

the transmitters. During the dark hours of the morning a radio newsman telephoned National Assembly Chairman Josef Smrkovsky reporting the arrival of Russian tanks in Prague and the radio problem.

Smrkovsky immediately dressed and went to the Central Committee building after discussing the communication black-out over the telephone with the radio engineers.32 Smrkovsky's statement was recorded at the radio building some time before 4:30 A.M. He told the Staff,

"this is taking place behind our back (Hoffman's order turning off the transmitter), against the will of the Party Presidium. Do not obey Hoffman...he did that of his own accord...what he did is against the Party.”33

The broadcast technicians defied Hoffman's orders with

Smrkovsky's blessing and the complete facilities of Prague Radio

3 went on the air at 4:30. The Opening newscast began with a rereading

32Chapman, p. 37.

33Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 2301 GMT, August 22, 1968, on 9505 kHz. Honza Sefranek reported on the statement made by Josef Smrkovsky and reportedly recorded at about 0430 (Czech time) on Wednesday, August 21, 1968. 36

of the Presidium announcement.34 The announcer then continued:

The Czechoslovak radio attempted to broadcast a Statement by the Presidium shortly before 0200 this morning. However, all the transmitters at our diSposal were gradually taken out of operation and at present we do not even know how many of you have heard this information. We don't even know, listeners of our radio, if you can hear us at the moment. We do want to remain calm. We are waiting for directives from gur government and the Presidium of our National Assembly...3

This short Speech set the tenor for the Operation of the

Czechoslovak radio throughout the entire occupation. NO matter what

the technical difficulties, it did broadcast. It issued directives

and news, but more importantly, it helped to maintain calm, rational

behavior among the pOpulace and led the passive resistance. And the

medium at all times supported the Government and the Party.

Radio Prague, in the first half-hour of its morning transmission, included world reaction to the invasion. This information

was received by radio from foreign broadcast stations "...as our

teleprinters are not functioning normally."36 After the news, music was played until 4:53 when the announcer broke in: "We are repeating

34One change was made in the proclamation between its initial reading on Prague Radio at 1:58 and the 4:30 version. In its original wording, the second paragraph had included this sentence: "Hence also our army, security corps, and peOple'S militia have not received an order to defend the country." This was amended to read: "Hence, also our army, security corps, and peOple'S militia have not received an order to defend the country because defense of our state frontiers is now impossible."

35Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0340 GMT, August 21, 1968.

3§i§id., also "The Czechoslovak Crisis: The BBC and its Central Role," BBC Record. No. 61, September 1968. 37

an announcement..." But the broadcast was cut off at this point.

The technical problems for Czechoslovak Radio were just beginning.

The FM transmitter which served Prague was located on Cukrak

Hill, near Zbraslav; about 5 miles south of Prague at the confluence of

the Vltava and Berounka Rivers. The Channel One transmitter was also

here, Prague's Second TV service. The VHF radio went on like any

other day at 4:30 A.M., but today it was relayed by the second television sound channel which opened early. Both VHF transmitters

at Cukrak relayed Radio Prague directly.37

Soon after Opening the day's broadcast service, Prague

Radio took cognizance of the fact that it would be a primary target

for occupation by the foreign trOOps. After the brief interruption

at 4:53 it was back on the air by 5:15 reading a proclamation from

the Presidium of the West Bohemian regional committee of the Communist

Party which stated that some radio facilities had been occupied during

the night.38 And later: "We do not know on which stations you can hear us, nor which transmitters are Operating.. ."39 Then at 5:34 A.M., with concrete information on cccupied facilities still scanty, the network identified itself as "...the Czechoslovak radio, Prague, and,

as far as we know, also Czechoslovak television." The radio also noted some new competition which had developed during the night:

37Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1209 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 6055 kHz.

38Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0415 GMT, August 21, 1968.

39Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0534 GMT, August 21, 1968. 38

Friends, you are listening to the transmission of the legal Czechoslovak radio, We advise you that on the wave length of 210 meters an illegal transmitter of the occupation forces is broadcasting in bad Czech and bad Slovak. We point out that this transmission has 80thing in common with the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic...4

Prague Radio continued in the last hours before dawn reading messages of support for the Government from Party organizations in the districts, industrial workers' groups, journalists; and with news. Then at 7:21, the moment the nation was waiting for, some word from Alexder Dubcek. Dubcek made a short appeal:

I beg you to remain calm, not to do anything precipitous. I beg you to be dignified in the Situation which has arisen. I send you greetings from the building of the Central Committee. 41

The situation was tightening up for the staff of Czechoslovak

Radio inside the headquarters building in the heart of Prague. Soviet troops began approaching the building along Vynohradska Street. Then they were in front of the building. "We do not know how much longer we shall be able to broadcast..." At 7:30 A.M. more appeals for calm from the crowd gathering outside the radio; confronting the soldiers.

"We have just heard that the firing in front of the radio building has become stronger..." Fade to music. "We are still here in the studio, waiting for more reports. I just want to say one thing. As soon as you hear our Czechoslovak national anthem, this will mark the end of our transmission today. "Female announcer: "Yet so long as we can still address you, we remind you once again, dear fellow

40ibid. For information on the use of clandestine radio stations by the occupying powers see Chapter 7.

41Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0621 GMT, August 21, 1968. 39 citizens, be calm and prudent, this is our only weapon in this situation." Interval signal up...cross-fade to Czechoslovak national anthem. CHAPTER THREE

THE BLOOD-SPATTERED MORNING

Unexpected as was the occupation of Czechoslovakia, perhaps equally unexpected was the reception the Warsaw Pact trOOps received upon their arrival and throughout their stay. Czechoslovak Radio and Television received numerous accolades for their behavior during this occupation. Jack Gould enunciated the generally held opinion that the "bravery, Skill and determination" of the media had "written an unforgettable chapter in the annals of broadcasting."1

Brave, skillful and determined they may have been, but during the first morning of the invasion, Czechoslovak Radio and TV were hardly innovative or directive. They offered messages of unity and solidarity from across the country. They reminded listeners that their media monopoly was at the diSposal of only the "legally consti- tuted” Dubcek government. They were circumSpect and fairly objective under the circumstances. But they refrained from suggesting courses of action in the face of the aggression. It seems that the news function of the radio and television, in these first hours, was their primary raison d'etre, providing calm reporting of events including,

1New York Times, September 1, 1968, Section II, p. 13.

40 41 in the case of radio, live remote broadcasts.2 But they did not lead the Czechoslovak peOple. The Czechs and Slovaks did not need guidance however. Jonathan Power found that:

...the Czech peOple met their invaders face to face as fellow communists, sometimes arguing with them, sometimes scorning them, and always resisting them and refusing to obey their orders. The reaction was completely Spontaneous. The radio broadcasts during those first hours of occupation on 21 August did not give the Czechs clear instructions to resist in the way they did: they Simply told them not to use force and to keep calm.

Although the broadcast media were not yet leading the resistance the morning of August let, the conservative faction of the

Communist Party was already trying to get the administrative machinery back in its hands. At 5:11 A.M. that morning Berliner Welle, the East

Berlin domestic service, announced that pro-Russian elements of the

Czechoslovak Communist Party were taking measures "to insure without delay the political management of press, radio and television in the

Spirit of socialism." 4 Early in the morning Josef Lenart, last

Premier under NOvotny, and Alois Indra, former Minister of TranSport, paid a call on President Ludvik Svoboda at Hradceny Palace. The collaborators handed Svoboda a list of the members of a "provisional

Government of workers and peasants" for his signature. If Svoboda

2New York Times, August 22, 1968, p. 16.

3Jonathan Power, "Non-Violent Resistance,"‘The-Listener, August 21, 1968, p. 241. Power, an authority on non-violent resistance, worked for some time on Martin Luther King's staff in Chicago.

4 East Berlin Domestic Service in German at 0411 GMT, August 21, 1968. 42 had signed the document, Karel Hoffman would have gotten his old job as Minister of Culture and Information back and had control of press, radio and television. Instead, Svoboda kicked Lenart and Indra out of his office.5

The travail of Czechoslovak Television the first morning of the invasion was similar to that of the radio? The first Soviet trOOps entered the main studios of Prague Television on Maxim Gorky Street only a few hours after the huge Red Air Force Antonov tranSports disgorged Russian trOOps and materiel at Ruzyne Airport outside of

Prague. The Soviets were stalled for some time by the night watchman before gaining access to the building. According to an eyewitness account:

...a Russian army captain who gave the name of Orlov jumped off his armored vehicle and pounded on the door. The night watchman came out. "Step out of the way, we are going to occupy the station,” the Soviet officer announced. ”Do you work here?" asked the elderly guard. "NO," the captain replied, taken aback. "Then you can't come in," and the door was Slammed in his face. Orlov had to make contact with his headquarters for instructions.7

5Colin Chapman, August let: The Rape of Czechoslovakia (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1968), p. 39. This list was presumably drawn up by Russian Ambassador Stepan Chervonenko since he was handling the political end of the invasion in Prague.

6The major obstacle in researching the takeover of television is that except for the Bratislava Station, no Czechoslovak TV could normally be monitored from Western Europe.

7Isaac Don Levine, Intervention (New York: David McKay, 1969), pp. 64-65. 43

1 inch = 16 miles

Figure 4.--PRAGUE VICINITY 44

In the confusion of the initial occupation of the Gorky studios,

Mirek Lang, a producer, and newsman Jiri Kanturek, along with a few technicians, managed to get away in an OB van normally used to cover soccer matches. The mobile communication center was driven to the outskirts of Prague and secreted in a wooded area for later use.8

When the Russians finally got into the building they ordered the television staff to leave but tried to persuade the director, Jiri

Pelikan, to stay and Supervise the Operation of Czechoslovak Television for the occupiers. Pelikan, a parliamentary deputy, refused and later was able to leave the studios.9 After supposedly running the Gorky studio staff out, the Russians cut a few wires and settled down to sleep on the ground floor of the building. Meanwhile, on the floors above them, a skeleton staff hid in the studios and in the morning began sending out news bulletins, bypassing the non-essential severed wires.10

Television studios of the Prague station are scattered all over the city. As the occupying forces pressed their search for the sites, the staffs switched from one studio to another, transmitter crews calmly taking feeds from whichever studio was functioning.

The first service transmitter of Prague TV, Channel 7 on Petrin

Hill, was occupied immediately and never Opened up the morning of the

ﬁr

8Chapman, p. 59. 9ibid. p. 56.

10ibid. p. 59. 45

let.11 The second service transmitter, Channel 1 at Cukrak Hill,

received its microwave feed from Prague via Strahov. 12 Neither the

Strahov facilities nor the Cukrak transmitter were molested in the

early morning. The normal transmission day for Prague on Wednesdays

began at 9:30 A.M.13 From 4:30 until 7:30 the Second service transmitter at Cukrak relayed Radio Prague on its sound channel. This

programming was also relayed, as was normal, by the FM transmitter

located at Cukrak. At 7:30 Channel 1 stOpped relaying Radio Prague

and Opened prematurely with its morning of extraordinary video fare.1

In addition to Prague, only three other Czechoslovakian cities

had television origination facilities in 1968.15 These were Ostrava,

in northern Mbravia; Brno in central Mbravia; and Bratislava, the

Slovakian metrOpoliS about 40 miles across the Danube from Vienna.

Ostrava was evidently the only transmitter which never came on the air

11Lidova Demokracie, August 21, 1968, quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, The Czech Black Book, trans. Robert Littell (New York: Praeger, 1969), p. 27 also Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1209 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 6055 kHz.

12The international service of Prague Radio on shortwave and two FM programs were also beamed from Strahov, outside of Prague.

13World Radio-TV Handbook, ed. J.M. Frost (Hellerup, Denmark: World Radio-TV Handbook Co., 1969), p. 252.

14Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1209 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 6055 kHz.

15World Radio-TV Handbook, p. 252. 46

the morning of the invasion.16 Ostrava Television was probably occupied

in the first hours of the invasion. Both Brno and Bratislava opened

up on Wednesday morning and programmed local and network material. The

Brno outlet had a film of Soviet troops and tanks in that city. The

film was relayed over the network and Prague reported that "this film

could have been shot only from a moving car, because a Still cameraman who tried to film the Soviet forces was stOpped and his film was removed

from the camera."17

The Bratislava television transmitter served as the primary visual

link with the outside world during the first morning of the invasion.

This was due to the proximity of television monitoring facilities in

Vienna and the prescience of a British Broadcasting Corporation employee.

Osterreichescher Rundfunk, Vienna, is a member of the European

Broadcasting Union (EBU). Each day EBU members have a news story exchange; a different organization Supplying the exchange coordinator each month. For August the British Broadcasting Corporation was to supply the coordinator; Luise Gutman, of the news department. Miss

Gutman heard the 6:30 A.M. (London time) Summary of the invasion on the let. She immediately telephoned EBU headquarters in Geneva and asked to have Austrian Television monitor the Bratislava station across the border. Austrian TV began monitoring at 10 A.M. (Czechoslovak time)

16This may be because the city of Ostrava lies only a few miles from the Polish border, one of the jumping-off points for the invasion.

17Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0815 GMT, August 21, 1968 also New York Times, August 22, 1968, p. 16. 47 and continued the remainder of the morning until Bratislava Television went off the air. The visual and aural material was taped by Oster- reichescher Rundfunk and transmitted across EurOpe via Eurovision.

These pictures were transmitted from the BBC by satellite to the

Western HemiSphere.18

Bratislava TV telecast feeds from Prague and Brno as well as originating news stories. In all, about 45-minutes of visual material was monitored in Vienna. At 11:05 A.M. Bratislava Television announced that the Prague station had stopped transmitting "just now." But

Bratislava continued for a short time. Then, when the staff knew the station was about to be shut down by Russian trOOps, Bratislava

Signed-off with the Czechoslovak national anthem. A little later, an unidentified television station was monitored in Vienna, using only

its sound channel, pleading for Secretary-General U Thant of the United

Nations to champion Czechoslovakia's independence before the world.19

Bratislava had announced at 11:05 that Prague TV had halted transmission. This was not entirely correct. At about 11 A.M. Soviet trOOps occupied the microwave relay station at Strahov which served

the Cukrak transmitter. The soldiers shut-down the Prague studio feed to the second TV service as well as the international shortwave

facilities there. This also cut off the television network feed capabilities from Prague. However, transmitter engineers improvised

18"The Czechoslovak Crisis: The BBC and Its Central Role," BBC Record, September 1968.. The first American network television pictures from Czechoslovakia were shown at 2:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time.

19New York Times, August 22, 1968, p. 75. 48

a direct link to the Prague studios and the second service continued

functioning. Then, about ten minutes before noon, occupation forces

arrived at the Cukrak transmitter site and closed down the normal

Operation of Czechoslovak Television in Prague.20

Except for the filmed footage, which was very limited, Czech-

oslovak Television programming the morning of the invasion was similar

to Czechoslovak Radio. TV provided a running commentary on events in

Prague and the country. Resolutions of support for the Dubcek government were interspersed with appeals from groups across the land calling for

the withdrawal of occupation trOOps.21 The closing of the normal television facilities marked figig to a chapter, but not the book, on the

Operation of television during the occupation. The most brilliant

and imaginative part of the TV Operation would Open shortly.

III

Throughout the first day of occupation the Czechoslovak News

Agency broadcast the same type of material as Czechoslovak Radio and

Television. The news agency building was left unaccountably alone on

Wednesday, August 21, 1968; free to transmit to all Eastern and Western

EurOpe news of the invasion, occupation and resistance. Ceteka

reported the problems of the other media during the day; the

20Lidova Demokracie, August 21, 1968, quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 27, also Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1209 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 6055 kHz.

21New York Times, August 22, 1968, p. 16. 49

confrontation at the radio building, the closing of press and broadcast facilities, the emergence of clandestine Operations. At 11:55 A.M. the agency reported that:

CTK's regional office in Brno has been occupied by the occupation units and further activities of the Brno branch office of CTK have been made impossible by them. CTK's Brno correSpondent has informed us by telephone.

The agency stated that the teleprinter connections between the central office in Prague and regional offices in Ostrava, Brno and Hradec

Kralove were also interrupted.

During the entire afternoon and evening CTK was the sole remaining media link with the outside world still Operating from its normal facilities. It carried government declarations; messages of support from workers', union, and militia groups; Party appeals for calm; and straight news reports from Prague and the nation. CTK'S brief freedom ended the night of 21 August as it sent out its last bulletin reporting the occupation of its headquarters by foreign forces.23 Two days later the agency issued a statement broadcast by

Free Czechoslovak Radio imploring its employees not to accept any directives from its Director-General, Miroslav Sulek, because of his infamous behavior preceding and during the invasion.24 Ceteka would not again broadcast until the occupying trOOps left its facilities.

22Prague CTK International Service in English at 1055 GMT, August 21, 1968.

23Bucharest (Rumania) Domestic Service in Rumanian at 0500 GMT, August 22, 1968.

24Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, pp. 117-118. 50

Dawn slid back the fair Summer night in Prague and settled over a tense, angry scene on August 21, 1968. It was evident from the knots of peOple in animated conversation on street corners and sidewalks that the appalling news, crackling through the ether from Radio Prague, had indeed been heard. By ones and twos the citizens wended toward the center of the city, many carrying transistor radios; their numbers growing geometrically, to gaze again, for some, upon foreign guns clogging the heart of the capital. Vinohradska Street, in front of the radio building, was one of the principle congregating Spots. It seemed, as though by being as close as possible to that amorphous voice, residents could show their support for what it was standing for; the unity of the Czech and Slovak peoples, the inviolability of Czecho- slovak territory, the legality of the Dubcek-Cernik-Svoboda Government.

And, although "...the agitated pOpulace poured out into the streets, the broadcasts calling for calm and order and nonresistance were most effective." In fact, "(Radio Prague was)...indefatigable and resourceful in disseminating information, and 'virtually ran Czechoslovakia,’ as some observers on the Spot put it."25

Radio Prague had a message from Jiri Pelikan, director of

Czechoslovak TV, at 8:35. Perhaps it was an announcement of the takeover of the first television service. But no matter. Radio Prague

25Levine, p. 63. 51 was again having technical difficulties and no one could understand it.

The radio said "we believe that we will be able in a moment...again transmit."26

The mob outside the radio building at this point was not only symbolic, it also began to take measures to prevent the occupation of the station. The electric mains over Vinohradska Street were pulled down. Electric streetcars, trucks and autos were hauled into position to block access to the street in front of the building. The street and Sidewalks were crawling with peOple both behind, and in front of the hasty barricade.27 Russian trOOps approached the barricades, fired into the air, but could not forte a passage through the angry people. Prague Radio exulted and cautioned:

Do not allow yourselves to be provoked, do not participate in Open clashes in the streets. Do not do anything that could provide cause for further measures. Be calm...do not leave your receivers; as long as you can hear us, stay with us. Our editors have just gone around the building; thus far no foreign soldiers can be seen (in) here.28

Soviet trucks were brought up with more troops. Harried commanders consulted on the best way of getting into the station without further antagonizing the mob.

26Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0735 GMT, August 21, 1968.

27Prague CTK International Service in English at 1030 GMT, August 21, 1968, also Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0638 GMT, August 21, 1968, also Mlada Fronta, August 21, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 31, also Levine, p. 64, also Chapman, p. 46.

28Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0638 GMT, August 21, 1968. 52

Firing stOpped five minutes ago and the radio workers are trying to calm a group of several hundred citizens by loudSpeakers... From our windows we can see throngs of peOple rushing up Vino- hradska Street from Wenceslas Square. Armored vehicles are approaching the building; bgg we go on broadcasting and shall continue as long as we can.

The blow-by-blow description of the confrontation in front of the radio building was handled by two announcers: a man and a woman.

The woman continued the narrative:

For the time being the occupation forces have no access to the radio, but we do not know how much longer this will continue. I have just heard heavy firing from Vinohradska Street.

The man broke in:

This may be the last words you can hear from us. Friends, let us believe that reason will prevail.

Then in Slovak:

Dear friends, deSpite the firing and deSpite our deep emotion, please keep calm. Even the loss of a single life in this Situation would be a waste.

Then, while waiting for more news from outside the building, the radio station played Czechoslovak anthems.

The Soviet officers, not wishing to create a bloodbath, were stymied. At about 8 o'clock the troops were moved away from the barricades looking for another approach to the radio building.31

Prague Radio again read messages of support for the government and a declaration from the National Assembly, which Josef Smrkovsky had called into session, addressed to the leaders of the five invading powers.

29ibid. 3°ibid. in Slovak.

31Prague Domestic Service at 0655 GMT, August 21, 1968. 53

The Assembly proclamation called for an immediate withdrawal of the trOOps from Czechoslovakia.32 At 8:20 A.M. President Ludvik Svoboda made a short appeal calling for "reason and complete calm."33 Then

Radio Prague went off the air; more technical problems, announcing that "we believe that we will be able in a moment (to) again transmit."34

Sometime before 9 o'clock the Russian troops returned; this time supported by tanks. The tanks rumbled down the sloping pavement of Wenceslas Square and smashed into the heavy barricade in front of the radio. The crowd reSponded with bricks, rocks and Mblotov cocktails.

Several Russian tanks and trucks blazed.35 Then the tanks Opened fire.

The somber, gray facade of the Prague Radio building was gashed and pock-marked. Inside, the plaster began to fall. The battle was uneven. Very shortly the tanks burst through the barricades, scattering the demonstrators, and the foot soldiers followed.

While the culmination of the battle for Prague Radio was occurring outside, the Station carried reports by newsmen on the situation elsewhere in the city. One reporter summarized reaction in Bucharest, Paris and Washington to the invasion. Then at 9:10 A.M.,

32Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0653 GMT, August 21, 1968.

33Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0720 GMT, August 21, 1968. Svoboda's address was probably a recording. The quality was so poor it could have been made over the telephone.

34Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0735 GMT, August 21, 1968.

35Tirana (Albania) Domestic Service in Albanian at 1900 GMT, August 22, 1968 said, "the demonstrators burned three of the occupation forces' tanks." Svobodne Slovo, August 22, 1968 (in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 39) said, "In front of the radio building, an occupation tank rammed a truck barricading the street. The impact started a fire. Tanks smashed into the buses and trucks 54

with the situation Outside critical and mass bloodshed imminent, an announcer came back on in a continuous appeal for calm in the street.36

Then the announcers of Radio Prague fell Silent. In the background automatic-weapons fire could be heard. The Czechoslovak national anthem was again played. Prague Radio could be heard asking Ostrava to take over broadcasting.37

The Russian trOOps crowded into the radio building. Outside the tanks stood guard at the portals. The radio employees who had gathered in the building throughout the night and morning met the invaders with granite silence; asking no questions, pretending not to understand any of the Russian orders. The trOOps immediately began cutting phone wires.38 Some of the trOOps lounged on the ground floor, no longer harrassed by the crowd; others went from room to room locking doors.39

that formed the barricade." Chapman (p. 46) says, "With flaming rags, Mblotov cocktails and blazing newSpapers the demonstrators tried to set fire to the invaders' trucks and tanks. A couple of tanks went up in flames and an ammunition lorry was exploded."

36Prague Dmmestic Service in Czech at 0810 GMT, August 21, 1968.

37Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 37.

38The building was equipped with "hundreds" of phone lines. Thus last minute preparations for continuing the broadcasts from clandestine locations occurred even with trOOps in the building (Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1209 GMT, August 21, 1968).

39Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1209 GMT, August 21, 1968, also heard in relay on 953 kHz by a clandestine station probably in Plzen or Brno. 55

Broadcasting from the official facilities of Prague Radio had come to an end for the duration of the occupation. Outside, thousands of mortified and frustrated Czechs, their transistor radios Silent, unable to pick up the Signals from the clandestine stations which were already beginning to Spring up across the country; suSpected the end of believable news, the end of a unifying voice Speaking for leaders and led. For two hours the crowd milled about the armored vehicles arguing, reasoning, cajoling, taunting; two hours of seeming helpless- ness, but with the very visible objects which were causing their frustration Standing on the street in front of the radio building.

The mood of the crowd again turned ugly."0

Another fire began. A Soviet tank was scorched by flaming gasoline. Small arms fire drove the mob away from the vehicles. The tanks began maneuvering to keep from being hemmed in by civilians.

A car in the barricade was struck and burst into flame. On a side street a bus was set ablaze. As noontime passed the confrontation continued; another tank was on fire. The Soviet soldiers fired

Sporadically to intimidate the crowd. Barricades and suSpicious trOOps prevented ambulances from taking the wounded to hOSpitals.

40Prague CTK International Service in English at 1030 GMT, August 21, 1968. 56

Scores of bystanders were injured when two Soviet ammunition trucks blew up. Swastikas and slogans; ”Gestapo, ”Fascists" and "Tartars Go

Home" were scrawled on tanks and trucks. 41 Many were wounded, perhaps seven killed in the two confrontations."2 But that afternoon the situation was as it would remain throughout the occupation: the

Russians were inside the radio building, the angry Czechs were outside.

Since the previous night, when Radio Prague suggested it would be occupied shortly, the eventual triumph of military force was a foregone conclusion. The announcers inside the radio building appealing for calm and avoidance of unnecessary bloodshed understood it. The mob outside, trying to stop the tanks with bodies and with gasoline, must have understood it. The Russian soldiers certainly understood it and conducted themselves quite circumSpectly, avoiding massive retaliation on the unarmed civilians. Yet it was quite smybolic that this major confrontation should have occurred here.

Colin Chapman, editor of the London Sunday Times, vouched that:

...it was fitting that this tense fighting Should have happened here--for if any one thing helped to cement the Czechs together in defiance at this terrible time it was the radio stations.

41Tirana (Albania) Domestic Service in Albanian at 1900 GMT, August 22, 1968, also Prague CTK International Service in English at 1134 GMT, August 21, 1968, also a clandestine station on 953 kHz at 1200 GMT, August 21, 1968, also Levine, p. 64, also Chapman, p. 46. 42New York Times, August 22, 1968, p. 16.

43Chapman, p. 46. 57

The normal studio facilities of Prague Radio may have been in the hands of the occupiers, but not all of the normal transmitter facilities were yet. The signal from the Prague studios was beamed to Strahov, outside the city, where "Praha" network transmissions were microwaved to the Cukrak Hill FM transmitter. The international service of Radio Prague was also sent to Strahov where shortwave transmitters and antenna array were located. Shortwave transmissions ended at about 11 o'clock that morning when Soviet trOOps occupied the Strahov facilities. However, as with all the broadcast services in Czechoslovakia, technicians began improvising and Radio Prague's international service continued intermittently throughout the occupation from other locations.44 The Cukrak VHF radio, which took its feed from

Strahov, was the last Prague facility to be closed. It Operated independently, relaying Radio Plzen and the clandestine network, until ten minutes before noon. At that time tanks surrounded the tower and transmitter and Soviet soldiers were seen entering the building.45

Information on the Operation of radio stations outside of

Prague during the first hours of the occupation is relatively harder to authenticate. It is safe to assume that occupation forces in each

44Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1209 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 6055 kHz.

45ibid. also Plzen Domestic Service in Czech at 0815 GMT, August 21, 1968. 58 city harboring broadcast facilities made it one of their first orders of business to put those facilities securely under their control.

The effort may, or may not, have been as difficult as in Prague; according to the individual case. Occupation of the Prague stations probably had priority because two of the three Czechoslovak radio networks obtained their feeds from the capital. The exception to this was Bratislava Radio which originated the "Bratislava" net transmissions, the Slovak language network. Bratislava Radio closed down at midnight on August 20th, before the first news of the invasion came out of Prague. By Opening time the next morning, 4:30, Prague

Radio noted that "the Bratislava wavelength is broadcasting a Mbscow

Radio program." Prague went on to announce that "according to Vienna radio the frontier with Czechoslovakia is occupied by Soviet tank trOOps. Bratislava Radio had evidently been overrun by occupation forces while it was off the air. The Soviets then immediately began relaying Radio Moscow.47

Hradec Kralove Radio, northeast of Prague, seemed to have had little trouble the morning of the invasion. It probably lasted longer than any other Czechoslovak radio station in its official facilities. Radio Hradec Kralove was a low-power relay transmitter of the "Praha" network. It also carried regional programming.

46Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0340 GMT, August 21, 1968.

47This relay was probably in Russian Since Radio Mbscow did not have a scheduled broadcast in Czech or Slovak until 5:30 and no word of the invasion was announced from Radio Moscow until 5:20 A.M. 59

LOCATIONS

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outlet(s)

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After the Radio Prague central studios were occupied on August let,

such network as still existed as "Praha" was fed from Hradec

Kralove.48 At about 2 o'clock on the afternoon of the let, it was reported that the Polish trOOps approaching Hradec Kralove were being slowed by peOple lying down in the road in front of

them. Local authorities there were attempting to negotiate with

the Poles.49 By almost 3 P.M. Hradec Kralove Radio was reporting

that not a single armored car or tank had left Hradec airport,

"...hence, there seems to be no immediate danger to our studio here

in Hradec."50 How long it took before negotiations with the Polish commanders ended and the station was occupied is not known.

Kosice Radio was situated on the narrow neck of Slovakia jutting between Poland and Hungary toward the Soviet Union. In the early afternoon of August 21 it was reported that Kosice Radio was

Still "free".51 This evidently meant that Kosice was Operating clandestinely. Kosice's First Progam, on a low-powered regional transmitter, had "...been out Since this morning." It was also reported that "the Soviet forces are broadcasting over Kosice II," a lOO-kilowatt relay transmitter of the "Bratislava" net. But the

48Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1251 GMT, August 21, 1968.

49Czech clandestine station on 953 kHz at 1248 GMT, August 21, 1968.

50Czech clandestine station on 272 kHz and 6055 kHz at 1340 GMT, August 21, 1968.

51Czech clandestine station on 953 kHz at 1205 GMT, August 21, 1968. 61 radio technicians had somehow managed to hook into the wired network of the station with their "Free Kosice Radio" programming.52

Both Brno, in central Mbravia, and Plzen, in western

Bohemia, shared a common frequency of 953 kHz. This frequency was a "Praha” network relay. Both cities were large and industri- alized and prime targets for the invaders. At 8:24 the morning of the let, the announcer on 953 kHz advised: "We are moving to another working place. Remain at your radio sets." Then in the middle of reading the National Assembly appeal to the leaders of the occupying forces: "Just now firing has started. Remain loyal to Dubcek and Svoboda."53 The transmission then stOpped. This transmission probably came from Brno Radio because: Brno used lOO-kilowatts on 953 kHz as Opposed to Plzen's lS-kilowatts, and,

Plzen Operated for some time after this from its normal radio studio.54

Radio Plzen was heard during the morning on its own frequency of 953 kHz and on 272 kHz, the frequency of the national long-wave station in Uher Hradiste which normally broadcast the

"Czechoslovakia I" network program. Plzen Radio was also being

52ibid. 53953 kHz in Czech at 0724 GMT, August 21, 1968.

5("During the early hours of August let, the clandestine network in Czechoslovakia was just Starting to take Shape. The difficulty of determining exactly which broadcasting facilities had been taken over by trOOps is due to this very fact. Clandestine studios in one part of the country were relayed by the official transmitters in other cities, and vice versa. The fact that this was occurring would indicate that either one facility, or both, or perhaps neither, was Operating from its official location. 62

relayed on VHF by the Prague Radio transmitter at Cukrak Hill.55

Plzen, like the other Czechoslovak radio stations, whether Operating

from its permanent studios or underground, concentrated on reading

appeals from many organized groups for the withdrawal of the Warsaw

Pact troops; declarations of support for the Dubcek regime; and local

and national news. Vladimir Ctenar, director of Plzen Radio, Spoke

briefly at midmorning on the radio in German, explaining the current

situation in the area for the benefit of tourists.56 Plzen Radio,

during its morning Operation, also broadcast on two FM frequencies.57

At 10:53 A.M. a studio being relayed by Plzen on 953 kHz

announced that it was switching over to the Plzen studio. Plzen

then announced that:

...the Czechoslovak radio is ending its program. Henceforth all declarations are not from our mouth. Foreign troops are in our porter's lodge.58

Soon afterward the same transmitter announced that Soviet tanks were

"in front of our building." Then at 10:58 A.M. Plzen appealed to the

55Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0815 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 272 kHz.

56Plzen Domestic Service at 0848 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 272 kHz.

57One of these FM frequencies was Plzen's normal VHF radio channel. The other was not assigned to Czechoslovakia. Plzen Domestic Service in Czech at 0815 GMT, August 21, 1968, announced: "Esteemed friends in Plzen. You are now listening to us on a wavelength of 66.56 megawatts (sic) and have bad reception; change to 67.34 megawatts where you will have better reception." 66.56 mHz was not used by any Czecho- slovak station prior to, or after, this. 58953 kHz at 0958 GMT, August 21, 1968. 63

crowd gathered in front of the radio building not to provoke the Soviet trOOps. The announcer continued: "...until we are pushed from our microphones we will continue." Plzen Radio then identified itself incorrectly as "the last free transmitter."59

The scene at the radio building in Plzen was very Similar to that at Prague Radio. Soviet trOOps and tanks seeking control of the studio facilities were confronted by an angry mob of Czechs. At

10:59 A.M. Plzen Radio carried a "last report" saying that foreign tanks were aiming their guns at the building and "we hope that this is merely symbolic. Hold out." Plzen Radio held out for only a short time after this and then joined the growing underground medium.

Banska Bystrica Radio, high in the Tatra Mbuntains, had two low-powered FM transmitters for regional programming and a super-power lOO-kilowatt medium-wave outlet on 701 kHz. Radio Banska Bystrica normally relayed the "Bratislava" network on medium-wave, but this morning it Operated independently before joining the clandestine net.

This station was of singular importance the morning of August let.

It was probably on Radio Banska Bystrica that Slovak Communist Party delegates to the 14th Party Congress (scheduled for September) heard of the immediate, surreptitious convening of the congress in Prague.

All other medium-wave transmitters in Slovakia were either shut-down or relaying Radio Moscow on the let of August. Banska Bystrica Radio alone carried material similar to the Czech Stations. Banska Bystrica reported on the Situation locally, in Prague, and elsewhere in the

l 1' J

59ibid. 64

country. Government announcements and citizens' declarations were sent out to all of Slovakia from this powerful transmitter.6O

That afternoon a clandestine station somewhere along the network announced that the occupying forces had ordered all radio stations to st0p transmitting or they would be forcibly stOpped. It added that

Banska Bystrica Radio was then transmitting under the name of "The Free

Transmitter of Banska Bystrica."61 Thus Radio Banska Bystrica was evidently underground by afternoon but continuing in its role as the most important Slovakian outlet under the occupation.62

Nothing was heard from the following stations during the first morning of the occupation: Ostrava, Uherske Hradiste, Usti nad Labem,

Opava, Rimavska Sobota, Jihlava, Ceske Budajovice, Liberec, Karlovy

Vary, Tatry, Zilina, Poprad or Kralove Hola (see Table 1).,

Ostrava is almost on the Polish border and easily occupied.

Ostrava Radio had one 30-kilowatt medium-wave transmitter on 1520 kHz and three FM transmitters. The 1520 kHz frequency was shared with

6OBanska Bystrica at 0945 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 701 kHz. 61953 kHz at 1205 GMT, August 21, 1968.

62Banska Bystrica Radio's importance was due to the following: l)Bratislava Radio was closed early in the morning by the Soviets; 2)Kosice Radio was also taken over quickly by trOOps and broadcast only on wire and perhaps low-power AM or FM; 3)Zi1ina and Rimavska Sobota Radios were very low-power affairs suitable for only short distance reception in this mountainous country. Thus, Banska Bystrica Radio was the only Slovakian outlet, strong enough to reach the entire region, which broadcast Czech and Slovak programming during the morning of August 21, 1968. 65 three other Czechoslovak cities and would have been hard to identify if it had been transmitting. Ostrava began feeding the clandestine net when Radio Prague was occupied finally, but it may have been underground at this time.63

Uherske Hradiste Radio had one powerful long-wave transmitter operating on 272 kHz with ZOO-kilowatts. Uherske Hradiste is located in eastern Meravia and quite possibly was not occupied as soon as some of the more important cities. The frequency of 272 kHz was heard Wednesday afternoon (August 21) Operating clandestinely from Bohemia. Both Ostrava and Uherske Hradiste relayed the "Czechoslovakia I" network. "Czech- oslovakia IH had closed at midnight and did not reopen as such in the morning. Ceske Budajovice Radio, in the south of Bohemia, and Karlovy

Vary Radio, near the East German border, were both "Czechoslovakia I" stations also. The medium-wave transmitters of both stations were low-powered and Operated with Ostrava on the common Czechoslovak frequency of 1520 kHz. Liberec Radio, another "Czechoslovakia I" transmitter in northern Bohemia, was not heard until Wednesday afternoon. At that time it was relaying the clandestine Prague station on an unassigned frequency.

Jihlava Radio, between Prague and Brno, was on the "Praha" net but of only 2-kilowatts and unheard. Tatry Radio and Zilina Radio, both in Slovakia, relayed "Bratislava" which was transmitting Radio

Mbscow at 4:30 that morning. In addition, they were also of only

2-kilowatts. Opava Radio, near Ostrava in northern Mbravia, and

63Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 37. 66

Rimavska Sobota Radio, not far from Hungary in southeastern Slovakia, were regionally programmed, carried no network feeds, were close to entry points of the occupation armies, and were not heard the morning of the let of August.64 Usti nad Labem Radio was a Shared-time, low-power station across the East German border from Dresden. It normally relayed "Czechoslovakia I" and carried regional programming.

POprad Radio and Kralove Hola Radio were local FM stations in small cities. Nothing is known of their Operation during the invasion.

6['Rimavska Sobota Radio may have been broadcasting the morning of the invasion since Radio Banska Bystrica, also in Slovakia, seemed to indicate that some news was coming out of Rimavska, perhaps by radio. The low power of Rimavska Sobota Radio did not allow it to be monitored abroad if it was on. 67

CHAPTER FOUR

THE OPERATION OF CLANDESTINE

CZECHOSLOVAK TELEVISION

The Czechs and Slovaks are a hardy, athletic breed. As in most communistic societies, physical competition is glorified. Czechoslovak national hockey, soccer, skiing and skating teams have been reknowned for years in international competition. One of the most bemedaled of all Czechoslovak athletic heroes is Emil ZatOpek, winner of four Olympic

Gold Medals for long-distance running during the 1950's. At the time of the Russian invasion ZatOpek held the rank of colonel in the Czecho- slovak Army: his job; training the new generation of track and field athletes. ZatOpek was an outSpoken Supporter of Alexander Dubcek's liberal reforms during 1968. For this reason he had personal cause to fear the effects of the occupation.

Early in the morning, on August 21, 1968, the lanky runner was awakened by four Czechoslovak Army officers:

"Have you come to take me with you or to take me away?" asked ZatOpek. MOne of the officers replied, "Emil, the country needs your help." ZatOpek Spent the next four nights sleeping in different houses in Prague. On Friday night, August 23, an Army officer drove him to the (clandestine) television studio, now decorated with pictures of Svoboda and Dubcek. There he made his first underground 68

broadcast, as one of the long list of Czech notables who by so appearing, established themselves in Russian eyes as determined counter-revolutionaries.

Prague Television had begun broadcasting news of the Warsaw

Pact forces' invasion at about 4:30 the morning of August 21st.

For several hours, during the initial dislocation, one of the Prague

TV transmitters relayed Radio Prague on its sound channel.2 At 7:30

that morning Prague Television began initiating programs, feeding the nationwide television network.3 Facilities of the medium were hunted

down and closed as soon as possible by the occupation trOOps, but

live programming was carried for varying lengths of time in several

Czechoslovak cities. Cameramen were on the streets filming the

invasion and reaction, but only a limited amount of the footage was

ever aired. In Brno film shot from a moving car was deveIOped and

shown; in Prague a cameraman who tried to film the Soviet forces was

lColin Chapman, Aggust let: The Rape of Czechoslovakig (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1968), p. 60. Emil ZatOpek supported Dubcek throughout the occupation. Because of this he was expelled from the Army, lost his job as an athletic trainer and was drummed out of the Communist Party. ZatOpek then got a job as a well tester on a surveying team; the new government saw to it that he was fired from that job. He next worked as a garbage collector in Prague. He lost that job because he was creating a "public disturbance." In the Spring of 1970 ZatOpek found a new job, this time as an insulation installer on a Prague con- struction crew (Time, March 16, 1970, p. 37).

2Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0434 GMT, August 21, 1968, also Lidova Demokracie, August 21, 1968 in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, The Czech Black Book, trans. Robert Littell (New York: Praeger, 1969), p. 27.

3Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1209 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 6055 kHz. 69 forcibly prevented and had his film exposed.4 A reporting team from

Prague Television talked with Russian soldiers and recorded the reactions of Prague citizens during the morning, then returned to the TV studios to report over radio and television.5

Across the land the facilities of Czechoslovak Television were occupied as quickly as they could be located. The main studios in the cities were the first targets. In Prague this did not greatly affect the ability of TV to broadcast since there were smaller studios scattered all over the city.6 One of the Prague TV transmitters was also difficult for the occupation forces to locate. It was situated south of the city near Zbraslav and managed to stay on the air receiving feeds from various studios in Prague until about 11:50 A.M., August 21.7 During this time newsmen of Prague TV moved from studio to studio in the city transmitting hard news, commentary, appeals, messages and government declarations. Both the official stations in Prague and Bratislava were finally closed by the invaders between 11 and 12 A.M. when the transmitter sites were occupied. This was the signal for even more innovative behavior by Czechoslovak Television personnel.

4Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0815 GMT, August 21, 1968.

5Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0750 GMT, August 21, 1968.

6Chapman, p. 56.

7Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1209 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 6055 kHz. 70

On Saturday, August 24, 1968, the Prague daily neWSpaper Lidova

Demokracie, itself publishing clandestinely, reported that essentially

all communication media within Prague were occupied by foreign trOOps.

These facilities included the Prague Telephone Center, the Prague

Telegraph Center, the Central Communications Administration and Prague

Communications Administration offices, all newSpaper buildings, some

publishing houses, and Prague Radio and Television studios and transmitters.8

And yet, with all normal facilities occupied, Prague Television managed to broadcast clandestinely quite consistently during the occu-

pation. One of the major reasons for this was the ability and patriotism

of the Director of Czechoslovak Television, Jiri Pelikan. Pelikan was

a long-time Communist reformer within the Czechoslovak Communist Party.

He had sided with Dubcek during the "Spring Thaw," and was well known

for favoring, demanding and protecting the more liberal media which had deveIOped within the country. As Soviet trOOps fanned out in Prague

early August let, Pelikan returned to his office at the headquarters

of Czechoslovak Television on Maxim Gorky Street. Russian troops

located Pelikan there, with the staff of Prague TV, during the darkness of Wednesday morning. Soviet officers tried to convince Pelikan

to stay at the TV building and continue running the service. Seeing

8Lidova Demokracie, 5th Special Edition, August 24, 1968, in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, pp. 135-136. 71

his normal staff kicked out of the building, and knowing what kind of

collaborationist service would be required, Pelikan refused to have

anything more to do with official Czechoslovak Television and eventually managed to leave the headquarters building.9

Jiri Pelikan was reported on August 26 to be head of all clan-

destine broadcasting operations in Czechoslovakia.10 This may be an

exaggeration since the head of Czechoslovak Radio at the time, Zdenek

Hejzlar, was also very active in the resistance movement. In any

event, it was with Pelikan's blessing, possibly at his initiative, and

probably with his daily guidance, that Czechoslovak Television was able

to foil the best attempts of the combined occupation forces to perman-

ently silence its liberal voice and thereby the voice of the consti-

tutional government.

Moscow reacted almost immediately to this ubiquitous voice from

the ether. In direct contradiction to monitored broadcasts of Czecho-

slovak Radio and Television, a Russian radio correSpondent in Prague reported over the Radio Mbscow Home Service that ”...the radio and

television workers unleashed a hysterical campaign aimed at provoking difficulties and incidents...the instigating appeals of radio and television apparently had some effect on some hotheads, and several provocations could not be avoided."11 This was the Russians' analysis

9Chapman, p. 56. Since those in the upper echelon of the Czecho- slovak Communist Party were placed under "house arrest" or worse by the occupiers, it may be more factual to say that Pelikan managed to "escape" from the Prague TV building.

10New York Times, August 26, 1968, p. 16.

11Moscow Domestic Service in Russian at 0500 GMT, August 23, 1968. 72 of the Prague TV appeals for calm and restraint during the confrontations of the first two days. Meanwhile, Radio Prague bragged in English to

EurOpe that ”...all the legal bodies of the Czechoslovak Socialist

Republic continue to function under the occupiers' gun barrels... the radio and television remain on the air and have already become the main link between the peOple and the leaders."12 Eggg, the Soviet news agency, complained about the first hours of clandestine television, again twisting facts to fit the explanation: "There have...been incendiary statements on the radio, on television, and in the press."13

These "incendiary statements" Spilled out from Prague Television during the first day: statements like a Czechoslovak Academy of Science documentation of the illegality of the occupation read over television at 8:12 that first morning;14 like the Presidium proclamation; like the messages of support addressed to the government from a multitude of diverse groups across the nation.

12Prague International Service in English to EurOpe at 1755 GMT, August 25, 1968.

13Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 59. 14ibid. p. 28. 73

III

After the last Prague TV transmitter was Shut down on August 21,

there were no transmissions on Czechoslovak television channels for

some time. At about 9 A.M. the next morning, August 22nd, a transmitter was warmed up and, to the consternation of the occupation forces and

joy of the befuddled pOpulace, began programming; not from the normal

facilities with the expected collaborationist personnel, but from

"somewhere in Prague" with the familiar faces and voices of Spring and summer TV.15

The complete unbelievability of Czechoslovak TV's operation during the occupation makes an astounding story. The situation was as follows: by August 24th Russian trOOps were occupying every studio and transmitter facility which served Prague. Yet Prague Television was very much in evidence on receiver tubes. As it can be pieced together at this time, this is the account of the Operation of clandestine Prague Television.

At the time of the occupation of Prague, several television employees foresaw the possibility of establishing a clandestine station.

During the night of August 21, as the Russians arrived to occupy the facilities, Prague TV personnel were alerted to the fact that they would soon be overrun. Soviet trOOps Spent some time shelling the building next door to the television studios then were detained for

ISibid. p. 75. 74 some time before gaining admittance to the building.16 Behind the TV center, mobile vehicles of the network were parked. About the time that the Russians broke through the front door, newsman Jiri Kanturek and producer Mirek Lang gathered a few volunteer technicians and exited out the back. There they found one of the outside broadcast (0B) vans which seemed particularly suited to their purpose. The OB van was normally used to cover soccer matches around Bohemia and was equipped with full technical facilities for microwave relays. Lang,

Kanturek and the engineers jumped into the truck and drove off into the Prague night, unnoticed by the trOOps.

