u I .0 O I n 4 u ‘ b \°:‘: h! F i} r " v U . I . ”-303 P ’. _ ‘ :2 ".253: .m 2% Emmi: 55 25.12:. - .< .2 s 83$ 2: be $85., . zofigz. 83 m5. az< Sam: _x<>o._mo:uwNo NE. frintl..rt'f‘rr f‘1b\0.ww.otk00’tiov. .a .. pub--. s- .1... ...Oi3vVD'.iivr.tarlIoo'oo,./..I.- or .vrr»; .? a. u.t-O'.t.r.v>.lnur'p w.r-'s~*'~ iC .05.! {7 .. University ——- v"— ; magma u IOAG 8: SMS' 1 RHQK BINUERY IND. ‘) BRARY BINDERS ' ' pun. 2:23:31?! ABSTRACT THE CZECHOSLOVAK MEDIA AND THE 1968 INVASION By 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 occupa- tion 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 broad- cast 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 tele- vision 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 tele- vision 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 censor- ship 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 By 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 I 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.