The TV employees drove the OB van to a heavily wooded area on the outskirts of Prague. They parked the van as deeply as possible in the woods to avoid detection and remained sequestered throughout the whole day. That night, August 21, 1968, the little clandestine crew drove the TV van to a half-finished apartment complex on Na Petrinach

Street in the Prague suburb of Petriny. Other Czechoslovak Television personnel were contacted and soon arrived along with Czechoslovak

Army Signal Corpsmenq, The TV and Army technicians unrolled huge sheets of brown wrapping paper in an uncompleted twelfth-floor apartment.

They used the paper to completely black out the windows so that any activity within would not be visible. One small studio set was con- structed in the kitchen.

The parabolic antenna from the mobile van was mounted on t0p of the apartment building, camouflaged with Army blankets and branches

16Above, Chapter 3. 75 from the tree which had been hoisted atOp the building in a "tOpping out" ceremony. The microwave antenna was beamed at Bukova, a small village between Prague and Plzen where the TV transmitter for the Plzen area was located.17 From Bukova the TV signal from the makeshift

Prague studio was microwaved around the country to the many relay and booster transmitters and translators. Soviet personnel were dumbfounded.

They had thought that by cutting off television at its root, the Prague studios and transmitters and those in Ostrava, Bratislava and Brno, they could effectively control the medium in Czechoslovakia. Now the occupiers were faced with the prosPect of finding exactly where the signal was being fed into the vast television network grid. It would eventually require the complete occupation of every television facility in Czechoslovakia to cut off "Free Czechoslovak Television." It took at least a week of concerted hunting to locate and neutralize these facilities. Meanwhile, Czechoslovak TV was an electronic Hydra, new Signals in new places replacing outlets that were closed.

After equipping the "kitchen" studio with the OB van cameras, microwave transmitter, and video and audio mixing accessories, the stripped truck was driven to the Opposite side of Prague and abandoned.

17Plzen at this time had no television studios. The Prague TV transmissions were relayed through the Bukova transmitter for Plzen television sets. This probably accounts for the fact that the Bukova transmitter was not occupied until much later than those serving Prague. 76

Prague Television was again ready to transmit.18 This studio of clandestine Prague TV Operated until about September 1, 1968, the day of the Moscow agreement. All this time Soviet patrols wandered along the street on which the unfinished apartment building fronted.

But the activity inside the twelfth-floor flat and the antenna on the roof failed to excite any search. The personnel working at this

facility slept on the floor of the penthouse apartment and were sent meals from a Czechoslovak military hOSpital three blocks away.19

This was not the only studio facility which was used clandestinely by the Prague Television peOple. Several emergency buildings were used at various times from different locations in the city. One

such Studio was in a theater in downtown Prague; others were located

in factories in industrial suburbs. Often factories were chosen for

studio locations because it became known that to avoid antagonizing workers, Soviet trOOps had orders not to occupy their places of employment. Some transmissions likewise were made from firms which

18Exactly when this facility began broadcasting is unclear. Chapman (p. 59) says that by 10 P.M., August 21, 1968, "they were ready to go on the air with a message of defiance." However, the Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (p. 75) reports that the television didn't begin until around 9 A.M., August 22, after being closed down about noon the let. I suppose that the clandestine studio could have been feeding Bukova during the night of 21-22 August without the Signal being received in Prague, Since the Bukova transmitter served the Plzen area, 50 miles away; in which case it may have taken until the following morning to get a useable signal into Prague from either Bukova or some other transmitter.

19The account of this clandestine television studio is taken primarily from the report by Murray Sayle, Special correSpondent for The Sunday Times (London), who visited the facility while it was in Operation; contained in Chapman, pp. 58-60. 77 manufactured electronic gear. These factories often had the basic equipment necessary for the television feeds so that bulky electronic parts would not have to be carted around to draw suSpicion.20

Another innovation which allowed the Czechs greater audio channel flexibility in their clandestine television operation was described by Colin Chapman:

An additional technical facility which enabled the service to keep going was a scientific development invented by Czech electronic engineers two years before and still not in general use. It consists of a small TV box transmitter about five feet long and three feet wide. It can be worked by one operator, and those used by the Czechs included instant self-destroying devices which could be Operated if the Russians found them. They were fed with speech impulses from microphones or even from someone Speaking into a telephone twelve miles away, and the link was by what a Czech technician simplified into a "sort of laser beam.”

Their advantage was that they could Operate without any wire link between the Speaker with the micrOphone and the transmitter. This meant that the Russians could not tap the transmission and discover the origin of the message; indeed, the worst that could happen was that the transmitter Should be discovered. More often than not the transmitters were moved before they were found, but in the few cases when there was not time to do this they were destroyed at once by the built-in explosive charge. One of these ingenious devices was used during the secret Party Congress in the electronics factory; and eight journalists, readers and technicians ensured a non-stop output of news and comment which infuriated the Russians.21

20Chapman, p. 56.

21ibid. pp. 56-57. From the foregoing it would appear that this device carried only audio signals although it may have had video capabilities. The way that it was used would seem to make the Operation of Czechoslovak Television, while using it, a surrogate FM station of Czechoslovak Radio. In fact it is conceivable that TV channels 2 and 3 could be picked up on FM radio receivers there. Sound channel telecasting only, during the occupation, perhaps the majority of the time, would be indicated by this account. Clandestine studio facilities were so small anyway, that only a few peOple could be used on camera when the video portion was on. In addition, there were no facilities for processing film. See Chapter 6 for an account of TV programming. 78

During the period of media occupation from August 21 to Sep- tember 3, Russian trOOps systematically visited each facility of the network trying to find where the TV signal was coming from. Word was eventually leaked to them that a look at the town of Bukova might be profitable. Unfortunately there were three Bukovas in the country.

One false lead sent a Russian convoy headlong toward Bukovany, several hundred miles from the actual transmitter site.22

During the Operation of the clandestine television network in

Czechoslovakia, the Warsaw Pact press and media carried out a vitriolic diatribe against it. Pravda's correspondent in Bratislava, A. Murzin, reported that 55 automatic rifles, 8 machine-guns, l7 pistols, 3 carbines and 42 boxes of cartridges were seized at various places in the city including Bratislava Television. 23 If not the veracity of this report, then the implications may be doubted since the clandestine radio network reported an instance of finding "illegal" weapons as follows:

The occupation units today confiscated the army depot of the People's Militia units at the political college of the Czecho- slovak Communist Party Central Committee, apparently in order to misuse the photographs of the army (weapons) as evidence of a counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia.24

22Chapman, p. 60.

23TASS International Service in English at 0527 GMT, September 10, 1968.

24Radio Czechoslovakia International Service in English at 1755 GMT, August 25, 1968, on 5930 kHz. 79

The underground television service Operated almost up to the time that Russian trOOps evacuated normal Czechoslovak TV facilities.

Whether the jury-rigged network was forced to close or simply went off the air when it became clear that the regular facilities would soon be returned, is hazy. A Czech journalist reported that "television continued to transmit for a whole week," or August 21 to

August 28.25 On the other hand, Chapman reported that the clandestine studio in Prague did not go off the air until September 1, the weekend of the Moscow agreement on "normalization."26

Apparently the first Czechoslovak Television station to return to the air from its normal facilities was Bratislava TV. Foreign troops began leaving the telecommuniCation facilities in Bratislava at 6 P.M. on Mbnday, September 2nd. 27 By six o'clock the following evening Bratislava Television was back on the air with an address by

Gustav Husak, then First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party.

The evacuation of the Prague television facilities was delayed owing to the on-going problem of media censorship which had been discussed but not finalized at the Mescow meeting. Mbst Soviet trOOps were pulled out of Prague by September 3rd. However, security forces

25"Journalist‘M," A Year istight Menths (New York: Doubleday, 1970), p. 163.

26Chapman, p. 60.

27Bratislava Domestic Service in Slovak at 1411 GMT, September 3, 1968, on 701 and 1097 kHz. 80 remained at media outlets.28 The television studios were finally evacuated in Prague and "normal" television resumed there on Thursday,

September 5, during the evening.29

Czechoslovak Television was once again back in its studios, but the events of the past two weeks had made a return to pre-invasion normalcy impossible. For one thing, many facilities were so badly damaged that it was not known when they would again be able to function.

One of the Bratislava TV transmitters and the Dubnik relay transmitter near Kosice were completely in0perab1e and required major repairs before they could again transmit.30 Another problem was the amount and kind of censorship to which the media would have to submit. The "Dubcek

Spring and Summer" was over. It was just a question of time before

Czechoslovak Television again resembled the media in other Russian satellite nations.

It had been a great, innovative and symbolic two weeks for

Czechoslovak Television. In the words of Emil ZatOpek, "I am sure it was the television and radio which kept our peOple together, and as 31 well, it was a..lot of..fun. Or, as more formally Stated in a

28New York Times, September 3, 1968, p. 5, also Radio Czecho- slovakia in Czech at 1800 GMT, September 3, 1968, on 1520 and 953 kHz.

29New York Times, September 6, 1968, p. 3.

30Bratislava Domestic Service in Slovak at 1607 GMT, September 4, 1968, on 1097 kHz, also Radio Czechoslovakia in Slovak at 1846 GMT, August 29, 1968, on 1520, 7350 and 1286 kHz, also Radio Czechoslovakia in Slovak at 1433 GMT, August 28, 1968, on 5930 kHz.

31Chapman, p. 60. 81

Special communique of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee to employees of the Czechoslovak Radio and Television:

We...thank all workers of mass and communications media, who having lost their work places, have succeeded, with the aid of Specialized sites and a great number of citizens, to build up with their initiative, emergency work places and, in the hours of the fateful test, have expressed the will and feelings of our peOple. Men and women comrades, citizens: We highly appreciate your patriotic socialist work. We are with you, be with us. 2

32Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1252 GMT, August 28, 1968, on 5930 kHz. "We are with you, be with us," or as sometimes translated, "You are with us, we are with you," was the motto of "Free Czechoslovak Radio and Television." CHAPTER FIVE

THE OPERATION OF CLANDESTINE

CZECHOSLOVAK RADIO

The importance of the clandestine Operation of Czechoslovak

Radio during the Warsaw Pact occupation in 1968 has been prOposed Aw and documented by numerous sources both inside and outside CzeCho- slovakia. Jonathan Power, writing for the British Broadcasting Corp- oration declared that:

One of the most remarkable aSpects of the resistance (to the invasion) was the part played by radio and television. Not only was it a vital link with the outside world that made the Russians realise they were playing to a world theatre, but it became, for the first six days of the resistance, almost the guiding hand of the Czech people.1

By the same token, at a meeting of all Prague Radio employees held after the broadcasting facilities were evacuated by Russian trOOps,

Zdenek Mlynar, secretary of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak

Communist Party and Miroslav Galuska, Minister of Culture, rose to praise the work of the radio under the occupation. Official Prague reaction to the clandestine broadcasting was summarized by Radio

Director-General Zdenek Hejzlar who, according to Radio Prague,

1Jonathan Power, "Non-Violent Resistance," The Listener, August 21, 1969, p. 241.

82 83

”...expressed his pleasure that, thanks to the work of all radio workers, the Czechoslovak radio did not interrupt its legal broad-

casts, albeit (they emanated) from other radio buildings, and that

this has enabled the President of the Republic and others of the

country's leaders to address the peOple over the radio, to appeal

for unity and to keep quiet and order."2

The importance of the radio to the Czechoslovak pOpulace was

singular. It provided a direct link between capital and province,

city and countryside. It informed, commented and sampled the mood

of the country. It shed light where the occupiers wished to Operate

in darkness. It served as the steel thread holding the frayed Czech

and Slovak peoples together when one might have been played off

against the other. In essence, Czechoslovak Radio was the government' f

and the nation during the first two weeks of the occupation. What i was heard on the "free" radio was believed; other information was A

rumor. The courage, the strength, the general non-violence of the

Czechoslovaks was promulgated by the radio. When the radio suggested

courses of action, wholesale obedience occurred. It ruled the country

because no one else could. The legal government was incarcerated, in

hiding or in Moscow. The Government's only line to the peOple was

through the radio and television. In the end, the radio, servant of ‘~\

2Radio Czechoslovakia in English at 1530 GMT, September 9, 1968. 84 the Party and concerned for the State, followed the rulers of Czecho- slovakia down the road of subservience to Mbscow, surrendering the freedoms wrung and wrested from the Communist Party during the prior eight months.

The variety of clandestine radio and television stations which

Sprang up in Czechoslovakia immediately upon the occupation of the official studios, boggled the most innovative Soviet mind. The ubiquitous transmitters blanketed the country with just the sort of information which had to be repressed. The swift accomplishment of the

Bloc goals depended on secrecy for the fait accompli which would return

Czechoslovakia to the Kremlin fold. The "free and legal" media in

Czechoslovakia were thwarting this quick "normalization" by making known every move of the invaders. And less strategically, the constant harassment of the trOOps by the givil_pOpulacewwhichmanow-

---"—-~__., ’- _,_---—-—...__\_~ *1 _ ___..__ 7. balled from isolated incidents to a general patternmofmbehayipr,

"'7‘... was primarily instigated by the media. Something had to be done to

\\L kw” _ t” I , permanentlyMSilence these "counterrevolutionary radio pirates.” So, a train loaded with SOphisticated electronic direction-finding and radio-jamming gear was dispatched from Russia tQ aid in locating the elusive underground radios. On Friday morning, August 23, 1968, the train crossed the Polish-Czechoslovak frontier in northern

Bohemia bound for Prague.

A railroadman, from his bed in Vinohrady HOSpital, Prague,

narrated the first eyewitness account of what happened to the phantom

Train 6601; an episode which caught the attention of the world by

diSplaying the resourcefulness of the Czechoslovak peOple at its

finest: "I tell you frankly, that train should have been stopped

at Cierna. But there was nothing peculiar about it--except that it was so short, eight cars only.”3

A clandestine radio outlet, possibly in Olomouc,4 somehow

discovered that the train was headed across Bohemia toward Prague.

The Free Radio Czechoslovakia network immediately broadcast a bulletin:

We have a report which will mainly concern railwaymen.

According to a trustworthy but unconfirmed report, there is moving slowly along the railway line in the direction of Olomouc, or Simply in the Olomouc area, a train carrying radar equipment, target-finding equipment, and radio transmitters. It stands to reason--and we say this to all railwaymen--that the longer the journey of this train takes the better.

I repeat: In the direction of Olomouc, or perhaps already in the Olomouc area, there is a train loaded with target-finding equipment, radio transmitters, and radar. There is no integest in the free passage, or accelerated passage, of this train.

3The railroad employee's narrative of the events involving Train 6601 was taken from the Prague newSpaper Politika, No. 3, August 27, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, The Czech Black Book, trans. Robert Littell (New York: Praeger, 1969), pp. 215-216.

4Colin Chapman, Aggust let: ThegRgpe of Czechoslovakia (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1968), p. 48. Chapman claimed that the station making the original Statement regarding the Russian train was in Olomouc. He does not document this claim. In fact, Olomouc had no regular radio facilities. It is possible that a mobile clandestine transmitter was located there though.

5Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 0807 GMT, August 23, 1968, on 9505 and 1520 kHz. 86

The railwayman continued:

At first we wanted to throw it off the track, but that could have had terrible consequences. Near Olomouc, it got ahead of a long freight train. Then it accidentally broke up into three sections, and it took four hours to fix. Exactly according to all regulations. Then I collapsed.

The coincidental problems besetting Train 6601 brought a jubilant reaction from the clandestine radio. Later on Friday it was announced that the train was unaccountably stuck at Kraslikov, less than twenty miles from its departure point. The broadcast concluded: "Comrades, railwaymen, we thank you."6

The wily, incapacitated railroad employee reported the next sequence of events:

Another maintenance man needed another four hours to fix it (the train). Then it moved on to Trebova and, with repair work going on all the time, as far as Chocen. From there, we wanted to steer them on to Poland, but by that time they had maps. Suddenly they were in a great hurry because they had eaten up everything they had in their two parlor cars. Before Moravany, we threw the trolley wires down, and the train got all tangled up in them. That took two maintenance squads, and still they were unable to put it together.

The clandestine radio gloated: "We have a report from Ceska

Trebova station that railwaymen from the (Mbravicany) District have succeeded in holding up the armored train coming from Olomouc. 7

The railroad man again continued the narrative:

6Chapman, p. 48.

7Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1025 GMT, August 23, 1968, on 7345 kHz. 87

The Russians were quite nervous. They wanted the machine to run on batteries, and they could not understand why it should not be possible when all the various pieces of equipment seemed to be functioning all right. In Pardubice they wanted Steam, but we told them that that was an electrified line. In Prelouc, a piece of the track was dismantled, then a trolley thrown off, and they decided that they would go on by way of Hradec (Kralove).

Radio Free Czechoslovakia reSponded to this news with another notice:

We have received a call that a Soviet freight train loaded with communications equipment and jamming devices will probably pass through Hradec Kralove. The train is Number 6601. We request railwaymen to do something to this train, whatever they think best. We would be glad if this train stOpped somewhere.

News reports from Prague on Sunday, August 25, indicated that

the train with its electronic cargo was still far from its destination.

On Saturday the train had been Stopped for some time because no one could be found to man it. Then, after moving a few more miles

through Eastern Bohemia, it again stopped, this time near the small town of Zamrsky.9 Some of the other methods of slowing and halting the radio-finding/jamming train were reported by the railroad man recuperating from the ordeal in Prague:

In Steblova, again a thrown-off trolley; it's a single-track stretch so there was nothing to be done. Not too quickly, anyway. Six Soviet helicOpters picked up our diSpatchers as hostages. We put fifteen freight trains in front of them, and there is no yard in Prague that could take all of that. Our own trains suffered

8Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1045 GMT, August 23, 1968, on 7345 and 9505 kHz.

9New York Times, August 25, 1968, p. 36. 88

because of it; everything was delayed. I myself got to Kolin with a completely empty passenger train. Now (Tuesday, August 27), they (Train 6601) are somewhere around Lysa on the Elbe. But such a Schweik-type Operation cannot last indefinitely.

Whether the Russian train ever arrived in Prague is not known, and probably is immaterial. .Within less than a week the radios would be returning to the air from their normal studios. The railwaymen's game had given the Prague clandestine operation a continuing lease on life and assured the populace of the capital a continuing flow of news and directives for the entire occupation period. The initiative shown by the radio and citizens in this episode was common. The ability of the medium to function effectively, without interruption, during the entire occupation was the result of the combined efforts of radio management, engineers and newsmen; the Czechoslovak Armed

Forces; the Czechoslovak Communist Party; and the average citizen whose faith in the medium made its clandestine Operation worthwhile.

III

As early as 5:30 A.M. on August 21, 1968, Czechoslovak Radio began calling itself ”the legal Czechoslovak radio," a term later coupled with "free" to distinguish it from the stations Operated by 11 the occupying forces. From that time on, clandestine transmissions

10"Schweik-type operation” refers to the Czech mythical anti-hero Good-Soldier Schweik who constantly defeated the system by carrying it to its most absurd, yet logical, conclusion.

11Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0434 GMT, August 21, 1968. See Chapter 7 for more information on media outlets in Czechoslovakia run by the Warsaw Pact powers during the occupation. 89

began to be heard from various locations within the country. That

this Should happen is indicative of the attitude of the populace

toward the invasion; that it should continue throughout the duration

of the Occupation is of far-reaching significance for broadcasters

and governments. Jack Gould made the following analysis of the Czech-

oslovak radio operation:

For electronic defiance of Oppression there has never been anything like it. The ability of Czech broadcasters to operate at all was a dead giveaway of the organizational clumsiness and apparent haste of the Soviet invasion. Of all countries, the Soviet Union has been as keenly conscious of the role of propaganda and the importance of controlling the outlets of dissent as any...The Czech broadcasters have shown that electronics can mobilize a passive-resistance movement which can upset and con- fuse occupation armies with tanks and machine-guns.1

Not all Kremlinologists would agree with Gould that the inva-

sion was hastily planned; very few would call its organization clumsy.

Militarily the occupation was completely Successful and relatively

bloodless. But what made this invasion and occupation of overwhelm-

ing significance to the media was the reSponse of broadcasters to it.

Not content with Operating until forcibly closed, they improvised and

innovated with Such savoir faire that the occupying forces took to

frustratedly snatching transistor radios from the hands of those

listening to the clandestine stations.13 There has been a good

deal of conjecture about the organization of the clandestine radio network. Its ability to function has been variously laid at the door

12New York Times, September 1, 1968, Section II, p. 13.

13New York Times, August 26, 1968, p. 16. 90 of sundry Western intelligence and prOpaganda agencies and/or underground Czechoslovakian anti-socialist groups. London editor Colin

Chapman commented on this aSpect of the "free and legal" network:

The Russians with their passion for organization, have all along insisted that the clandestine radio and television were being Operated by an underground organization, a well-prepared group of skilled and experienced counter-revolutionaries. The truth is quite different. This aSpect of the resistance was improvised; there was no secret organization and there was no counter-revolutionary master-mind directing it. What we were seeing, transmitted from Czechoslovakia and relayed all over the world, was an inventive people ingeniously exploiting the possibilities of modern communications...

The Russians, with typical inventiveness, came up with numerous explanations for the ability of the Czechoslovaks to begin and continue clandestine broadcasting. After initially admitting that clandestine radios within Czechoslovakia were Operating during the first few days of the occupation, on August 24th Mbscow claimed that the broadcasts were actually emanating from abroad.15 This claim occurred simultaneously with other prOpaganda, which eventually became the official

Kremlin explanation, that the ability of the Czechoslovaks to transmit under the occupation was 1) possible only beCause of the assistance of foreign powers and, 2) was the result of a long period of intensive preparation on the part of Czechoslovakian counterrevolutionaries.1

The trouble that Warsaw Pact troops were having silencing the clandestine stations was according to Mbscow, because the radios were using mobile

14Chapman, p. 55.

15Moscow Domestic Service in Russian at 1900 GMT, August 24, 1968.

16Mescow Domestic Service in Russian at 0740 GMT, August 23, 1968. 91 transmitters supplied by the West Germans.17 The implication in the

Moscow propaganda was that the transmitters were Supplied by West

Germany with the express purpose of using them against the Eastern-Bloc forces. The transmitters could well have been manufactured in West

Germany, a good deal of international trade occurred between the two nations, but the gist of the Russian argument was refuted by Chapman:

Some of the (clandestine radio) transmitting gear was removed from the studios before the Russians arrived, the greater part was mobile transmitting equipment supplied by the Czech Army. Czechoslovakia is small enough for everyone to know everyone, and informal contacts between the radio peOple and Army officers in a similar line of work were easily arranged in a few houis. Together, they moved the mobile transmitters every few hours. 8

The Russians' second charge of major import was that the underground radio organization had been set up far in advance looking toward an eventuality like the Warsaw Pact invasion to set it in motion.

Again, facts are distorted by implication from Radio Mbscow:

It turns out that the underground had already created its headquarters. Secret radio transmitters had been set up, which began operating only a few hours after the forces of the allied socialist countries entered the country...The illegal radio stations rely on an underground information service, on a whole network of informers. One of the powerful transmitters acts as a guiding radio direction-finding Station, controlling the duration of relays of information.1

A Czech journalist sheds more light on the set-up:

This unique episode in the history of communications was, ironically, made possible by the Communist Party's preparation--a plan made years before--of a clandestine resistance network that could Operate in the event of an invasion by America or West Germany. Since 1948,

17Moscow Domestic Service in Russian at 1530 GMT, August 26, 1968.

18Chapman, p. 61.

19Moscow Domestic Service in Russian at 0600 GMT, August 28, 1968. 92

a separate department had existed in every district and urban secretariat of the Communist Party, as well as in the local branches of the Association for COOperation with the Army. This department maintained wireless transmitters, weapons, ciphers, codes, etc. against the day of a partisan war against Western imperialism. For twenty years a directive had ordered that this equipment be kept in working order, although the lessening of international tension in recent years had rendered it an illusory protection--and, in the event of a nuclear war, completely useless. But the directive had been strictly observed. When the plan was put into action, however, the invaders were not American but Soviet.

The second source of assistance for the clandestine broadcasters was also explained:

Czechoslovak army units also had a wireless network. With the help of the security forces and divisions of the Workers' Militia who protected the courageous journalists, radio and television technicians, it was possible to protect the transmitters. These groups transported them from place to place and warned of approaching danger. In this way, for a whole week, a powerful unifying and mobilizing instrument drew together the people in the struggle against the occupiers, and paralyzed all attempts by potential collaborators to work with the invaders.

The Mbscow-bloc propaganda services worked overtime rationalizing the inability of their forces to silence the clandestine Czech- oslovak stations. The British Broadcasting Corporation was accused of assisting the underground radio;22 the Voice of America and the Armed

Forces EurOpean Network supposedly aided the Czechoslovak outlets and jammed the socialist stations;23 Deutsche Welle, the West German

20"Journalist M," A Year is Eight Mbnths (New York: Doubleday, 1970), pp. 163-164. 21ibid. p. 164.

22Radio Mbscow to the United Kingdom in English at 1900 GMT, September 2, 1968.

23Radio Moscow to North America in English at 0100 GMT, August 31, 1968. 93 overseas broadcaster,24 Radio Free EurOpe25 and the United States

Information Agency's RIAS in West Berlin 26 were all accused of helping in various ways, including actually transmitting the Free Czechoslovakia

Radio programs over powerful transmitters without prOper station identification. The Central Intelligence Agency was accused of supplying money, men and equipment.27 The West German Army, according to East Berlin Radio, not only assisted the underground stations, it was the underground radio:

...Special units of the Bonn Bundeswehr took up Operational positions along the Bavarian-Czechoslovak border as early as 21 August. According to reports from Ulm, the units involved are the reinforced psychological warfare company of the West German Second Army Corps and contingents of the Andernach Radio Battalion. Since Wednesday morning (August 21, 1968), this radio unit has been continuously broadcasting, on various wave lengths, fabricated declarations and appeals to the peOple of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. 28

There were some elements of truth in all of the Communist-bloc explanations for the survival and proliferation of underground radio stations in Czechoslovakia under the occupation. The basic elements remain though: the broadcasting was carried out by Czechoslovak media peOple using 1) equipment from their official stations,

2) apparatus supplied by Czechoslovak Communist Party cells charged

24TASS International Service in English at 1916 GMT, August 22, 1968.

25Moscow Domestic Service in Russian at 1530 GMT, August 26, 1968.

26East German ADN International Service in English at 0723 GMT, August 28, 1968.

27Radio Moscow in Arabic to Middle East at 1400 GMT, August 28, 1968.

28East Berlin Domestic Service in German at 0933 GMT, August 23, 1968. 94 with guerrilla propaganda reSponsibility and, 3) mobile facilities of the Czechoslovak Armed Forces. The underground stations used the same frequencies as the normal Czechoslovak Radio services and called themselves by the same names: Radio Prague, Bratislava Radio, North

Bohemia Radio, Czechoslovakia One, etc. 29 The announcers did not indentify themselves by name, but their voices were well known and recognizable to Czech and Slovak radio listeners. The many broadcasts by government and party officials and other national luminaries were never carried live. They were tape recorded in convenient places and the tapes delivered by car or bicycle with the COOperation of organizations like the Boy Scouts, the Army, volunteer groups of students, and even the Czechoslovak Communist Party.30 Live programming consisted of announcers reading declarations, proclamations, news items, etc.; cOpy which was brOught in by the same procedure used for the tape recordings. The radio operated from about 15 different locations within Czechoslovakia at any given time.31

Each of the different stations served a particular geographic area as had the official radios prior to the invasion.

29The phrase "free and legal" or just "free" usually preceded the station identification. In addition, some stations at times used a more general identification, ie. "Free Czechoslovak Radio on the Danube" for Radio Prague, "Free Radio of Slovakia" for Bratislava Radio, etc.

30Chapman, p. 61.

31New York Times, August 26, 1968, p. 16. See Appendix B for station locations, frequencies, power, etc. 95

Broadcasts were on medium- and short—wave. The ”free and

legal” station calling itself Radio Prague even broadcast an inter-

national service in English and German. No one station Operated on

the air for a very long period of time. It would broadcast for about

15-minutes then close-down with another station taking its place.

This defeated quick location by the Russians using conventional

triangulation procedures. It also allowed the station to be packed

up and moved in the back of an Army truck or some similar conveyance

to a new location to thwart confiscation. The switches from transmitter to transmitter on the air originally meant radio silence for

about five minutes. But within a day or two the switches were

technically smooth with no carrier interruption, the radio transmitter which was signing off introducing the next station which would then

begin broadcasting immediately. The transmitters came on in a regulated

sequence, each one being assigned a particular time for broadcasting

although on occasion special programs of particular interest from a

transmitter not scheduled for that time period were allowed.32

The broadcast operation by the Czechoslovak media peOple con-

tinued throughout the entire occupation period. Some of the radio

transmitters were predictably located and silenced33 but many continued

32The "Legal transmitter of the Czechoslovak Radio on the Danube" (Bratislava Radio) in Slovak at 1244 GMT, August 28, 1968, received time for an ”unscheduled broadcast for an important statement and explanation' of a Speech by Slovak Party head Husak which had seemed to call for Dubcek's resignation.

33See Appendix D, for an account of the capture by Hungarian trOOps of one of the clandestine transmitters. 96 with messages of defiance to the invaders and support for the government right up to the moment when the official studios were evacuated by the Warsaw Pact trOOps and returned to the control of

Czechoslovak personnel. One of the first signs of renewed government control over the clandestine media occurred on August 30th with the word that Zdenek Hejzlar, head of Czechoslovak Radio, along with television chief Jiri Pelikan, were being placed on "temporary vacations."34 This occurred simultaneously with the first rumblings of renewed censorship of the media following the Moscow meeting between

Soviet and Czechoslovak leaders. But the clandestine radio continued its complete Support of the Dubcek Government; Support which extended uninterruptedly during the transition back to the normal broadcast facilities.

The return of the official studios and transmitters was uppermost in the minds of the organizers of the clandestine network during its last days. The Slovak station carried a letter from

Stefan Brencic, Commissioner of the Slovak National Council for

Culture and Information, to the Joint Command of the Warsaw Pact

Armed forces in Bratislava on August 29 which requested, among other things:

The immediate restoration of normal activity of the legal transmissions of the Czechoslovak Radio in Slovakia from its original places of work, and the immediate recall of Russian trOOps from all broadcasting transmitters in Slovakia.

34New York Times, August 30, 1968, p. l. 97

The immediate restoration of normal activity of the Czechoslovak television in Slovakia from the original places of work, and the reconstruction of television transmitters--particularly the (Kamsik) transmitter near Bratislava and the Dubnik transmitter near Kosice; and the vacating of all (retransmission) points of the radio relay grid.

The immediate vacating of booster stations as well as other telecommunication buildings in Slovakia.

Allowing the undisturbed activity for all editorial collectives of the press, radio, television and CTK in Slovakia.35

Answering the Slovak National Council note, Soviet General

Provalov replied that he would allow public communications to commence work again if the Chairman of the Slovak National Council and the

First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of

Slovakia would sign committments that the press, radio and television would not indulge in prOpaganda against socialist nations, the Soviet

Union or the Warsaw Pact.36

Soviet trOOps finally cleared out of broadcasting installa- tions in Bratislava at about 6 P.M., September 2nd. Bratislava Radio reported that its biggest transmitter at Velke Kostolany had been evacuated making the resumption of normal operations possible by the afternoon of 3 September. However, the transmitters at Kosice and

Rimavska Sobota in Slovakia were still not Operating. The evacuation

35Taken from the text of the letter broadcast over Radio Czechoslovakia in Slovak at 1846 GMT, August 29, 1968, on 1520, 7350, and 1286 kHz.

36Yugoslavia TANYUG International Service in English at 2104 GMT, August 20, 1968. 98

announcement ended with a request to all radio workers to report on

September 4 to their work places in the Studios of Czechoslovak Radio

in Bratislava.37

Prague Radio was vacated on the afternoon of September 3, 1968, by the Soviet troops; members of the local militia were left on guard

there. It was announced by clandestine Prague Radio that:

...preparatory work is being carried out for the resumption of broadcasting. The basis has now been established for an early improvement of conditions for broadcasting by Czechoslovak Radio. The staff of Czechoslovak Radio in Prague will be advised in time as to when normal work g§ll begin in the building, and when they are to report for work.

The International Service of Radio Prague announced that:

"Today (September 9) we are broadcasting once more in all Radio

Prague's English-language services at our normal times and on our normal wavelengths and frequencies."39 Radio Prague had finally gotten its official studios and transmitters in working order again after the two week occupation by Soviet soldiers.

Elsewhere in Czechoslovakia broadcasting slowly returned to normality of a sort. The management and staffs felt their way cau- tiously at first, not sure of the implications of the Mbscow agreement and how their position in the life of the country had been compromised

37Bratislava Domestic Service in Slovak at 1411 GMT, September 3, 1968, on 701 and 1097 kHz.

38Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1800 GMT, September 3, 1968, on 953 and 1520 kHz.

39Radio Czechoslovakia in English at 1530 GMT, September 9, 1968. 99 by it. Government and Party measures in the field of self-censorship of the media also required much trial and error before arriving at a tentatively workable formula.

Groups and individuals in Czechoslovakia and throughout the free world paid effusive compliments to the efforts of the Czechoslo- vak radio workers in keeping the radio functioning under the most extremely trying conditions of the occupation. Jack Gould Spoke for many when he said that:

The clandestine radio stations that emerged instantly after trOOps of the Warsaw Pact crossed the Czech borders, served as rallying points for a besieged country and won the reSpect of everyone for their accuracy of newscasts...Whatever the final outcome of the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia, bravery, Skill and determination of the Czech radio and television staffs have written an unforgettable chapter in the annals of broadcasting.

40New York Times, September 1, 1968, Section II, p. 13. CHAPTER SIX

CLANDESTINE CZECHOSLOVAK MEDIA

PROGRAMMING

In the Cesky Tesin area of northern Mbravia, between the Oder

and Vistula Rivers, the Carpathians tower over 5,000 feet high. Their

sides are black with firs, their valleys carpeted with grain. Iron

ore is mined here, scraped from the steep hillsides, hauled away to be

processed and forged into heavy machinery in the factories of Ostrava

and Olomouc. Across a ridge of highlands, Poland's bleak face gazes

longingly into the more prOSperous Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.

In this area during late August 1968, Premier Gomulka massed units

of the Polish Army. The first elements of this invading force

entered Czechoslovakia late on the night of August 20; other units

crossed the border a few days later, the first weekend of the inva-

sion. Fresh combat-ready units of all the occupying armies were

hastened into Czechoslovakia as a Show of force against the unarmed

but resisting Czechs and Slovaks. The reinforcements were airlifted vinto the major cities; armored columns of tanks and personnel carriers

brought mechanized trOOps into other far-flung regions. Czechoslovak

regions bordering the invading nations were reinforced by infantry

units in full field pack with vehicular support.

100 101

The Polish reinforcements, crossing into Czechoslovakia near

Cesky Tesin, were unfamiliar with the countryside and maps seemed to be of little help. The Poles were reduced to relying on the Mbravian road signs for directions and distances in their march through the area.

Almost any other means of finding their way would have been preferred.

That weekend the underground Czechoslovak radio had begun a campaign

to completely rearrange travel within the country. At the radio's

instigation, road signs were changed, detours were erected and it

seemed as though the only way to go anywhere was through Mbscow for newly erected signs read "Mbscow--l800 km." Into this labyrinth wandered the unsuSpecting Polish Army unit. After many hours and about

60 kilometers of hard slogging over the Carpathians, the Poles stood again face to face with the Poland-Czechoslovak frontier, this time staring into the homeland they had left many long miles before.1

The campaign to change the face of Czechoslovakia was started by "Free Czechoslovak Radio" late on the afternoon of Friday, August

23, 1968. Ostensibly the campaign was begun because arrests of

liberals in the government, party and army were expected during the night. To counteract the expected reign of terror such mass arrests would start, the radio urged the people to begin a "campaign of anonymity" so that Soviet forces and their Czechoslovak collaborators could not find those they intended to jail. The radio appeal called upon concerned citizens to paint over or remove street signs, deface

1New York Times, August 26, 1968, p. 16.

102 numbers on houses and buildings, remove name plates on apartment build-

ings, and to repaint highway signs throughout the country.2

The rumor of impending arrests proved false but the face of

Czechsolovakia was drastically altered during the night. By morning,

August 24, it was reported that not one road Sign, street nameplate or house number remained in Prague. The same thing was happening all over the country. Thousands of new signs appeared reading ”Dubcek

Street" or "Svoboda Road." In the countryside, signposts were reversed or new, incorrect ones installed.3 The Prague daily, Lidova Demokracie, reacted happily to the radio campaign:

Who came up with the wonderful idea? After the legal radio station "Praha" appealed to them late Friday, hundreds of thousands of peOple destroyed corner street signs and number plates on houses. In some places, even name plates of apartment residents don't exist any more. Vodickova Street and Charles Square have ceased to exist. Prague names and numbers have died out. For the uninvited guests, Prague has become a dead city. Anyone who was not born here, who has not lived here, will find a city of anonymity among a million inhabitants: a city in which the occupiers will find only appeals of all kinds, in Czech and in the Russian alphabet...Prague is defending itself against tanks, artillery, and occupation troops. And without bloodshed. Against collaborators who, by helping to arrest innocent peOple, are trying to make the nation nervous. Therefore, let us follow the slogan: The mailman will find you, but evil-doers won't! Bravo Prague and other cities that followed and follow its example.

2Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, The Czech Black Book, trans. Robert Littell (New York: Praeger, 1969), p. 118.

3"Journalist M,” A Year is Eight Mbnths (New York: Doubleday, 1970), p. 168.

4Lidova Demokracie, 5th Special Edition, August 24, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, pp. 118-119. 103

The programming from clandestine Czechoslovak radio was many things. It was innovative and exciting. It was calm, a steadying influence on the nervous elements of the nation's society. It was authoritative, the voice of the country's government. It was continuous, providing hOpe for the disenchanted by its very continuity. It had a certain joie de vivre, the smug pleasure derived from tweaking the

Russian bear's tail. To a lesser extent, clandestine Czechoslovak television operated similarly; to a lesser extent because its audience was smaller, more centralized in the cities, largely repetitive of radio programming, technically amazing but without the mass influence of the radio. The underground television was the ultimate gesture of defiance to the invaders; an illustration of the inability of a massive, powerful, invading military force to contend with the dedication and inventiveness of a passively resisting nation. But it was the radio which provided the sense of unity of the Czechs and Slovaks, single- handedly maintaining the self-reSpect of a nation inundated by foreign might and honeycombed with would-be quislings. The radio led the Czech- oslovaks' reaction by effectively showing and telling them how to thumb their noses at the invaders. For two weeks it kept alive the idea of Czechoslovak national sovereignty. The operation of the radio must be one major factor in the failure of either the Warsaw

Pact powers to stage-manage a quick, quiet coup d'etat, or of the more sanguinary elements in Czechoslovakia to turn events there into another Hungary. 104

The precise moment when Czechoslovak Radio became clandestine

is impossible to pinpoint. Some stations within the country were

occupied very early and consequently began underground Operation before

other radios had yet been taken over. Until the last official facility was occupied, the network was a combination clandestine/official Opera-

tion. Thus it is hard to draw a distinction between programming prior,

and Subsequent to, the beginning of clandestine broadcasting. Through- out the first morning of the invasion, August 21, as more and more

studios were occupied, the remaining official radios were joined in

their network by clandestine outlets. Except for the periods of service

interruption while new locations and equipment were found, on the air

this combination network sounded like a regional news roundup program such as might have been carried on the Czechoslovakia I network; stations in different areas fitting into the Operation with local and national news items for a period of about eight hours. The emphasis was on reading current news, appeals and declarations from around the country. Feeds were short, breaks in transmission occurred frequently and programming was disjointed. As the day wore on and the operators of the underground facilities became more familiar with their new roles, the technical Operation of the network became more professional.

III

Czechoslovak media programming during the siege can be divided into two basic types: 1) information programming and, 2) guidance programming. To the outside world the most important type of 105

broadcasting from Czechoslovakia was the news and commentary. Con- stantly, non-stop at critical times, news reports from within the country were broadcast. Direct reports from the scene of news-making activity, as during the confrontation outside the Prague radio building, were vivid, but not common. It was more normal for newsmen to either report by telephone from the scene of the news, or to make tape recordings of events to be broadcast as soon as possible.

Commentary and analysis of news was regularly heard on the radio, but it was television which Specialized in gathering peOple together in the small clandestine studio for comments on the news of the day.

Television's Special contribution to the news portion of media programming was in allowing the citizenry to see familiar faces of journalists, government officials and Specialists in various areas; their very presence on television giving hOpe and meaning to the passive resistance movement.

The radio gave not only news from within Czechoslovakia but from around the world. Particular attention was paid to foreign reaction to the invasion and to the resistance by the Czechs and

Slovaks. As early as 9 A.M. the first morning, Radio Prague had a

Ireporter at the microphone commenting on reaction in Bucharest,

Washington, Vienna and Paris to the invasion.5 With the Czechoslovak

News Agency closed, the regular broadcasting facilities with wire service inputs occupied, and foreign neWSpapers banned, the Czechoslo- vaks came up with a novel way of passing international news on to

5Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0750 GMT, August 21, 1968. 106 their listeners. Clandestine radio staffs monitored broadcasts from

Western stations, transcribed and relayed the news from abroad on to listeners within Czechoslovakia. The British Broadcasting Corporation, which extended its broadcasting schedule in Czech and Slovak during the crisis, reported that:

News bulletins and reviews of the British press broadcast by the Czechoslovak section (of the BBC) were rebroadcast by Free Czechoslovak Radio with acknowledgement to the BBC, evidence that BBC broadcasts were an important source of information to Czechoslovak broadcasters during the crisis.

Prague, as the capital of the country, assumed primary importance in the clandestine media Operations. News from Prague interested and affected Czechs and Slovaks, those in the urban industrial cities and in the pastoral, forested valleys. From Prague news of national importance concerning the progress of the occupation, consultations and evacuation was originated and verified. Speeches by government and party leaders were taped and broadcast along the network from the

Prague station.7 The 14th Extraordinary Congress of the Czechoslovak

Communist Party, being held in secret near Prague, was also given

6"The Czechoslovak Crisis: The BBC and Its Central Role," BBC Record, No. 61, September 1968.

7The exception to this was in the case of Slovak government and party leaders who normally Spoke over clandestine Radio Bratislava. Bratislava is the seat of the Slovak National Council and other official Slovak language/ethnic official organizations. 107

considerable attention by the media. Journalists present at the Congress,

in a factory at Vysocany, provided a running commentary on the events

there for both radio and television.8

In addition to the national and international news from the

Prague underground station, each local outlet in its regular schedule

on the network offered news of local interest. Often this local news

would have implications for the entire nation which was also hearing

it. Of particular importance was the news from the Slovak stations.

One of the historical problems in the Czechoslovak nation has been the

dominance of the Czech majorities in Bohemia and Mbravia over the Slovak

minority in the east and south of the nation. The Czechoslovak clan-

destine media tackled the difficult task of holding together the two

peOples when ethnic interests could have divided the country and

ruined the solid passive resistance front shown to the invaders.

The clandestine radio network developed a regular schedule of

news which attempted to duplicate the pre-invasion news schedule of the

official network. However, because of the technical and Operational

difficulties of the non-sanctioned network, it was not always possible

to maintain the regular news schedule. The "Free and Legal" radio network explained the scheduling arrangement on August 26:

8Colin Chapman, Aggust let: The Rape of Czechoslovakia, (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1968), p. 56. The 14th Extraordinary Congress of the Czechoslovak Communist Party had been scheduled for September. It was decided to immediately convene the congress as soon as word Spread of the invasion. It began at 11:18 A.M. in one of the CKD plants in Prague-Vysocany, on Thursday, August 22, 1968. The original call for the congress went out on the clandestine network sometime on August 21. 108

Here is the free transmitter of central Bohemia (Prague). We welcome you to the regular newscast, which this time unfortunately comes at an irregular hour, because we had certain difficulties which prevented us from transmitting. As you know, normally we transmit and will transmit a complete newscast at the beginning of each odd hour, while at the beginning of each even hour we give at least a roundup of short news items. '

Prior to the invasion the four Czechoslovak radio networks used the same type of news schedule from mid-morning until late evening.10

One problem which the clandestine network faced during the occupation was ensuring the accuracy of its news reports. The normal news services within Czechoslovakia were closed by the invaders and the media were forced to rely on auxiliary sources of information. These sources could not always be checked for accuracy and as a result, incorrect reports sometimes crept in. In order to maintain its believability, the free network frequently broadcast corrections to inaccurate or incomplete news bulletins. Perhaps the most obvious example of false news occurred the first day of the invasion, August

21. Messages of Support for the government were being read at 11:56 A.M. when another station broke in on the same frequency, a female voice hysterically announcing:

I have good news for you: Premier Kosygin and Marshal Grechko have resigned. I say it again: Premier Kosygin and Marshal Grechko have resigned.

9Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1339 GMT, August 26, 1968, on 953 kHz.

10World Radio-TV Handbook, ed. J.M. Frost (Hellerup, Denmark: World Radio-TV Handbook 00., 1969), p. 84.

11Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1056 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 6055 kHz. ' 109

The message was repeated four more times. The news was then broadcast in Russian for the occupying forces together with an appeal for them to lay down their arms and leave the country. This blatant bit of misinformation was never explained, and, of course, added fuel to

Soviet charges against the media.

By the following day, August 22, the clandestine stations were becoming more aware of the problem of news reliability and were attempting to ensure correctness:

Czechoslovak radio is transmitting some news which has not yet been 100 percent confirmed. This is why we now give you news which has been confirmed directly at the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee...12

On the 23rd of August, after receiving an inaccurate report from an overanxious newsman, the offender was reprimanded on the air:

We ask our journalist colleague to check all reports in every way possible. We have become convinced that grossly exaggerated reports are often Spread by provocateurs who want to further dramatize the situation.1

Even though the Czechoslovak stations did their best to aSSure the accuracy of news reports and broadcast corrections when misinformation was transmitted, the Warsaw Pact prOpaganda outlets quickly jumped on any inaccuracies as part of a diabolical pattern intended, by the reactionary media in Czechoslovakia, to mislead a basically honest, but gullible, people. Radio Mbscow castigated the clandestine network on

August 28:

12Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1750 GMT, August 22, 1968, on 1520 kHz.

13Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 0226 GMT, August 23, 1968, on 953, 1097, 1520, and 7345 kHz. The misinformation concerned the state of President Svoboda's health. 110

The second major programming type carried by the Czechoslovak media under the occupation was aimed at directing public opinion and behavior in a particular manner: toward passive resistance and support

for the government. This type of program too had its roots in the

first hours of broadcasting after the invasion. The original Presidium appeal for calm and non-resistance laid the ground rules to which

Czechoslovak radio and television merely added embellishments. Within the framework established by the Dubcek government, Czechoslovak Radio initiated some striking examples of mass resistance. But the bulk of information carried on the radio was very straightforward: apeals to the invaders to leave and to the Czechoslovaks to behave in the prescribed manner. Appeals were lengthy; primarily concerned with rationalizing the pre-invasion political, social and economic situa- tions as entirely logical extensions of Marxism. The thousands of declarations of Support, from seemingly every organization and individual of any importance to every group and person under attack

14Moscow Domestic Service in Russian at 0650 GMT, August 28, 1968, based on an article in Pravda by Special correSpondents Viktor Mayevskiy and Vasiliy Zhuravskiy on assignment in Prague. 111 by the invaders, were themselves appeals to the consciences of the

Five Powers and of the world for redress of this abrogation of international and moral law.

The radio, in its authority-role, Speaking for government and peOple, began guiding public behavior within hours of the first announcement of the invasion:

Wherever you meet members of the occupation forces, do not allow Open clashes to arise which could be considered as provocations and cause for further measures. Wherever you have contacts with foreign soldiers, explain to them that in this country, up until their arrival, there was absolute calm, with no threat of counterrevolution. Explain to them that you look upon them as friends, but that order in this country can be maintained only by ourselves. Try to listen to the Czechoslovak radio on various stations.

As official government voice, the radio and television also early began a series of official appeals to the invaders:

I am now reading you a declaration by the Presidium of the National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic addressed to the representatives of the five countries: Podgorny, Ulbricht, Gomulka, Kadar, and Zhivkov, and the chairman of the national assemblies of these countries.

The proclamation reads: The Presidium of the National Assembly expresses its profound disagreement in principle with the advance of the allied armies which are today occupying our country without any reason. They are thereby violating our sovereignty, which is inadmissable between our countries, in our mutual relation. We therefore most urgently demand that you, at a moment when shots are heard in the streets of Prague, iSSue an order at once for the immediate withdrawal of all your trOOps from our territory.

(signed) The Presidium of the National Assembly.16

15Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0434 GMT, August 21, 1968.

16Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0653 GMT, August 21, 1968. 112

The radio also appealed to the invaders within Czechoslovakia:

I should like to tell you that this is a tragic mistake on your part if you wish, by means of crude violence, to influence our internal affairs. We have nothing against you. You are Opposing peOple who, like you, want to live freely in democratic socialism. A11 Czechoslovak citizens demand that you return to your country.17

Throughout the occupation of Czechoslovakia the underground media devoted a good deal of time to justifying the political situation within the country on the eve of the invasion. Well known party figures appeared at regular intervals with their explanations for the road to socialism upon which the Dubcek regime had embarked. Each arrived at the same conclusion: at the time of the invasion there existed in

Czechoslovakia no threat to socialism; the country was not controlled or threatened by counterrevolutionary elements. Since the Warsaw Pact justification for the invasion rested upon the assumption that a threat to socialism existed in Czechoslovakia and thereby to the entire socialist bloc, the line of reasoning expounded by the Czechoslovak media was in direct refutation of the premise for an invasion.

As the first occupation week ended with no outward signs of

Russian readiness to evacuate media facilities, the underground radio began a campaign to keep alive its claim as the only "legal" outlets in the country by demanding the return of its normal facilities. Under- ground stations were being found and closed by the occupation forces

17Prague Domestic Service in Russian at 1035 GMT, August 21, 1968, on 9505 kHz. 113

with regularity and those remaining wished to have their regular facilities returned before every free voice was stilled. By moving back into their official studios while still operating clandestine transmitters, the free radios' claim to legitimacy in the face of

Russian claims to the contrary would be strengthened and the occupiers would be forced to admit that their outlets were not really the official voices of the country. Furthermore, some of the media liberalization gains of the previous Spring and Summer might be saved, or at least perhaps some of the reformers would not lose their jobs in a wholesale housecleaning. If the clandestine stations ceased to operate while their normal facilities were still occupied, media personnel feared immediate return to a Novotny-era type broadcasting regardless of the outcome of the Mescow deliberations. So, a campaign began, with official party support, to get studios and transmitters occupied by the Soviets back again. One of the Slovak transmitters on

August 28 Opened the campaign with the following news bulletin:

Andrej Charvas, director of Czechoslovak Radio in Slovakia, called for the congress (Slovak Party extraordinary Congress) to appeal to the Slovak National Council which, in his Opinion, should establish direct contact with the occupation command and request the immediate return of the premises of editorial offices and the press, radio, and television. There is, in fact, a danger that occupation trOOps on these premises, particularly their prOpaganda staffs who are broadcasting our programs on illegal transmitters, too, could cause irreparable damage to cultural riches recorded on gold in record libraries (as heard).18

The congress did contact the Slovak National Council which issued a demand, read over the radio on August 29, for the return of media

18Radio Czechoslovakia in Slovak at 1433 GMT, August 28, 1968, on 5930 kHz. 114

facilities and the immediate "restoration of normal activity of the

legal transmissions of the Czechoslovak Radio in Slovakia from its

original places of work..."19 The struggle for the media buildings and

equipment would continue until the Dubcek government conceded to Soviet

demands for the reimposition of censorship.

The question of censorship was also of overriding import to the

clandestine media as rumors circulated about the Moscow meeting between

Czechoslovak and Soviet leaders. It was feared that one of the require-

ments for the withdrawal of the Warsaw Pact trOOps would be the reim-

position of censorship. On August 26th, the underground radio broadcast

a press conference of two leading members of the Czechoslovak Communist

Party regarding the Mbscow talks. One of the party chiefs Spoke of

censorship:

The Communist party intends to continue to act democratically. If the press, radio and television are to be controlled, then this can only be in accordance with the press laws which have been prepared-- that is, only concerning the retention of military and state secrets and possibly concerning criticism which can be considered libel.20

The prohibitions on free Speech mentioned by the party Spokesman were the

only ones allowed after the Dubcek government outlawed censorship the

previous spring. They could hardly be said to constitute censorship as we think of it, yet even under Russian guns, the Communist Party in

Czechoslovakia was, at this point, not about to allow any more drastic

19Radio Czechoslovakia in Slovak at 1846 GMT, August 29, 1968, on 1520, 1286, and 7350 kHz.

20Radio Czechoslovakia in English at 1610 GMT, August 26, 1968, on 5930 kHz. 115 measures. Czechoslovak leaders appeared on the radio to comment on the reimposition of censorship. All declared themselves unalterably opposed to censorship in principle but willing to take some meaSures in regard to the press in order to obtain the withdrawal of Soviet-bloc trOOps from the country. Journalists in general seemed to agree. Jiri

Dienstbier, frequent commentator over Radio Prague, reported on the meeting of the journalists' union in Prague called to discuss censorship and the government pronouncements and rationale for certain media measures:

Those Prague journalists who met today in great numbers in Prague said that they do not deny their Support to the government because it is our government and our country and we understand that the state of affairs in this country is not normal, but a state of emergency. We also pointed to our own congress resolution stating that the freedom of the press can be restricted under emergency conditions...We believe our leading representatives--Svoboda, Dubcek, Cernik, and Smrkovsky--when they say that they are in the same boat with us and that in difficult historical moments they are defending our rights and our sovereignty with the means at their diSposal. We also know that the only alternatgye is a government of collaborators or an occupation regime.

The concensus among government leaders, party politicals and journalists seemed to be that some type of censorship was the only alternative. SO, the first tentative Steps backward toward the Novotny years began. The clandestine network announced the new measures on

September 4, 1968:

The Presidium of the Slovak National Council, with a view to the necessity of carrying out some extraordinary measures in the field of the periodical press and other mass communication media in Slovakia, is, under powers given by the government, setting up as of today a Slovak office for press and information attached to the Presidium of the Slovak National Council. The task of the office

21Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1655 GMT, August 29, 1968, on 953 kHz. 116

is to coordinate uniformly and control the activity of the press, radio, television and CTK in Slovakia, and simultaneously to work as an information and consultative center of the Presidium of the Slovak National Council for relations with editorial offices. The office will be headed by a director appointed by the Presidium of the Slovak National Council.22

The media in Czechoslovakia were on their way back; back to the normal, official facilities, back to Subservience to the party and State in a more conventional setting.

One of the most interesting aSpects of the Czechoslovak media's

Operation during the occupation of 1968, was the way in which they managed to function as mouthpieces for the government. Despite the best efforts of the occupation forces to the contrary, the underground radio and television was the voice of the government, Operating with official sanction and blessing, relaying the pronouncements and actual voices of the leaders of the Czechoslovak state and party to the peOple.

From the occasion of Alexander Dubcek's first post-midnight message,

August 21, over the radio, appealing for calm, a parade of party and

State dignitaries, military and police chiefs, intellectuals, journalists, workers, farmers, from the very highest functionaries in the country to the most common citizen appeared before the "Free and Legal Czechoslovak

Radio” micrOphones to mouth supporting words of hOpe to the nation and its separate elements. The first night and day of the invasion many

22Radio Czechoslovakia in Slovak at 2108 GMT, September 4, 1968, on 953, 1520, and 1286 kHz. 117 prominent Czechoslovak politicians appeared on the radio with short messages appealing for non-violence and trust for the government, among these were Dubcek, Svoboda and Smrkovsky. The convening of the

National Assembly to discuss the invasion and the call for the clandestine 14th Party Congress to come to Prague, were both announced over the radio as official communication channels were unreliable.

When the Assembly and Congress got together in Prague, their declarations and proceedings were Spread across the nation by the radio. By the second day of the occupation, August 22, the radio was acknowledged as the link between government and peOple as well as between leaders meeting in Prague and those unable to meet because of travel restrictions, incarceration, or other pressures. The Prague station began its clandestine run as official news conduit about noon on August 22,

1968:

You are listening to a transmission of the legal Czechoslovak Radio from Prague. We are reading to you a government resolution which we have just received from official sources. It is a resolution of the government from its second extraordinary session, held on 22 August 1968 at 0700 GMT (as heard)...23

There followed other official reports on the clandestine network: a report on the Opening National Assembly session,24 on the

23Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1024 GMT, August 22, 1968, on 6055 and 7345 kHz.

2("Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1032 GMT, August 22, 1968, on 6055 and 7345 kHz. 118 opening of the Extraordinary 14th Party Congress, 25 and an early congress report.26

Reports, commentary and proclamations from, and about, the official meetings in Prague composed a large percentage of the broadcasting time from the Prague radio outlet each day. On a regional and

local level, the other stations in the network also devoted lengthy periods of time to official news and pronouncements from their areas.

On August 23, another item became of overriding importance to the clandestine outlets both for its news value and because the free radio was the only place on which factual reports and accounts could be heard. The Prague station carried a taped announcement by President

Ludvik Svoboda on Friday morning that he was going to Moscow to meet with the Soviet leaders?7 A few minutes later, a telephone call from the Station to Svoboda brought assurances that the trip was at his own request and he was not a prisoner.28 Telephone messages from the

President in Mbscow were broadcast periodically during his conference there as well as messages from other Czechoslovak officials attending the talks. Then, on August 27, Prague radio reported the return of the

25Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1042 GMT, August 22, 1968, on 6055 kHz.

26Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1058 GMT, August 22, 1968, on 6055 kHz. 27Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 0811 GMT, August 23, 1968, on 1097 and 953 kHz.

28Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 0830 GMT, August 23, 1968, 119 delegation and immediately conjecture began all over the country on what the Czechoslovak leaders were forced to concede at the meetings.29

Tuesday, August 27, 1968: The Czechoslovak leadership was back in Prague, some Soviet trOOps had been removed from sight in downtown Prague and Speculation abounded as Prague residents waited for word from the President. Finally in mid-afternoon the radio broadcast the text of the Mbscow communique signed by Russia and Czechoslo- vakia. Immediately following, the voice of Ludvik Svoboda:

As a soldier I know what bloodshed can be caused in a conflict between civilians and an army with modern equipment. Consequently, as your President, I considered it my duty to do all I could to ensure that this does not happen, that the blood of peoples who have always been friends is not Spilled senseleSSly, and that at the same time the fundamental interests of our fatherland and its peOple are safeguarded. I do not want to hide the fact that pain- ful sores caused by these events will long remain.

Approximately three hours after Svoboda's message, Alexander Dubcek came on the radio with a live Speech to the nation. The broadcast began with the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the BBC's World War II

"V for Victory" call. Dubcek Spoke for four hours, his voice scarcely controlled, emotion and exhaustion causing him to hesitate and halt frequently. Dubcek pleaded with his country to maintain order and discipline and to acquite itself honorably. The Speech was rebroadcast

29Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 0620 GMT, August 27, 1968, on 1520 kHz.

30Chapman, p. 76. The Speech was presumably recorded. No details were given on the location of the Speech although the communique was introduced as coming from Hradcany Palace according to Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1410 GMT, August 27, 1968, on 1520 kHz. Although Svoboda's Speech was probably recorded, Dubcek's appeared to be broadcast live according to several sources. 120 several times on the clandestine network, the long pauses, the tears, edited out of the tape before it was replayed.

The whole sequence of programs including the announcement of the communique from Mescow and the Svoboda and Dubcek Speeches, was the subject of some controversy between the Czechoslovaks and Soviets.

The problem was that the Czechoslovaks recognized only the underground, or "Free and Legal" Czechoslovak Radio as the legitimate medium in the country. The Russians though, recognized only their "black propaganda" stations, primarily Radio Vltava, as being the voices of the Czechoslo- vak peOple and the underground stations as completely illegal. There was a question of which station would be allowed to broadcast the announcement and Speeches. In the end the programming was heard only on the clandestine Czechoslovak Radio outlets, probably more suitably to both sides' ends.31

31There is disagreement between sources as to which side wanted which station to broadcast these programs. New York Times, (August 27, 1968, p. 2) says, "One question still to be decided is what radio network is to broadcast the declarations. The Russians are reported to be insisting that they be broadcast by Radio Vltava, the station of the occupation forces. The Czechs want them to be carried by Prague radio which the Russians consider clandestine and subversive." On the other hand Chapman, (p. 79) says, "When Dubcek Spoke (on radio) it was not from the normal studios, which were occupied and cut off from the transmitters, but from Hradcany Palace. The Russians had set up the broadcast and had asked for it to go out on the underground 'Free Radio,‘ whose transmitters they had not yet managed to locate. For Dubcek to Speak on their own Radio Vltava would have given quite the wrong impression." The Russians probably agreed to let the "free" radio carry the information and speeches 1) because they did want the peOple to believe in the freedom of decision of the Czechoslovak leadership in Moscow, 2) many more peOple would hear it on the clandestine stations, 3) no one would believe it on the occupation radio, and 4) by this time the Soviets were no longer trying to establish Radio Vltava as the "real Czechoslovak radio" since it was becoming widely known that Vltava was operating from abroad. 121

The radio continued to be completely at the will of the government for the duration of its underground Operation. It broadcast the leadership's messages, declarations, Speeches and appeals; in general deporting itself as the true servant of the State. Its service to the nation, the government and the party was noted in a proclamation issued by the National Assembly:

All members (of the Assembly) highly appreciate the unusual initiative and activity of radio, television, and newsPaper personnel and thank them in their name and that of all Czechoslovak peOple for their unselfish, patriotic, heroic work, which the grateful peOple of this country will never forget.

Thanks to you, a mighty patriotic movement is Spreading, our back- bones are being straightened, our determination to resist occupation and to face up to the traps laid by traitors and cowards is getting a firm hold.

Your selfless work, as well as the resolutions, decisions, and other expressions of the united will of our peOple and its organs, which you make known to us, are a tremendous help to us, the legal representatives of the peOple of Czechoslovakia, in our work. Once again, heartfelt and sincere thanks. Once again we reaffirm our common Slogan: (We believe you, trust us!

(signed) National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.32

The power of the Czechoslovak Radio during its operation under the occupation is clear and unarguable. The Czechoslovak government relied on it because it was the only way to reach the peOple. The people listened to it because it was the only outlet which they totally believed. The Russians tried to close it because it exposed every move their forces made, political and military; failing at that, they conducted a concerted campaign to discredit it and Opened their own

32The Czech Black Book, p. 113. Transcript of a message on clandestine Radio Prague at 10:57 A.M. on August 23, 1968. 122 stations to counteract it. When the radio called for a general strike from noon to l P.M. on August 22, the whole country closed down for an hour. Subsequent strikes announced by the media to reflect on the situation, found church bells tolling from one end of the country to the other, the pOpulace gathered in the streets, soundless, staring at the occupation trOOps. When the radio called on citizens to change the face of the country by destroying street, highway, house and apartment names and numbers, maps became useless and only natives knew where they were or how they got there. But perhaps the most praiseworthy aSpect of behavior guidance expounded and encouraged by the underground media was completely non-violent resistance. What could easily have become a catastrOphic bloodbath as civilians armed only with bricks and boards faced tanks and machineguns, became instead an uneven arguing match with the occupation troops, who could not morally com- pete let alone win. The moral victory of the Czechoslovaks was in large part due to the sense of national reSponsibility felt by the media. Whether or not the road chosen by the leadership of the country was the best of several unpalatable alternatives is moot; whether the Czechoslovak media by creating wholesale obedience to the government's course of action did a disservice to the Czechoslovak peOple is not within the purvue of this study; what the media in that trammelled country did was to function, even when clandestine, in the classical communist media model33 thereby assuring the country's legitimate rulers of the pOpular behavior necessary to conduct the affairs of state as they saw fit.

33Frederick S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson and Wilbur Schramm, Four Theories of the Press (Urbana: Univ of Illinois Press, 1956).

CHAPTER SEVEN

WARSAW PACT CLANDESTINE MEDIA OPERATIONS

The official Czechoslovak media were not alone in operating clandestine transmitters during the occupation. The Warsaw Pact forces attempted to utilize some of the media facilities they were occupying, but their primary prOpaganda effort was based on two foreign radio transmitters, one in East Germany and one in Hungary.

Heavy aircraft with foreign markings cruised over Prague through the night. Prague Radio went off the air. The sentence "Yesterday, August 20, 1968, around 11 P.M. trOOps crossed..." was interrupted by Silence. Gradually, all Czechoslovak Stations went silent, and on the 210-meter wave-length the radio station Vltava came on, broadcasting communiques of the Soviet news agency Tass in Czech and Slovak. "Personalities of the Czechoslovak Communist Party," it said, "requested military aid from the Soviet Union, because our Republic was threatened by counterrevolution and anti-socialist elements which in combination with outside forces..." The grammatical errors, the poor pronunciation, the entire style are reminiscent of times one does not forget.

One of the most galling elements of media Operation during the occupation of Czechoslovakia to both occupier and native, was Radio

Vltava. The Czechs and Slovaks were incensed that the station would purport to Speak for their nation, the Russians were upset at the reception accorded what was evidently quite a propaganda effort.

General Czechoslovak reaction to the station was as follows:

1Mlada Fronta, August 21, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, The Czech Black Book, trans. Robert Littell (New York: Praeger, 1969), pp. 18-19.

123 124

They drove the voices of this country, its press, radio, and television, underground, and they tried to replace them with their disgusting prattle disseminated out of (East) Berlin in an insulting distortion of our language.

Prior planning had gone into the establishment of Radio Vltava by the Soviets for it came on the air during the night of radio silence

in Prague, almost simultaneously with the invasion itself. Sometime

after 4:30 A.M., August 21, 1968, the occupation propaganda radio

launched into its explanation for the invasion:

The strange radio Station "Vltava" again tries, in broken Czech, to explain the occupation. The armies, it says, will be withdrawn as soon as the dangers threatening socialism are removed. The occupation is not directed against any state; "it serves the cause of peace and the interests of EurOpean security."

Then, at about 5:25 A.M., Radio Vltava broadcast the text of the Warsaw

Pact invasion rationale, the first release of the document.

Exactly where was Radio Vltava located and who was reSponsible

for setting it up? The Czechoslovak Writers' union weekly Reporter, claimed it was in East Berlin. Colin Chapman, editor of the Sunday

Times of London, said:

On the first day (of the occupation) something called "Radio Vltava" came on the air. The Vltava is the river on which Prague stands, but there was nothing very Czech about these broadcasts. They came from the regular civil radio transmitter at Karl-Marx-Stadt, in East Germany, just over the Czech border, although they purported to be broadcast from Czech soil.4

2Reporter, No. 35, August 26, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 210.

3Mlada Fronta, August 21, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 19.

4Colin Chapman, August let: The Rape of Czechoslovakia, (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1968), p. 62. 125

Radio Free EurOpe research indicated the station was in Dresden, East

Germany.5 Everyone agreed that the transmitter was located somewhere

in East Germany. The frequency of 210-meter, or 1430 kHz, was assigned

to East Germany according to frequency listings for 1968.6 Radio Berlin

International, the overseas prOpaganda service of the Ulbricht govern-

ment operated a 250-kilowatt transmitter on that frequency for medium-wave

reception throughout the EurOpean area. The transmitter location was

either Nauen or Konigswusterhausen, according to information reported

to the World Radio-TV Handbook.

As to who Operated Radio Vltava, the programming may be indica-

tive:

The station's programs were introduced by the sound of a gong playing the Opening bars of a Russian pOp tune called "Nights in Mbscow," and the staff appeared to consist of two peOple: a woman who Spoke Slovak rather than Czech, and a male announcer who did his best in Czech with a heavy Russian accent for the first few days, but soon gave up and confined himself to broadcasting messages to the occupation trOOps in straight, excellent Russian. The programs of Radio Vltava consisted of news culled directly from Tass and Pravda, and human interest programs which seem to have been improvised in a great hurry. One of these was the tearful reading by the lady with the Slovak accent of a letter from a Russian war widow, who at some unSpecified time had visited Czechoslovakia to see the grave of her husband, killed fighting to liberate Czechoslovakia from the German invaders. The unnamed widow Spoke feelingly of the Czechoslovak friends she had made during her visit and their rather irrelevant enthusiasm for the policies of the Soviet union;

5Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovakia/10, April 8, 1970.

6World Radio-TV Handbook, ed. J.M. Frost (Hellerup, Denmark: World Radio-TV Handbook Co., 1969), p. 97.

7Chapman, pp. 62-63. 126

The Moscow media looked favorably upon this radio newcomer in

Czechoslovakia. Tass broadcast the following assessment datelined Prague:

A new radio station, Vltava, began broadcasting in CzechosloVakia. . In its first broadcast the station announced that it would transmit important announcements and commentaries on highly topical questions. The Vltava radio station broadcast an appeal to the soldiers and officers of the Czechoslovak Pe0ple's Army and urged them to render any assistance and support to the armies of socialist countries which had entered Czechoslovak territory to defend the gains of socialism. Not a single minute must be wasted, the call emphagized, in the face of the threat of a counterrevolutionary onslaught.

media in Czechoslovakia didn't look so favorably upon this usurper:

Friends, you are listening to the transmission of the legal Czechoslovak radio. We advise you that on the wave length of 210 meters an illegal transmitter of the occupation forces is broadcasting in bad Czech and bad Slovak. We point out that this transmissiog has nothing in common with the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic...

The clandestine, but official, Czechoslovak media continually claimed that one of the easiest ways to tell Radio Vltava was not a

Czechoslovak station was to listen to it:

...the transmissions of the Vltava station, the station of traitors, shows that nearly all of those who Speak over that station have great difficulties with the Czech and Slovak languages. 0

A miner in the village of Lidice, outside of Prague, was quoted as saying:

8Tass International Service in English at 0829 GMT, August 21, 1968.

9Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 0434 GMT, August 21, 1968. 10Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1100 GMT, August 25, 1968, on 1520, 1286, 9505 and 9608 kHz. Commentary by Jiri Dienstbier quoting a veteran woman communist. 127

Apart from the nonsense they were talking, they Spoke bad Czech with heavy Russian accents...They were talking about the danger of counter-revolutionaries. We have no counter-revolutionaries here--everyone in the village is solidly behind our President and Mr. Dubcek...11

Radio Vltava was the mouthpiece for official Warsaw Pact

information directed to the Czechoslovak peOple. An example of the

kind of information broadcast by the station follows:

The command of the trOOps of the socialist countries appeals to you for joint actions for the defense of the revolutionary legal order and for the defense of the Czechoslovak frontiers against all attacks of international imperialism and its agencies against the sovereignty and independence of Czechoslovakia.12

Radio Vltava continued with news, commentary and Special interest

programming even after the Czechoslovak media had moved back into

their normal facilities. It was noted on September 9, 1968, with an

anonymous commentary landing the Soviet Union for supplying the

"necessities of life" in Czechoslovakia.13

The Russians complained during the occupation about suppoSed

injustices done to Radio Vltava:

Certain Western radio stations...are jamming the Czechoslovak radio (Vltava), which gives objective coverage of life in the country...

The Czechoslovak peOple were no better, for, they didn't bother to

listen to this "official” voice:

11Chapman, p. 71. 12Radio Vltava in Czech and Slovak at 0515 GMT, August 21, 1968.

13Radio Vltava in Czech at 0400 GMT, September 9, 1968.

14Tass International Service in English at 1430 GMT, August 29: 1968- 128

...we on our part, asked Jan and his comrades (Czech youth) if they had heard on the radio (Vltava) the address of a group of members of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, of the government, and of the National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic...We told the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Army...about the contents of this (false appeal). It appeared that none of them had heard about it. It appeared that they had only been listening to foreign broadcasts, from Radio Free EurOpe, the Voice of America, and BBC. In these broadcasts and...in the broadcasts of some underground radio Stations of unknown origin which Sprang up in Czechoslovakia, the arrival of the trOOps into Czechoslovakia is crudely distorted.15

Although the people couldn't be forced to listen to Radio Vltava on their own radios, the occupation troops tried another approach:

On Wenceslas Square at about 2 P.M., the occupiers tried to play the collaborationist radio Station over the public address system, but as soon as the first few words were heard, the peOple in the Square reSponded by whistling until the ears of the occupiers must have hurt. They tried several times but eventually gave up. A citizen commented: "It was to be an educational program about Novotny, but it didn't come off."16

The East German media depended on Radio Vltava, located perhaps in the same building, for information from Czechoslovakia:

According to an announcement by the new Czechoslovak radio station, Vltava, counterrevolutionary elements of Czechoslovakia, in view of the allied countries' security measures, fled across the border to Austria and West Germany yesterday. The U.S. intelligence service, CIA, and the West German Federal intelligence service have created rendezvous points in the Bavarian border area and on Austrian territory to rescue their contact men.17

15Mioscow Domestic Service in Russian at 0930 GMT, August 23, 1968. Report from correSpondent Artem Panifilov in Prague. lqggpggggg, No. 35, August 26, 1968 quoted in Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 182.

17East Berlin Deutschlandsender in German to West Germany at 0902 GMT, August 22, 1968. 129

Radio Vltava Operated continuously until February 12, 1969,

each evening from 6 P.M. to 2 A.M. The day following the cessation of

Radio Vltava Operations, Radio Berlin International identified itself

on 1430 kHz, the wavelength used by Radio Vltava, and began its normal prOpaganda operations.18

In addition to the operation of Radio Vltava, the occupation

forces did some television broadcasting in Prague using the normal

facilities of Prague Television. At 11:35 A.M., Friday, August 23,

1968, the free Czechoslovak radio reported that the invaders had a television service Operating on Channels 1 and 7, two of the channels normally serving the Prague area. At this time it was also reported that the clandestine Czechoslovak TV was preparing to broadcast on another channel, Channel 3.19 A Prague neWSpaper commented on the television service from the occupation channels:

Many peOple have mislaid their face in the past few days. Some are hiding it. One man is hiding behind the pictures from Plicka's volume of Prague photographs. He is an announcer of the occupiers' television station, Jiri Lukas, editor-in-chief of the magazine Pragge-Moscow, formerly on the staff of the Central Committee when Antonin Novotny was there, onebtime assistant editor of Kvety and the News Agency Novosti.

After the poor reception accorded the occupation radio and television, the Soviets tried with a new station and a new prOpaganda line. The first announcement of the new station's appearance was on

18Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovakia/10, April 8, 1970.

19Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, p. 114.

20Zemedelske Noviny, August 27, 1968, in Institute of History of

the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, pp. 234-235. 130

"Free" Czechoslovak Radio, Prague on August 29th. It was stated that a Station calling itself "The Dawn Transmitter" (Vysilac Zare) was

Operating on 240-meters.21 underground Czechoslovak Radio commentator

Jiri Dienstbier Spoke of the new prOpaganda outlet, Radio Zare:

At first it was Radio Vltava, then a Special television transmission with stills and anti-Czechoslovak expressions, and finally the Zare station has emerged. This new station does not repeat the stupid and primitive expressions of the first two stations. It tries to pass itself off as objective and even carries official information from our organs which nobody has officially given it. This station maintains that it allegedly supports Svoboda, Dubcek, and Cernik, and it allegedly supports the post-January deveIOpment and the democratic and humanistic relations of socialism.

It is different from the legal broadcasts mainly by the fact it has not been licensed by anybody; by this I mean nobody in Czechoslovakia, as well as by the fact that it tries to deny the treacherous activities of the collaborators and to term the legal activity of our journalists in the radio or in the legal neWSpapers as the activity of antisocialist forces.

The frequency of 240-meters, or 1250 kHz, was assigned to

Hungary, one of the other invading countries. This Hungarian transmitter, calling itself "Zare", was rated at 135-kilowatts and was located at Balatonszabadi, in the Bakony Mountains of Western Hungary.

It normally broadcast the home service of Magyar Radio throughout that country and was also used to broadcast to EurOpe and the Near East the foreign service of Radio Budapest in ESperanto, German, Greek,

Hungarian, Italian and Turkish.23 The underground media in Czechoslo- vakia noted the type of peOple being heard on Radio Vltava and Radio

Zare:

21Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1449 GMT, August 29, 1968. 22Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1655 GMT, August 29, 1968. 23World Radio-TV Handbook, p. 107. 131

...over all these radio stations, peOple like Pavel AuerSperg, former head of Antonin Novotny's secretariat and chief of the ideology department in the Novotny era, almost certainly the last secretary of Alois Indra, and other similar peOple are Opposing Novotny and advocate the post-January development. With some of these people we have not yet confirmed that it is the peOple whom we recognize by their voices and therefore we are not dis- closing their names. But even though we may make a mistake with reSpect to some of them, all the voices which we recognize belong to peOple who are essentially linked t34that period against which they are now hypocritically struggling.

Two other stations which Operated illegally during this period

from this area in support of the occupation were: a station announcing

as the "Radio Station of the Polish People's Army on the Territory of

Czechoslovakia” which programmed in Czech and Slovak in addition to

Polish, and; the "Voice of the Workers in the Republic" which broad-

cast anti-West German propaganda daily in Czech from August 26 to

September 3, 1968, between the hours of 7 A.M. and 1 A.M. on the following frequencies: 1061, 1178, 7105, 7125, 9450, and 9540 kHz.25

Some sources report this station as being in East Germany, others as being in Poland. Only three of the listed frequencies were assigned

to invading countries; 9540 kHz to Poland, 7125 kHz to Poland, and

1061 kHz to the U.S.S.R.

24Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1449 GMT, August 29, 1968.

25World Radio Bulletin, ed. J.M. Frost, NO. 935, September 11, 1968. CHAPTER EIGHT

NIGHT DESCENDS AGAIN

Thursday, September 5, 1968, was an anniversary for Czechoslo-

vakia. It marked the beginning of the third week of the Warsaw Pact

occupation. It was also an important date for the Czechoslovak media.

That evening would see Prague Television back in its official facilities

for the first time since the invasion morning. Early Thursday evening,

. television screens in the Prague area began to Show signs of life as

the transmitters were warmed up. Then, at 7 P.M. the face of Kamila

Mbuckova, a tragically familiar face, stared into the homes and taverns

of central Bohemia. Mrs. Mbuckova had been with the news department

of Prague Television for 12 years, since its beginning. This night

She again read the news from the Prague Studios, including a short

film narration of the Czechoslovak soccer team practicing for the

Olympic games. A quick shot in the Sports film Showed Soviet soldiers,

armed and helmeted, watching the practice from bleachers. Following

the news and Sports came a long documentary about Czech children

preparing for another school year. The evening's entertainment was

concluded with a filmed presentation of the famed Czech composer

Bedrich Smetana's Opera ”Dalibor". "Dalibor," meaning Faraway Forest,

is a tale of peasants rising against their Oppressors. It was a

132 133 replacement for another of Smetana's works, "My Country", which was originally chosen for the first night of renewed telecasting but had to be replaced at the last minute when it was feared that its patriotic theme might offend the occupation forces; that it might not be "normal" enough for the media "normalization" in progress. As the television station signed off, a collective sigh arose from media employees and viewers; the first night of renewed broadcasting was completed. What would be the Russian reaction? Was it possible that the media would continue operating as freely as they had prior to the invasion? The answers were not long in coming and marked the return of the media to party control in Czechoslovakia and their ultimate fealty to Moscow.1

A principle preoccupation of both the Czechoslovak and Russian negotiators at the Moscow meetings was the subject of press freedom in

Czechoslovakia. As part of the "normalization" procedure, Soviet party boss Leonid Brezhnev had prOposed that the Czechoslovak Communist Party exercise rigid control over the press and all means of communication.2

1A description of the first night's programming from the normal studios was taken from New York Times, September 5, 1968, p. 4 and Colin Chapman, August let: The Rape of Czechoslovgkia (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1968), p. 84. Kamila Mbuckova, who had been with Prague Television since its inception was quietly shuffled aside because of her involvement with the Free Prague TV. By late 1969 she was dubbing foreign movies into Czech according to an Associated Press report carried in Lagtern (Columbus, Ohio), November 19, 1969.

2Chapman, p. 67. 134

Alexander Dubcek finally agreed that "reSponsible" editors would be appointed by the party to be in charge of each publication and radio and television news departments.3 This tentative agreement, which on the Russians' part included the withdrawal of all troops from media facilities, was the basis for the reimposition of the censorship which had been outlawed the previous June. The job of these "editors" was to see that press freedom didn't go too far, especially in sensitive areas like the field of Czechoslovak relations with other

Communist countries.

Although the Dubcek government was under considerable pressure to bring the media to heel immediately, the process of subjugating news outlets required a long battle between government and media. In a

Speech over the clandestine radio on August 28, Premier Oldrich Cernik, just back from Moscow, announced that "the government today approved some extraordinary measures concerning the press, radio, and television which are in accordance with today's abnormal situation. It will be necessary to fully assert the government's influence on radio, television, and CTK."4 Media workers immediately reSponded to the

Premier's announcement with a formal resolution declaring that they would protest any attempts to control radio or television.5

3New York Times, August 27, 1968, p. 2.

4Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1640 GMT, August 28, 1968, on 5930 kHz. SNew York Times, August 28, 1968, p. 15. 135

On August 30th, National Assembly President Josef Smrkovsky,6 in a recorded Speech broadcast over the still clandestine Prague Radio, urged acceptance of the Moscow agreement saying:

We shall be forced to take exceptional measures in the Sphere of the press, broadcasting and television, in order to prevent anything being written or said in these media which might run counter to the foreign political needs and interests of the Republic.7

First evidence of the renewed control of the party over the media came with word that Czechoslovak Television Director-General Jiri Pelikan and Zdenek Hejzlar, head of the Czechoslovak Radio network, were being 8 placed on "temporary vacations." Within a month, both men were completely removed from their media posts and replaced with party apparatchiks.9

A watchdog apparatus to censor the censors was set up by the Ministry of Culture on August 31. Josef Vohnout, head of the

Culture Ministry's Information Office was named temporary head of the agency charged with enforcing the new, "extraordinary" measures for the press, radio and television. He was to be assisted by a consultative body composed of the new director of CTK and two other officials.

6Smrkovsky was an unlikely hero of the "summer of freedom" because of his conservative background. Nevertheless he became one of the foremost spokesmen for liberalization and subsequently suffered for it.

7Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 1450 GMT, August 29, 1968, on 953 kHz.

8New York Times, August 30, 1968, p. 1.

9New York Times, September 26, 1968, p. 2. 136

Specializing in radio and TV.10 On September 5, Vohnout was interviewed by a Czechoslovak News Agency correSpondent on his new job.

The reporter asked him why a censor was needed:

Josef replied that the extraordinary situation in our country calIs for extraordinary measures by the government...However, the purpose of his office is not and does not mean a return to the bureaucratic methods of the old censorship...The office will also be an information and consultation center of the Premier's office for contacts with editorial offices. Constant contacts between the office and journalists should enable the government to be informed on problems faced by those employed in the press, radio and television.

III

With the question of censorship still troubling the Czechoslo- vak media, they began the move back to normal facilities. The return to official studios depended on the local situation and was at the discretion of the commanding Russian officer. Bratislava Radio and

Television were first back on the air with their normal operation on

September 3-4, 1968. Prague Radio and Television were evacuated by foreign trOOps about the same time but did not make it back on the air until September 5-9, 1968. Elsewhere, Kosice Radio personnel moved back into the facilities there on September 4th to begin preparations

10New York Times, August 31, 1968, p. 2.

11Radio Czechoslovakia in Czech at 0600 GMT, September 5, 1968, on 1520 kHz; Prague I in network. 137

for normal broadcasting, but in Rimavska Sobota the radio outlet was

still in occupation hands on September 4 with no evacuation in Sight.

CTK began transmitting again September 9, 1968.

In addition to the national censorship office set up in Prague,

both the Slovak and Czech National Councils established censorship

. boards to work within their own ethnic areas in this touchy field.

Slovak Party chief Gustav Husak Spoke of the Slovak board and its

reSponsibilities on September 5:

...we would like...eSpecially in Slovakia...(to) implement these legal measures (the press law) in a way that does not oblige us to enforce them; to implement them in such a way that we can continue in agreement with the workers in these sectors, in agreement with the world of journalists...so that the measures can be realized with comradely and humane cooperation, and that in essence it need not activate any authorities of censorship.

I repeat once again: We will not apply censorship if we find that degree of understanding in the ranks of journalists that we will not be compelled to do so. However, if we fail to find (such an understanding), we will be compelled to take even harsher measures in the interest of the consolidation of our country, in the interest of the departure of the troops, in the interest of our prOSpects.

The groundwork had thus been laid for even more repressive measures

than the media contemplated, but it would not Show for a few weeks.

Although the government of Czechoslovakia was under extreme

pressure from the Kremlin to completely control the media immediately,

it appears as though the press exerted some influence on press policy.

12Bratislava Domestic Service in Slovak at 1607 GMT, September 4, 1968, on 1097 kHz and Radio Czechoslovakia in Slovak at 0942 GMT, September 4, 1968; Banska Bystrica Radio on 272 kHz in network.

13Radio Czechoslovakia in Slovak at 1815 GMT, September 5, 1968, Bratislava Radio on 1520 kHz in network.

138

None of the first three head-censors was known for being conservative.

In addition, the men named to the vacant posts of chief of radio and

television were likewise not hard-liners. The journalists' union magazine, Reporter, after initial banning, was allowed to reappear

later in the year. In analyzing the post-invasion press climate,

Robert James of the Institute for the Study of International

Organization in Britain decided that probably none of the aforemen-

tioned facts "...could remotely be regarded as a victory for freedom

of Speech in the mass media, but neither did they represent the

imposition of authoritarian control.14

On September 12 the government of Premier Oldrich Cernik formally drafted the bill "on a number of temporary measures in the Sphere of the press and other mass information media." As drafted, its purpose was:

...to follow and evaluate the activity...of the press, radio and television; to safeguard the maintenance of the regulations applicable for the work of these mass information media; and to discuss and coordinate the measures and regulations for the orientation of their activity according to the demands of government policy.

The Czechoslovak National Assembly formally approved the government's bill on September 14 with two abstentions.16 The new law also legitimized the Committee for Press and Information and named its

14The Czechoslovak Crisis of 1968, ed. Robert Rhodes James (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), p. 7. 15Prague Domestic Service in Czech at 1800 GMT, September 12, 1968.

16New York Times, September 14, 1968, p. l. 139

permanent head, Deputy Premier Peter Cotolka, a former member of the

International Court of Justice from 1962 to 1966. Josef Vohnout, the interim chief censor, was made a member of the committee and head of the Czech Committee for Press and Information. The National Committee also was to include the director of CTK, the Chairman of the Slovak

Committee for Press and Information, and two delegates from the

National Front; all four to be named later.

The way in which censorship would function was diSplayed quickly. On September 13, Alexander Dubcek was scheduled to deliver a Speech over nation-wide radio and television at 7 P.M. A phone

call from the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party ‘I-IF‘Tfiflwmu-fl-l-F to the broadcasting station postponed the Speech until 10 P.M. at which time a revised version was delivered. The Dubcek speech, as read over the media, omitted references in the original draft describing the restoration of press censorship as a "step backward" even though it was "temporary." The complete text of the Speech had been released to newsmen prior to the phone call from the Central

Committee. It was explained that the original version of the Speech might have been offensive to the U.S.S.R.17

Meanwhile, with censorship reimposed, the Communist-bloc powers were itching for the scalps of media personnel who had given them so much anxiety during the eight months past. A Communist source in Bonn was quoted as saying that an East German diplomat called at the

17New York Times, September 13, 1968, p. 1. 140

Prague radio station in early September with "orders" that several

editors be dismissed immediately. One editor on the list was Bedrich

Ulitz, director of the German-language programs and intimately involved

in the Czechoslovak-East German radio feud the preceding summer.

Polish papers were crying for the prosecution of Zdenek Hejzlar, who was still officially on "vacation", for collaborating with various

Western radio stations, including Radio Free Europe.18

Government media policy remained in a state of flux throughout

the fall of 1968. Pelikan19 and Hejzlar20 were officially dismissed

18New York Times, September 14, 1968, p. 11.

19Pelikan was appointed in September 1968 as cultural attache at a post in Italy. In October 1969 Pelikan fell victim to a new law which allowed representative bodies to expel deputies and appoint new ones without elections. The PeOple' Chamber of the National Assembly promptly voted him out of his seat there. (Radio Free EurOpe Resegrch, Czechoslovakia/92, October 17, 1969) Pelikan has been consistently castigated since the occupation as in the Central Committee weekly newsPaper for Party affairs Zivot Strany, No. 41, October 8, 1969, where the editor, Karel Vlc, classed him, along with TV news director Kamil Winter, as an "obvious renegade" who had "betrayed Communist ideas and clearly taken sides with the class enemy." The Czech Journalists Union expelled Pelikan and Winter, along with radio newsman Karel Jezdinsky who was the Radio Czechoslovakia correSpondent in Belgrade and remained there after the invasion, all of whom had left the country, in 1969. (Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovakia/87, October 8, 1969) Pelikan remained in the West and took up residence in London. In 1970 he published a book on the clandestine 14th Extra- ordinary Congress held in Prague on August 22, 1968.

20Zdenek Hejzlar was appointed First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Legation in Vienna after his fall from grace. Hejzlar, a former youth functionary demoted during the Stalinist era, was appointed head of Czechoslovak Radio in July 1968. He reportedly decided to defect to the West when he received orders to return home from his post in Vienna. Radio Prague (October 6, 1969) reported Hejzlar's expulsion from the Party because of his defection. He has also been sharply criticized by the press in Czechoslovakia because of his reform philOSOphy. Stanislav Zibar, a local-level party official in Prague, in an article contained in the official party daily Rude Pravo, September 25, 1969, accused him of manipulating the 14th Party Congress and being one of the leaders of the "illegal" meeting of the Congress. (Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovak Press Survey, No. 2263, October 7, 1969). 141 at a Cabinet meeting on September 26.21 Despite this move, the media continued to be outspoken critics of Soviet actions in Czechoslovakia.

A middle-roader, Josef Smidmajer, replaced Pelikan as television chief, but was not officially appointed until late November. 22 Still later,

Odon Zavodsky, another colorless party functionary, was named to head

Czechoslovak Radio, replacing Zdenek Hejzlar. Like Vohnout before him,

Colotka didn't last very long as head censor. By late November 1968 he had resigned; being named to fill the vacancy was Jaroslav Havelka, a 51-year-old career party official, former Minister of Education and

Ambassador to Sweden, who took care to emphasize in an interview on

Prague Radio on December 10 that his appointment did not mean a harsher line toward journalists, but instead a more intensive effort to ”maintain a constant dialogue with journalists" to win their support for government policy.23

DeSpite the veiled threats and censorship, the media still did not behave the way the Kremlin thought they should. Under the eye of the censor a good deal of imaginative programming took place. On

Sunday night, September 8, interim censor Vohnout appeared on the TV program "We are with you, be with us" to discuss his new job. Appearing along with Vohnout was pOpular Czech singer Karel Cernoch with a new song "I hOpe this is just a bad dream". Poet Jaroslav Seifert, on the

21New York Times, September 26, 1968, p. 2.

22New York Times, November 27, 1968, p. 18.

23New York Times, November 27, 1968, p. 18 and, The Czechoslovak Crisis of 1968, p. 7. 142 same show, read a poem in which he suggested that the last Soviet tank to leave be set up as a monument alongside the first Soviet tank to arrive in Prague in 1945.24

On the night of November 2, 1968, citizens of Prague were

"witnesses for the defense" in a starkly dramatic hour-long Show on

Czechoslovak Television. The program rebutted Soviet charges that a counter-revolution was in progress that justified the August invasion.

The program was, in a sense, a violation of the guideline of post-invasion censorship on criticizing the Soviet Union. But, as in the case of the press, whose editors paid less and less attention to it, censorship in radio and television Operated largely on a volunteer basis. No official censors sat in the editorial offices, but neWSpapers, magazines, radio and television stations chose their own representatives to act in liaison with the new government press office to assist with "self-censorship."25

It was clear in Moscow that more measures needed to be imple- mented. Thus, Tppp began criticizing Czechoslovak leaders who had praised the role of the press, radio and television during the occupation.

The post-occupation media also came under fire because, "most newsPapers, radio and television editorial boards remain in the hands of the very same peOple who had for a long time attacked the Communist Party of

Czechoslovakia, the mainstay of the socialist system, principles of pro- letarian internationalism and friendship with the Soviet Union and 26 other countries.

24Chapman, p. 84.

25New York Times, November 2, 1968, p. 1.

26New York Times, September 26, 1968, p. 2. 143

Following the personnel changes in the ruling clique of the

country, foremost on the Russian schedule, came changes in the admini-

strative structure of the media. The middle-of-the-roaders appointed

by Dubcek to hold a rein on the Czechoslovak media seemed unable to

accomplish the job, so conservative Stalinists were named to the

positions. Josef Vohnout, chairman of the Czech Office for Press and

Information and representative on the national censorship board was

replaced by Josef Havlin on April 8, 1969. Odon Zavodsky, head of

Czechoslovak Radio, was replaced by Bohuslav Chnoupek on June 19, 1969.

Jan Zelenka replaced Josef Smidmajer as Czechoslovak Television chief

on August 6, 1969. New directors were also named for Ceteka and

Slovakia Radio during the year. Without exception, the newly named

functionaries were hard-liners opposed to the direction taken by the media during 1968.27 In late 1969 Karel Hoffman, one of the media

heavies the night of the invasion, was renamed head of Posts and

Telecommunication and Jan Vigas, deputy chief censor, replaced Jaroslav

Havelka as director of Press and Information.28

And still the media remained under fire. The weekly neWSpaper

of the Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship League in late 1969 inveighed

against the media:

Although the Mbscow agreements placed the Czechoslovaks under an obligation to restore control over the communication media, these media remained in the hands of those forces which prior to August had conducted attacks against the Party, against the Soviet Union,

27Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovakia/10, April 8, 1970.

28Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovakia/83, September 30, 1969. 144

against the socialist countries. The non-Party centers directing these media remained untouched, and continued to form public Opinion. The adversaries of socialism believed that if their monopoly could be coupled with brutality, terror, and hysteria, no political force strong snough to fight them politically could be formed in Czechoslo- 2 vakia.

Prior-censorship became a fact on April 2, 1969, as the government announced "preventive censorship" since the media could offer no guarantee of an editorial policy consistent with "important domestic

and foreign policy interests."30 Journalists and other media personnel have continued to be purged for real or imagined ideas since the inva-

sion. They have been forced to seek employment in factories and have been harassed out of the Party and country. The Czechoslovak media was

fairly free for approximately six months; it took more than twice that

long to muzzle it completely again and still the fear exists in the

Party structure that it may burst forth at any time with "counterrevo-

lutionary" tendencies. Uhder the leadership of Gustav Husak, through purges and intimidation, hard-line Party members have again gained virtually complete control of Czechoslovakia's media. A few journalists have been jailed, dozens have defected to the West, all who had the audacity to Support Alexander Dubcek have lost their jobs. It is reported from Prague that public reaction to the return of monotony on radio and television is seen in the lack of viewers at the pubs, once

29J. Vesely, "Anti-Sovietism in Czechoslovakia? ‘Svet Socialism, August 20, 1969, quoted in Radio Free Europe Research, Czechoslovak Press

Survey, No. 2256, September 8, 1969.

30Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovak/10, April 8, 1970. 145

the gathering places for group viewing all evening long. Now the television sets remain turned off except on nights when the BBC'S "The

Forsyte Saga" is shown.31

Biégggggp (Columbus, Ohio), November 19, 1969. B IBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Chapman, Colin. August let: The Rape of Czechoslovakia. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1968.

Institute for the Study of International Organization, University of Sussex. The Czechoslovak Crisis of 1968. ed. Robert Rhodes James. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969.

Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The Czech Black Book. trans. Robert Littell. New York: Praeger, 1969.

"Journalist M." A Year is Eight Mbnths. New York: Doubleday, 1970.

Levine, Isaac Don. Intervention. New York: David MeKay, 1969.

Winter in Pragpp. ed. Robin Alison Remington. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1969.

Szulc, Tad. Czechoslovakia Since World War II. New York: Viking, 1970.

World Radio-TV Handbook. ed. J. M. Frost. Hellerup, Denmark: World Radio-TV Handbook Co., 1969.

ARTICLES AND PERIODICALS

"Czechoslovak Crisis, The: The BBC and Its Central Role." BBC Record

(London). September 1968.

Lantern (Columbus, Ohio). October 1969 - December 1970.

Listener, The (London). August 1968 - December 1970.

New York Times. June 1967 - December 1970.

OIRT Information (Prague). 1967 - 1970.

146 147

Radio and Television (Prague). 1967 - 1970.

Time. 1967 - 1970.

UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL

"Daily Report.” Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Washington: 1968.

"Information on Czechoslovak Radio." Czechoslovak Radio and Television. Prague: nd.

"Material on Events Prior to 1968 Invasion." Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Washington: July 1970?.

"Processes of Consolidation and Destruction in Czechoslovakia." International Documentation and Information Centre. The Hague: August 1969.

"Radio Free EurOpe Research, Czechoslovakia." Radio Free EurOpe. Munich: 1968 - 1970.

"Radio Free Europe Research, Czechoslovak Press Survey." Radio Free EurOpe. Munich: 1968 - 1970. APPENDICES APPENDIX A

CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS

1967

June: 4th Congress of Writers' Union; open conflict between writers and Party leadership centering on position regarding Arab-Israeli conflict.

October: Central Committee plenum; Open criticism of Novotny; enor- mous public reaction against Party leadership after police attack Student demonstrators in Prague.

December: Central Committee turns against Novotny and conservatives.

1968

January 4: Central Committee reconvenes; Novotny attacked and resigns as First Secretary.

January 5: Central Committee separates functions of First Secretary and President of the Republic; Novotny retains Presidency. Dubcek elected First Secretary; for first time in Party history leader elected by the full Central Committee of 100, not by the 14-man Presidium.

January 21: National Assembly President Smrkovsky signals beginning of increased journalistic liberty in Speech which says that the people should be informed of all official activities through the news media.

January 22: Minister of Culture Hendrych remains the most formidable conservative on the Céntral Committee; tries unsuccessfully to prevent dissemination of uncensored news.

March 5: Hendrych dismissed as Party Secretary for ideological matters.

March 14: East German newSpapers Open fire on Czechoslovak reforms.

March 16: Prague censors at Central Publications office publish resolution saying they want to quit.

March 22: Novotny resigns as President.

148 149

1968

March 23: Meeting in Dresden of Bulgarian, Czechoslovak, East German, Hungarian, Polish and Soviet Party leaders. Communique refers to measures to strengthen the Warsaw Pact and its armed forces.

March 26: Dubcek gives a press conference for 134 writers on the Dresden conference.

March 28: War hero Svoboda chosen as President despite pOpular senti- ment for liberal Cisar.

April 5: New Presidium elected by Central Committee; secret ballot, media present for first time.

April 6: Government of Premier Lenart resigns; Cernik forms new government.

April 9: Czechoslovak Communist Party's "Action Program" published; Dubcek calls for "socialism with a human face."

April 30: Pravda quotes Czechoslovak conservatives who expressed fears over the consequences of lifting press and broadcast censorship.

May 5: Warsaw press opens attack on Czechoslovak reforms; Soviet Presidium meets in Mescow with Dubcek, Cernik, Smrkovsky.

May 6: Polish government protests to Czechoslovakia about "anti-Polish" campaign.

May 8: Meeting in Mescow of leaders of Soviet, Polish, East German, Hungarian and Bulgarian parties; little publicity, no communique.

May 17-25:, Soviet Premier Kosygin visits Czechoslovakia for health cure and government consultations.

May 18: Czechoslovakia protests to East Germany about article in Berliner Zeitung May 9 which alleged that U.S. and West German military units were inside Czechoslovakia.

May 30: Dubcek announces Extraordinary Congress of the Czechoslovak Communist Party for the fall. Novotny dismissed from the Central Committee and suSpended from Party membership.

June 17: Foreign Minister Hajek goes to East Germany for discussion of increasing ideological tensions.

June 26: National Assembly passes law abolishing advance censorship of news. 150

1968

June 27: Prague newspapers Prage, Mlada Fronta, Zemedelske NOviny and Literarny Listi publish the manifesto "2,000 Words" by Ludvik Vaculik, demanding an acceleration of the democratization process and calling on workers to demand the ouster of those who had abused their power. Manifesto criticized by Dubcek and the Presidium.

July 5: Smrkovsky criticizes the "2,000 Words" for "political romanticism" while admitting the "honorable intentions" of its author.

July 10: Soviet Literaturnaya Gazeta attacks the "2,000 Words". Cisar elected chairman of the Czech National Council.

July 11: Pravda attacks "2,000 Words" and compares situation in Czechoslovakia with that in Hungary in 1956. Prague Radio rejoinder deplores attempts to "spread among the inadequately informed public the false belief about dangers threatening Czechoslovak socialism."

July 13: East German Neues Deutschland attacks "2,000 Words" and Czechoslovak develoPments. Yugoslav news agency Tanyug quotes President Tito as expressing disbelief that there could exist in the U.S.S.R. elements so short-sighted as to resort to a policy of force toward Czechoslovakia.

July 14-15: Bulgarian, East German, Hungarian, Polish and Soviet leaders again meet in Warsaw. "Warsaw letter" expresses the leaders as ”deeply disturbed" by events in Czechoslovakia.

July 17: Neues Deutschland gives "illuminating details" of "massive" West German intervention in Czechoslovakia.

July 18: Czechoslovak Presidium issues reply to the "Warsaw letter" refuting its allegations. Dubcek broadcast to the nation, thanking citizens for their support and observing that "we have no alternative but to complete the profound democratic and socialist changes in our life, together with the peOple."

July 19: Pravda claims that a secret cache of American arms was found near the West German border of Czechoslovakia. Also claims that documents describing a NATO and CIA plot to subvert East European countries, particularly Czechoslovakia and East Germany, are in Soviet hands.

July 20: Hungarian news agency MTI is only media outlet in the five Warsaw Pact countries to publish Czechoslovak Presidium's reply to the "Warsaw letter." 151

1968

July 29: Hungarian daily Magyar Hirlap states that the tragic experience of Hungary has not been taken into consideration in Czecho- slovakia. Bilateral meeting between the U.S.S.R. and Czechoslovakia at Cierna nad Tisou.

August 1: Pravda suSpends attacks on Czechoslovakia. Short joint communique issued at the conclusion of the Cierna talks says Czechoslovak leaders will meet with "Warsaw letter" signatories in Bratislava. Smrkovsky tells a large crowd in Prague that the Czechoslovak delegation has "succeeded in securing the sympathy of the Soviet comrades for our internal affairs. Our internal affairs will not be the subject of discussion at the Bratislava meeting."

August 3: Participants in Bratislava meeting issue a declaration which makes no reference to the internal situation in Czechoslovakia.

August 9-11: President Tito of Yugoslovia visits Czechoslovakia and is given an enthusiastic welcome.

August 12-13: East Germany's Ulbricht meets with Dubcek at Karlovy Vary.

August 15-17: President Ceausescu of Rumania visits Czechoslovakia.

August 17: Pravda breaks three-week moratorium with article accusing the Czechoslovak press of slander.

August 20: Presidium meets to plan for the 14th Extraordinary Congress. Warsaw Pact armies cross Czechoslovakian borders about 11 P.M. Central Committee Presidium decides to issue proclamation appealing for peaceful resistance. TOp politicians arrested by Soviet trOOps in early hours of 21st.

August 21: Svoboda called upon at Hradcany Palace by would-be members of Soviet-sponsored government.

August 21-27: National Assembly called together by Smrkovsky; meets in unbroken session under siege.

August 22: 14th Extraordinary Congress meets clandestinely in Vysocany factory outside Prague.

August 23: Svoboda arrives in Moscow with some of Czechoslovak leaders.

August 24: Dubcek, Cernik and Smrkovsky released from imprisonment and allowed to participate in the Moscow negotiations. 152

1968

August 27: Svoboda and other Czechoslovak leaders return from Moscow.

September 13: Albania withdraws from the Warsaw Pact. Czechoslovak National Assembly approves bill setting up Office for the Press and Information.

September 16: Tass accuses Czechoslovak information media of "wrecking the Moscow agreement" and charges Yugoslav press with spreading "bourgeois propaganda" about Czechoslovakia.

September 25: Hejzlar, head of Czechoslovak Radio, and Pelikan, head of Czechoslovak Television, are dismissed by the government.

September 29: Gustav Husak, party chief in Slovakia, claims on television that the party had, prior to the invasion, planned to take action against the excesses of the mass media.

November 12: Seven Western journalists expelled from Czechoslovakia.

December 6: Appointment of Smidmajer as new director of television.

1969

February: Strength of conservatives within the Party growing, though Dubcek and other leaders are permitted to stay on.

March 19: Warsaw Pact meeting at Budapest shows Soviets' apparent confidence in the "normalization" of Czechoslovakia.

April 2: Press censorship restored.

April 8-9: Presidium approves inquiry into journalism; newsmen summoned to hearings. APPENDIX B

RADIO AND TELEVISION FACILITIES are

case

(Prague) Labem

the

(Prague)

Kralove

Kostolany Budajovice

In nad

Location*

Plzen Praha-Kraj

transmitters

Podebrady/

Usti

Petrin

Zbraslav

Zbraslav Zbraslav

Transmitter

Libcice

Ceske

Hradec

Velke Melnik the studio.

kw kw studio,

city

30 30

Power

100

150 100

coverage.

10/2

10/2 30/6

same

8/1.6

FACILITIES 2.5/0.5

central

1 kHz a effective

17840, 15310,

normally

Table

11960,

6105,

21735

9540,

9600,

TELEVISION

kHz

mHz mHz

most

10 12

served

AND

15448,

701

15285,

6055,

638 9505,

given,

9575,

11800,

1520

1286

21700, 68.96

Channel/ 66.83 Frequency give not

RADIO

7345,

5930,

9560,

15365,

11990,

9630, 21450, site transmitters

region

I/night

I/Foreign2 I1 FM

the

Regional

Network Praha

Foreign

CS CS transmitter low-power throughout *When Studio

multiple

Prague

Prague Prague

Identification

Prague

Prague Prague

scattered

Prague

Prague Prague of

153 154

Bystrica Kostolany

Location

Brno Ostrava Bratislava Jihlava

Banska

Transmitter Kosice Velke kw

kw kw

kw kw kw kw kw

kw 30 Power

100 150

5/1

200 2/5

10/2

10/2 10/2 10/2

10/2

1-Continued

kHz

kHz kHz kHz

kHz

mHz mHz mHz

mHz

mHz mHz mHz

Table ency

1 9 11

953 272

1097 1232

1520 71.87

66.32 69.07

69.08

69.86 66.98 67.76 Channel/ 68.84

Frequ I

I Praha

Network TV TV TV 333

Bratislava/ Foreign4 Regional

CS Hradiste Studio

Identification

Ostrava Uherske Brno Brno Brno

Brno Ostrava Ostrava Ostrava Ostrava Brno Bratislava Bratislava

Bratislava Bratislava Bratislava

Bratislava Bratislava Opava

Table 1-Continued

Studio Channel/ Transmitter Identification Network Frequency Power Location

Banska Bystrica Bratislava 701 kHz 100 kw Banska Bystrica 69.69 mHz CD“) kw Banska Bystrica 72.50 mHz kw

Usti nad Labem Regional 701 kHz NNx‘l’x'f kw Usti nad Labem cs I/Regionals 1484 kHz kw Usti nad Labem 70.50 mHz kw Usti nad Labem 72.20 mHz kw 155

Kosice Regional 701 kHz Kosice Bratislava 1232 kHz 100 kw Kosice 66.38 mHz kw Kosice 68.87 mHz kw

Plzen Praha 953 kHz kw Plzen 67.34 mHz kw Plzen 69.56 mHz kw

Hradec Kralove Praha/Regional6 1232 kHz tﬁNx'l’ kw Hradec Kralove 67.22 mHz kw Hradec Kralove 69.35 mHz kw

Rimavska Sobota Regional 1286 kHz kw Rimavska Sobota Regional 1484 kHz kw 156 Location Transmitter

kw kw

10 10

15 Power

1-Continued

kHz kHz kHz

kHz kHz

mHz mHz

mHz mHz mHz mHz

Table

1594

1484 1520 1520 1520 70.07 71.63

67.28 68.06 69.20

69.40

Frequency Channel/

I I Praha CS

CS CS

Regional7

Network

Bratislava/

Hola Hola

Vary

POprad

Tatry Tatry

Budajovice

Studio Identification

Ceske Liberec

Lubica

Jihlava Ceske

Ceske Kralove Kralove

Karlovy

Vysoke Vysoke

157 Location Transmitter

nighttime. kw kw kw 1 l 2 Power

relay

nighttime.

network.

relay

network.

service

lr-Continued

Praha

Bratislava

service kHz mHz mHz

Table

and

Foreign 1594 71.60 69.50 Channel/ Frequency

studio studio

studio

Foreign

daytime;

P.M.

local local

local

6:55

daytime;

network both both

both

only.

from Network Bratislava

from

from from

network

1Evenings

7Feeds

3Network 6Feeds

4Bratislava 5Feeds

2CS Studio Identification Zilina Zilina Zilina

APPENDIX C

AN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION OF POST-JANUARY

MEDIA DEVELOPMENT

The following is an excerpt from an article entitled "The

Intellectual Coalition and the Political System after January 1968" in Tribuna, No. 29, July 30, 1969. The author, J. Smrcina, is thought to be in reality Pavel AuerSperg, a lieutenant of ousted dictator

Antonin Novotny, who returned to official favor after the replacement of Dubcek as Party chief by Gustav Husak. Tribuna is the weekly publication of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Czech Lands Bureau.

In this article, the author gives the official current explanation for the Operation of the Czechoslovak media during the Spring and summer of 1968.

The abolition of censorship was an act of extreme political irreSpon- sibility in a situation in which a press law and other forms of control over the information media did not exist. These media became an uncontrollable force which began to disrupt the socialist political system. More accurately, this was a force which later came under control--but under the control of the rightists.

The majority of information media workers are Communists. How was it possible, in view of this fact, for these media to turn against the policies of the Party? How could it happen that these Communists de facto started to destroy not only the distorted political system, but also the socialist political system as such? How could it happen that in a number of cases not only journalistic conscience and reSponsibility, but also moral inhibitions were forsaken, that any kind of organization was broken up, economic management disrupted, and the foundations of society destroyed?

158 159

Several chief causes exist. A.J. Liehm indicated one of them in his speech delivered at the journalists' congress a year ago, "Does Socialism Need the Press?" In this speech, which was the ultimate in snobbishness and intellectual arrogance, this former fighter against any kind of power demanded the same power saying: ...The press must really and literally belong to those who create it, to those who work in it." What Liehm wanted, did indeed come to pass.

The press, radio, and television of this technical age of ours strongly influence not only politics, but also education, taste, and one's way of life. They are ubiquitous. There is no time or place where the individual can hide from them. But, did our "absolute freedom of speech" automatically express the Opinions of the peOple?

Who decided about the selection of news items, who picked the readers letters to be published, who controlled the choice of programs on television and determined what was to be cut and what was to be produced? Who did not have these Opportunities? Who were the readers of the news who commented on it at the same time through intonation and mimicry? Who was it who had almost unrestricted access to television studios and editorial offices, while others had access on invitation only? Those working in the press, radio, and television had these facilities which were denied to those not working there. In a word, democracy stOpped short at the doors of the editorial offices and of the radio and television studios.

A politician is at least elected to his post and controlled by the electorate, but who elects and controls a journalist? In the situation which develOped in the spring of 1968, closed groups of workers of the information media, whom no one had elected, not only arbitrarily manipulated the public, but also decided about the favor or disfavor with which this same public viewed this or that politician. What distinguished these closed groups from the closed groups of the regime of personal power? This freedom of Speech was only for the press which decided what was, and what was not, the Opinion of the peOple after, moreover, having molded this opinion in advance.

Do not let us harbor illusions. It was the function of the journalistic profession, and it will continue to be its function, to manipulate information and, thus, to manipulate the public. This manipulation must be under the control of society.

In the situation which developed in the spring Of 1968, even the most conscientious journalist could not look on passively when other newspapers carried news which his had failed to publish, or when other neWSpapers printed more sensational stuff than his. He had to prove his worth in some way. Whenever legal inhibitions 160 are absent in this situation, a ruinous competitive mechanism develOps, which gradually destroys moral inhibitions, a mechanism which disorganizes not only the political system, but also society itself. Any uncontrolled power is bound to hypertrophy. This also applies to the seventh estate.

Under conditions in which the rightists controlled the information media, this process was bound to turn against the policies of the Communist Party--not only, that is, against distorted policies, but against the policies of the Communist Party in general. At the same time it was certainly clear that, at least in the beginning, it was out of the question to pursue an Open anti-Communist policy and overtly try to overthrow the political system. Politics is not a girls' hostel and, as Ivan Svitak used to say, one does not try to flush out a rabbit with a drum. Hence all this was being done in a vacuum under the slogans of socialism with a human face, and absolute democracy and freedom.

The rightists would not have succeeded in winning control over the information media, had they not deceived or intimidated the majority of upright journalists by means of various slogans. They also took advantage of the fact that this country is virtually infested with the petty bourgeoisie and that some representatives of the former regime were petty bourgeois in actual fact.

The disunited and grOping Party leadership first lost control over the communication media, the most important political instrument. Ultimately, the communication media Opposed the policy of the Party and stirred up anti-Communist emotions. Gradually any action became impossible against the antisocialist deviations of the post-January development from those aims which form the tenets of an imperfect action program of the Party, a program influenced by the Right and announced as a result of a great deal of improvising.

The Party had no real authority; it was discredited...The fact that, despite the decisions, declarations, and appeals of the Party's leadership, every design of the Party had been systematically frustrated...the ultimate result was the neutralization, and in fact the destruction and impotence of practically the whole Party and its leadership. Thus a solution by political means was impossible.

When a political solution fails, recourse is taken to violent means. There are no other means available. We could take each part of the political system separately and show its discrediting, disintegration, or neutralization. This is true of Security, the courts, the army, and of the National Assembly, the law and the constitution. Evidence was presented by our press... 161

The political system of a socialist society was almost destroyed. It was basically only a question of time before the destruction of the system would have been complete--the system which prevented the overthrows of socialist develOpment. To begin with we ourselves created a situation which the Western governments have been trying to bring about, spending over the years billions of dollars, marks, francs, or pounds sterling in the process. At the same time there were powerful elements calling for the replacement of the present political system by an alternative one, their minimum demand being that it be a system without Communists...

This internal explanation for Czechoslovak develOpments during

1968 was translated and published in Radio Free Europe Research,

Czechoslovak Press Survey No. 2252 (263), August 27, 1969.

APPENDIX D

EASTERN-BLOC REACTIONS TO CLANDESTINE

CZECHOSLOVAK RADIO

The first report from Moscow on the clandestine radio operations in Czechoslovakia appeared on the Tass International Service in English at 1916 GMT, 22 August 1968:

Underground radio stations and illegal publications, as well as Western prOpaganda centers, are spreading the most low-grade falsifications.

At 0643 GMT, 22 August 1968, Tass went on, quoting Pravda:

The Deutsche Welle radio station, mouthpiece of the West German revanchists...is instigating most debased and predatory passions in West Germany expressing regret at the Fact that in Czechoslovakia "there will be neither cannonade nor any street fighting..."

Moscow's Home Service had its first report for the Russian audience in a piece by Artem Panifilov in Prague at 0930 GMT, 23 August 1968:

It appeared that they (Czechoslovak soldiers interviewed by Panifilov) had only been listening to foreign broadcasts, from Radio Free EurOpe, the Voice of America, and BBC. In these broadcasts and...in broadcasts of some underground radio stations of unknown origin which sprang up in Czechoslovakia, the arrival of the troops into Czecho- slovakia is crudely distorted.

East Germany, which had promulgated a vituperative philosophical campaign against the Czechoslovak leadership throughout the spring and summer of 1968, immediately began blaming West Germany for the radio problems. The East Berlin Domestic Service carried a report at 0933

GMT, 23 August 1968, here excerpted:

162 163

...special units of the Bonn Bundeswehr took up Operational positions along the Bavarian-Czechoslovak border as early as 21 August. According to reports from Ulm, the units involved are the reinforced psychological warfare company of the West German Second Army Corps and contingents of the Andernach Radio Battalion. Since Wednesday morning, this radio unit has been continuously broadcasting, on various wave lengths, fabricated declarations and appeals to the people of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The Bonn radio and television stations pick up these broadcasts and present them as "broadcasts just monitored" from clandestine transmitters stationed on Czechoslovak territory.

By August 24th, Moscow hadn't decided whether to claim that the "free and legal" Czechoslovak Radio was actually underground in that country or propaganda from abroad. At 0200 GMT, 24 August 1968, the Moscow Domestic Service stated, quoting the Pravda correspondent in Prague:

On 21 August the underground radio transmitters...stepped up their witchhunt against the leading figures of the Central Committee who had remained true to Leninism... Yesterday about noon, radio stations and the telegraph agencies of the Western powers carried the so-called Silhan statement transmitted by underground radio from Prague...for 6 minutes the so-called Radio Free Prague broadcast a list demanding the neutrality Of Czechoslovakia... Two hours passed and Silhan...again spoke on the underground radio.

The Russian radio then tried the "black propaganda" bit on their Home

Service at 1900 GMT, 24 August 1968:

Whereas yesterday the station broadcasting from abroad, which has styled itself as the Czechoslovak radio, urged that only the present President should be trusted, today it does not even mention the visit (of Svoboda to Mascow).

Mascow finally decided that, for its Russian audience, maybe the transmissions were coming from Czechoslovak soil, so a new explanation was settled on; the facilities had been prepared in advance.

Mbscow's Domestic Service reported at 0740 GMT, 23 August; reading the text of a Pravda article by Yuriy Zhukov: 164

It is not accidental...that during these days the counterrevolutionaries have so widely used the means of radio broadcasting, television, and prOpaganda at their disposal which turned out to be prepared in advance and without anyone's knowledge--secret transmitters ...and so forth.

In the same vein Radio Moscow in Turkish to Cyprus at 1530 GMT,

26 August 1968 continued:

The events of recent days have Openly demonstrated that the counterrevolutionaries did not intend to confine themselves to mere statements. They were preparing for more definite moves which could lead Czechoslovakia to fratricide. While they were preparing for a coup, the counterrevolutionaries were training saboteurs, and establishing arms dumps and a network of secret transmission stations. Now, all these are being used...they are trying to organize their forces by means of secret radio transmissions and are resorting to active Operations...A fascist headquarters has been discovered in Prague. In addition to arms and a radio transmitter, fascist literature and even Hitler's portrait were found there.

But to the home audience, Radio Moscow in Russian at 1530 Gmt, 26 August

1968, still blamed primarily foreign concerns:

A considerable number of the submachineguns and machineguns discovered in Prague and other cities are of West German manufacture. Many underground radio stations calling themselves Czechoslovak are broadcasting from West German territory. MOreover, some are clearly using the transmitter of Radio Free EurOpe.

Now, East Germany, which started the West German broadcasting hypothesis, changed its line. Deutschlandsender, the communist service for West Germany, at 1629 GMT, 26 August 1968, said:

Since this weekend, illegal radio stations in Prague have been calling upon President Svoboda to break off...negotiations (in Moscow)...A massive anti-communist campaign in the West, in which the aforementioned illegal radio stations participated, labeled the assisting trOOps of the fraternal states as "occupiers."

The East Berlin newSpaper Neues Deutschland, 26 August 1968, comple- mented this explanation:

Counterrevolutionaries, under the codeword "here is courier reporting," are giving code orders to propaganda centers, via illegal radio stations, they (youth groups) receive orders from 165

the counterrevolutionary headquarters and make every effort to implement these orders. The result can be seen everywhere in the city: destroyed signposts and traffic signs, houses and display windows smeared with agitation slogans, damaged cars, buses, and streetcars, marks from rifle and machinegun bullets which were fired at the guardposts of friendly armies...Western diplomats such as the head of the West German trade mission in Prague and the Austrian consul in Bratislava, in violation of their status, are acting as commentators on radio programs and openly interfering in domestic affairs. The notorious Deutschlandfunk (West German radio service for East Germany)...financed by the Bonn Federal Government---disseminates information from the staff headquarters of the counterrevolution almost simultaneously with Radio Free Prague.

As the occupation week moved along, MOscow continued blaming outside forces for helping to establish clandestine radio Operations in Czechoslovakia. Tass International Service in Russian as 0245 GMT,

28 August 1968, quoted an article in Pravda by Yuriy Zhukov:

There was a report from Vienna which stated that great assistance in establishment of a network of clandestine transmitters was given to the Czechoslovak counterrevolution by its West German patrons.

The report states that 22 mobile radio transmitters, built in the German Federal Republic and West Berlin, were smuggled into the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic through Austria in July. Western news agencies also cited a large number of facts confirming that the counterrevolution had meticulously organized an underground network for conducting subversive propaganda.

Hungary joined the rising chorus of detractors from the

Czechoslovak radio Operation on 27 August 1968 when the MTI news agency in its International Service in English at 1420 GMT quoted the Magyar Nemzet correSpondent in Prague:

It is characteristic from this angle...that dozens of pirate radios have been put into Operation within a few days. Considera- ble preparations are necessary to set up such pirate stations. The stations are broadcasting false, self-produced news. One of the stations was located and uncovered by Hungarian soldiers last weekend. When they arrived above it in a helic0pter, the station ceased its broadcasting and the Operators found on the site tried to prove that their apparatus had not been Operating for days. However, the lamps and the instruments in 166

the station were Still warm from use.. Various proclamations were also found in the studio which called for strikes and resistance.

On August 28, MOSCOW Radio released its definitive statement on the clandestine Czechoslovak stations for its Russian audience.

The Moscow Domestic Service at 0600 GMT, 28 August 1968 read an article, again by Pravda writer Yuriy Zhukov entitled: "The Truth will be Victorious." It is quoted in its entirety:

The imperialist press has been blurting out much information in the past few days, exposing the dangerous plans and actions of the counterrevolutionaries. U.S. agencies and papers, obviously over- estimating the chances of the enemies of the Czechoslovak peOple and thinking their victory was near, revealed that these enemies had long prepared to seize power. The Washington Post, for example, on 26 August called the timely organization of the underground network of mass information media one of the greatest wonders.

It turns out that the underground had already created its headquarters. Secret radio transmitters had been set up, which began Operating only a few hours after the forces of the allied socialist countries entered the country hastening to the aid of the Czechoslovak peOple. Every kind of dossier, material, office, and technical equipment had been installed in these headquarters. Trained personnel and Specialists immediately went there. The paper adds that the radio transmissions were conducted with the aid of amazingly strong radio signals. According to the Washinggon Post, the illegal radio stations rely on an underground information service, on a whole network of informers. One of the powerful transmitters acts as a guiding radio direction finding station, controlling the duration of relays of information.

It is reported from Vienna that great assistance in develOping the secret radio station network was given to the Czechoslovak counterrevolution by their West German Sponsors. It became known that in July and August, 22 mobile radio stations made in the German Federal Republic and West Berlin were secretly sent from Austria to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

These portable radio stations were suitable for truck mounting and easily passed through the checkpoints of Berg near Bratislava, of Kleinhaugsdorf in the region of Znojmo, and of (Lignin), in the region of Ceske Budejovice, taking advantage of the fact that the (Austrian) frontier Customs control had been greatly weakened by the Czechoslovak side. 167

'QPI on 23 August, APP on 24 August, and Reuters on 25 August published a great quantity of facts confirming that the counterrevolution had organized this clandestine network for subversive propaganda in advance and very thoroughly. The diSposition of forces for carrying out counterrevolutionary activities was prepared and put into effect in advance.

Of course, it is still too early to give an exhaustive analysis of this diSposition of forces. However, certain organizers of the underground, believing that their victory was near, made themselves known. On 26 August, for instance, the Swedish paper Aftonbladet published an interview with a certain leader of the Social Democrats, (Janner), which he gave in his underground headquarters somewhere in Prague. (Janner) said that on the night of the invasion he and his people left Prague, but they returned the next day to organize Subversive activities. According to him, contacts are made from this headquarters with many illegal papers and a network of clandestine radio stations.

On 26 August the 0.8. paper Baltimore Sun reported: Coded reports are being broadcast among news relayed by the free Czechoslovak radio stations.

There are numerous indications that an underground army is being created. Yes, in these days the clandestine ratio Stations have indeed been transmitting coded reports which at first glance seem innocent and even playful, but in reality conceal malevo- lent schemes: George (Kodochka) is calling you. Who is with (Lirik)? (Nelara) is now going to the aid of Yelena. There are (angels) not far away.

On 24 August the clandestine radio stations transmitted a report addressed to all authors of the "2,000 Words." They were asked to go underground immediately. Instructions were broadcast on the same channels to underground detachments already formed. They were ordered to delay and StOp military convoys and send them over precipices, to attack soldiers of the allied armies, to give them neither bread nor water, to have no mercy on Soviet soldiers. On 26 August one of (the) radio stations transmitted instructions to poison water and food being consumed by trOOps of the allied armies.

The enemies of the Czech and Slovak peOple from the very beginning were utterly hostile to the idea of negotiations in Mescow. In their helpless rage they grasped at the only weapons left to them to try somehow to prevent the Successful conduct of the negotiations--lies and slander. The clandestine transmitters sent reports, each more full of lies than the previous. They reported that President Svoboda had been arrested, that Minister of Defense General Duzur had been arrested, and so. 168

A crushing blow was dealt to these schemes of the counterrevolutionaries when Prague television1 Showed pictures demonstrating the warm greeting President Svoboda received in MOSCOW. But even this did not Silence the slanderers. They announced without a pang of conscience on 26 August that this scene was falsified and that there allegedly had been no friendly greeting.

It was not by chance that hardly had the Soviet-Czechoslovak communique been published and President Svoboda had addressed the peOple saying that Czechoslovakia can deve10p Successfully only within the framework of the socialist community. When the numerous clandestine radio transmitters continuing to Operate on Czechoslovak territory began to attack the aggreement (sic). On the afternoon of 27 August, AFP and Reuters sent out a large number of telegrams reporting protests by clandestine radio stations in Prague, Brno, Southern MOravia, Gottwaldov, Southern Bohemia, and so on. The secret radio stations, obviously acting on orders, declared that the Soviet-Czechoslovak communique did not suit them and continued to (sow dissension).

It is characteristic that the clandestine radio stations have already begun a campaign in support of the self-Styled leadership appointed by the illegal rabble which called itself the extraordinary congress of the party, clearly setting it up against the leaders of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and the government.

The Moscow Domestic Service continued to berate the clandestine

Operation of the media in Czechoslovakia on August 28th. Special

Pravda correSpondents in Prague, Viktor Mayevskiy and Vasiliy

Zhuravskiy reported at 0650 GMT for the Russian audience:

Yesterday the clandestine radio reported that the command of the Soviet trOOps allegedly had closed the Czechoslovak State Bank because it refused to change Soviet money for Korunas for someone. We immediately found out that this was a lie from beginning to end, and this kind of information has been poured out lately on the peOple. Even now, as we are writing these lines, the radio on all channels is broadcasting the communique on the results of the (Mbscow) talks, and millions of peOple are listening to it with great attention.

1The occupation trOOps, with the help of some Czech collaborators were Operating Prague's Channel 7. These pictures were Shown on that channel. 169

Moscow Radio in Arabic at 1400 GMT on 28 August 1968, to the Middle

East, had a commentary by Vitaliy Beloborodko which was entitled

"The subversive activity of U.S. intelligence against the Socialist

Republic of Czechoslovakia":

The author of the article (”The role of U.S. Spies in the Czechoslovak crisis,” in the U.S. communist paper Daily World), Art Shields, pointed Out the prompt appearance of several powerful radio and television stations belonging to the counterrevolutionary forces. He concluded that all that equipment is regarded as part of the plan laid down by the CIA in order to undermine the foundations of socialism in this country.

And Moscow Radio in Slovak to the peOple of occupied Czechoslovakia

(1730 GMT, 28 August 1968):

At the moment the counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia has received orders for further actions. It is getting weapons, equipment for illegal broadcasting, and other means for the realization of its subversive activity.

The Budapest paper Nepszabadsag on August 27 carried a diSpatch from Pal E. Feher and Laszlo Szabo in Prague:

...our soldiers read with understandable anger a report in one of the illegal new3papers explaining that day's meat shortage in a city by claiming that Hungarian troops "have plundered" meat supplies. Typically, this hoax by the illegal paper has been rapidly taken up by other illegal papers and transmitters!

Tass made an interesting charge, never fully explained, on

29 August 1968, at 1430 GMT in its English-language International

Service: 170

Certai Western radio stations...are jamming the Czechoslovak radio, which gives Objective coverage of life in the country, and at the same time are helping clandestine radio transmitters.

Radio Moscow, in its English-language service for North

America, gave Uhited States listeners something to think about

(0100 GMT, 31 August 1968). Vladislav Kozyakov read a commentary excerpted here:

We have heard that on Sunday and Mbnday between 2100 and 2300 EST in the evening the American public was given no chance to pick up radio broadcasts from the Soviet Union. Some of the wavelengths and frequencies on which Soviet broadcasts in English, Russian and Ukrainian reach the United States were jammed. On others, transmitters of the antisocialist Voice of Free Czechoslovakia were used to push the Soviet programs off the air. Radio stations of the U.S. Armed Forces also shifted their broadcasts to the wavelengths and megacycles used by Soviet stations.

This came in the wake of State Department charges that VOA transmissions were being completely blanketed by Russian jammers.

Meanwhile, the East German media looked further afield for scape- goats for the radio Situation in Eastern EurOpe. The ADN news agency

Domestic Service at 1615 GMT, 3 September 1968 reported:

The calculations of the BBC and its supporters have not proved correct, says the London correSpondent of Pravda on Tuesday in connection with the inflammatory reports of the BBC. "Today the inSpirerS at the BBC are obviously dissatisfied, because the possibility for the realization of their insidious plans has been removed." The Pravda correSpondent reports in detail concerning the activity of transmitters Supporting the counterrevolution in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. "Immediately after the (invasion), broadcasts in Czech and Slovak to Czechoslovakia increased by about 20 percent. The reports from the BBC exactly suited the book of the counterrevolutionary forces. Full conformity existed between those fighting against socialism in Czechoslovakia from Great Britain, and the forces which wished to

2The reference here to "Czechoslovak radio" evidently means Radio Vltava which purported to be the "Voice of Czechoslovakia" but was operating from East Germany. Above, Chapter 7. 171

overthrow the socialist order in the country." This was also indicated by the fact that illegal transmitters have made use of BBC material.

This line had been picked up from Radio Moscow which, in its service for the United Kingdom, on 2 September 1968 at 1900 GMT had

Vladimir Bolodin's commentary:

The announcement in London that the BBC was extending its broadcasts to Eastern and Central EurOpe, primarily in the Czech language, said that this was being done in view of the Czechoslovak crisis. Yet on the very day the announcement about BBC emergency measures was made, the Czechoslovak Embassy in London stated that life in the country was being normalized. This was also borne out by reports from Prague on the resumption of normal work by government, party, and other organizations and the stabilization of economic life in the country.

This difference in estimates of the situation in Czechoslovakia seems to me, Vladimir Volodin writes, to be rather significant. I think that the BBC is unwittingly acknowledging that the defeat of the counterrevolution, which had tried to replace socialism in Czechoslovakia with capitalism, and the rapid return to normality in that country really signify a crisis in the anti-Soviet propaganda on the BBC'S home and external services, and it is to liquidate its own prOpaganda crisis and in the ardent hOpe of inciting a new crisis similar to the one that Czechoslovakia has just gotten over that the BBC'S foreign service is extending its broadcasts.

This conclusion is best confirmed by the BBC broadcasts in the last 10 days of August. Things went so far that on the light program one morning I heard a report that a group of terrorists in Czechoslovakia had dismantled the railway line along which a train from the Soviet Union was due to arrive. The announcer who was running the program of pop music added: "Good work, comrades!"

The BBC'S extension of its foreign broadcasts, however, gives grounds for believing that it will outdo the Sunday Times3 (which according to Volodin, holds the record for cynicism). Apparently the moderate views of the new director general of the BBC, Mr. Curran, will prove no obstacle. In an interview on the day of

3The editor of the Sunday Times, Colin Chapman, authored the book August let: The Rape of Czechoslovakia, referred to frequently in this thesis. 172 his appointment, Mr. Curran said that the main task of the BBC external services was to achieve stability in the world in order to deve10p trade. In the past, he said, this was done by the army of the British Empire. Now he feels it is the job of the BBC. It is worth noting at this point that the army comes under the government while the BBC so far has been considered independent. But, writes Vladimir Volodin, I think the director general was right in equating the two, since Britain's anti-Soviet policy and the anti-Soviet propaganda of the BBC are two parts of a single whole.

London radio and television have done a great deal to find in the Czechoslovak events justification for greater British military contributions to NATO. It is impossible, eSpecially now, to believe that the BBC wants to strengthen international stability since it portrays the stabilization of the situation in Czechoslo- vakia as a catastrOphe. We have no reason for feeling anxious that the external services of the BBC, even if extended, will be able to shake the stability of the socialist countries. The home service of the BBC radio and television give much greater cause for anxiety.

We are all aware of the tremendous influence radio and television have on peOple, eSpecially when the broadcasting is in the hands of such experts as the BBC. But we are also sure that even the BBC cannot turn every Britisher into an enemy of the Soviet peOple because, although we don't believe in the political independence of the BBC, we do believe in the ability of the British peOple to think for themselves. APPENDIX E

POST-INVASION CENSORSHIP POLICY

Radio Czechoslovakia carried a recorded interview with Josef

Vohnout, first director of the Office of Press and Information, con-

ducted by Magda Kolarova at 1601 GMT on September 5, 1968. Vohnout

tried to explain how the office would Operate. Here follows the text

of the interview:

VOHNOUT: The task and aim of this new office of ours is, as it is said in the decision of the government and as it will be stated in the law, to direct and control in a uniform manner the activities of the press, radio, television, CTK, and above all, at the same time also work as an information and consultative center of the Presidium of the government in relations with editorial offices.

KOLAROVA: Is it not, therefore, a (counterpart) of the Central Admini- stration of Publications which disappeared when censorship was abolished in June this year?

VOHNOUT: Certainly not. We, our government and our party, are striv- ing to solve in this extraordinary situation these problems of influencing and directing the press, radio, and television through new ways, by political means, and by stressing the reSponsibility of all editors and publishers. This will not be done in some platonic way, but by consistently stressing the reSponsibility which is also mentioned in the existing press law. We intend, and this is also how it is already being done, to invite relevant, reSponsible editors to our office and inform them of the stand- points, instructions, and guidelines of the government on how, in a given situation, to approach the question of publishing and reporting on some questions in such a way as to inform our public in accordance with the ideas and needs of our government, which fully needs the support of our public to normalize conditions in our country.

KOLAROVA: You are, therefore, a kind of intermediate link between the state authorities and editorial Offices.

VOHNOUT: It can be expressed in this way.

173 174

KOLAROVA: How long do you think your office will be functioning?

VOHNOUT: In the draft bill that the government will be submitting to the National Assembly, Article Four states that the law should Operate during a period of indiSpensable necessity.

Vohnout traveled to Bratislava on September 8 to participate

in a program entitled "We are with you--be with us." In a televised

interview seen in Bratislava at 1914 GMT on the local television out-

let, Vohnout was interviewed further on his role as the country's

chief censor:

INTERVIEWER: In the past few days the Office of Press and Information was set up at the government Presidium. Josef Vohnout was appointed director of this office. Thus he is also our direct superior and, in addition, he is a person who is in charge of a field which we term "supervision over press information."

VOHNOUT: Or "censorship" as it is generally called.

INTERVIEWER: This sounds rather unpleasant, but there are two differ- ences. The previous censorship used to be an extremely anonymous affair; the peOple who carried it out hid from the public. But here the representative is introduced to the public. This is the first difference. The other thing is that I attended the memorable meeting of journalists at the Presidium of the government where we ourselves voluntarily, in view of the situation which has emerged, realized that there is no other way but to introduce control over the press, radio and television. Thus the whole matter does not only rest on Comrade Vohnout.

VOHNOUT: I am thus the first censor who discloses his face to the public at large. According to the decision of the government Presidium, our activity--and this activity will also be defended by law-~may perhaps be illustrated as follows: Our task is watching, controlling, and directing the activity of the press, radio, and television along the lines of the policy of our party and government in the sense that our mass communications media--that is, all the workers of the press, radio and television--he1p the normalization of the situation in our country to a maximum extent, something that was pledged by the representatives of our party in Mascow.

INTERVIEWER: And does there exist any more Specific idea as to how this will be carried out--that is, will some apparatus be set up for this purpose, or will it more or less depend on the good will and understanding of us journalists? 175

VOHNOUT: How things will look is Spelled out in detail in the government decree, mainly by stipulation of distinct guidelines and instructions by the government as to how the problems concerning our internal and foreign policy are to be handled in the press, radio and television. We want to carry out our task in Such a way that we shall merely watch how these instructions are being complied with. Naturally, we do not want nor can we carry this out through the method of the old, rigid, bureaucratic, and sense- less censorship, which used stamps and numbers. I should like to say that we want to evaluate in retrOSpect the broadcasts of the radio, evaluate the telecasts, and to conduct a running check of the current press, both the dailies and weeklies, to see how certain problems are being treated there, how they are being explained, and how close are the contacts between the press and public opinion. Thus our office constitutes a sort of essential intermediary link not only between the government and these media but also between the whole public, so that the government, too, will in turn learn in what manner our press or the workers of the radio and television Operate. I will also learn what problems exist in the carrying out of this task, which confronts all of us workers of the press, radio and television, in conformity with the position of the government and party.

INTERVIEWER: Thus it is essentially some mutual agreement, based upon a word of honor?

VOHNOUT: I would not say that this is based only on a word of honor. We must also observe the laws of our own country, primarily the press law, which applies not only to the workers of the press but also of radio and television, particularly the political publi- cists, who are charged with a certain legal obligation, a certain reSponsibility to society, as to how the situation in a given country, our country, develops. We do not expect to resort to any great reprisals. Rather, we expect that if there is an unequivocal agreement and unity between the party, government, and the peOple--and our journalists community also belongs to these people--there will be as few such steps by the censorship of intervention or of giving instructions as possible.

INTERVIEWER: Before thanking you for the interview there remains one thing: What has been your experience with us so far?

VOHNOUT: So far good with the one day of television programs.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you. We have also had a good experience with you so far, and we hope that the words "so far" will change into the word "continuing."

VOHNOUT: I hOpe so, too. 176

These two interviews were the first definitive Statements of the new post-invasion censorship policy. This policy existed until April 2,

1969, when prior-censorship was reintroduced. ”'Tilifi‘ififltajlfligljlufiflmfifixiffliulgfiifillil“