Günter Bischof - The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968

37. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br. kutije 82, Sveska II, Information on several aspects of the situation in the ČSSR, 14 July 1968. From the talk between Ambassador Jakovlevski with Smrkovský, 13 July 1968.

38. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, Sveska I, osnovni materijal, estimation of Ambassador Jakovlevski on the situation in the ČSSR after the “Warsaw letter” by the five fraternal parties, 17 July 1968.

39. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, Sveska I, osnovni materijal.

40. Gough, A Good Comrade , 167.

41. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br. kutije 82, Sveska I, osnovne informacije, short overview on the development of the situation in the ČSSR made in the State Secretariat for Foreign Affairs (that is, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), 19 July 1968.

42. Marcus Wolf, Čovjek bez lica, Šef špijuna u tajnom ratu (Zagreb: Golden marketing Tehnička knjiga, 2004), 145. The East German secret police were reporting on contacts between the liberal circles in Prague with the Western circles, especially social democrats in Germany and Eurocommunists in Italy.

43. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, full text of the letter sent by the first secretary of the CC KSČ to Comrade Tito, 15 July 1968.

44. Zdravko Vuković, Od deformacija SDB do maspoka i liberalizma: Moji stenografski zapisi 1966–1972 godine (Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1989), 202.

45. Vuković, Od deformacija SDB do maspoka i liberalizma , 203; Jože Pirjevec, Jugoslavija: Nastanek, razvoj ter razpad Karadjordjevičeve in Titove Jugoslavije (Koper: Založba Lipa, 1995), 275. After the publication of the letter of “Five,” the Belgrade daily Politika published it in an article entitled “Informbiro 1968.”

46. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, records of the conversation between Tito with Dubček, 9 August 1968 (handwritten by Jože Smole).

47. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, reminder for the talks in Prague.

48. KPR I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82, censorship of press and electronic media was formally abolished on 26 June 1968. Judt, Postwar , 441.

49. AJ, 507, III/134, records of the XI joint meeting of the presidencies of the Executive Committee and the presidency of the CK SKJ, 21 August 1968, Brioni, 8 p.m.

50. Vjesnik , 13 August 1968 (“Pleasure with the visit of Tito to Prague”); Vjesnik , 10 August 1968 (“Welcome Yugoslav friends”). A personal dossier prepared for Tito before the trip even included letters from common people who were thanking him for not forgetting the Czechoslovaks. Allusions to the treason of 1938 were made all the time.

51. “Prague’s Purposeful Hospitality,” Time International , 23 August 1968. The phenomenon of “guest-workers” was acute in Yugoslavia; hundred of thousands were migrating to West Germany, Austria, and France, among other countries, to find jobs. Although this flood of workers painfully showed how the Socialist economy was not working, their migration was allowed to continue. Since there was a need for masons in Czechoslovakia, it was agreed to allow “tens of thousands” of Yugoslavs to migrate to Czechoslovakia. Since the standard of living in Czechoslovakia was lower than that in Yugoslavia at the time, the big question was how and who would force potential workers to go there? “Tanjugov bilten, Put predsednika Tita, zapadnoeruopski izvori,” Vjesnikova Novinska Dokumentacija (VND), Zagreb, Croatia, 12 August 1968.

52. Vjesnik , 13 August 1968 (“Contribution to the strengthening of Socialism”).

53. Tomislav Buturac, “Praško proljeće: dvadeset godina poslije,” Danas , Zagreb, Croatia, 26 January 1988, p. 4. A series of articles in this leading Yugoslav weekly was written by Buturac, Croatian correspondent from Prague from 1968 to 1970.

54. Vuković, Od deformacija SDB do maspoka i liberalizma , 199.

55. Vuković, Od deformacija SDB do maspoka i liberalizma , 200. Nikezić probably also referred to the April conversation between Tito and Brezhnev in Moscow. The Soviets then stated that there was “no reason to change a system which had been effective for 50 years.”

56. Gough, A Good Comrade , 171.

57. KPR, I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82 (No title; letters signed by Jože Smole, head of Tito’s office to Croatian police and Spoljnoplitička služba G.S.P.R.).

58. Paczkowski, Pola stolječa povijesti Poljske , 295; Wolf, Čovjek bez lica , 149.

59. Gough, A Good Comrade , 171; Judt, Postwar , 444.

60. NARA, secretary of defense staff meeting, 26 August 1968.

61. Dabčević-Kučar, ’ 71-hrvatski snovi i stvarnost , 98–99. Dragutin Haramija, president of the Parliament of the Council of Rijeka, that is, mayor, was soon to become president of the Executive Council of Croatia (Government), while Savka Dabčević Kučar became president of the CC of the League of Communist of Croatia. Tripalo was one of the most prominent younger politicians in Yugoslavia at the time.

62. Zlatko Rendulić, General Avnojske Jugoslavije, sječanja (Zagreb: Golden Marketing/Tehnička knjiga, 2004), 280–81.

63. Oral history interview, Olga Vrhovec, Zagreb, 19 October 2007.

64. AJ, 507, III/134, records of the XI joint meeting of the presidencies of the Executive Committee and the presidency of the CK SKJ, 21 August 1968.

65. Miko Tripalo, Hrvatsko prolječe (Zagreb: NZMH, 2001), 115. Minister Hajek left for New York shortly after the intervention. Both he and Šik were meeting with their Yugoslav hosts as members of the Czechoslovak government, not as representatives of the government in exile. Some Soviets officials tried to impute how it was no coincidence that Šik and Hajek were on holidays along the Adriatic Sea. At the very end of August, Hajek was allowed to return first to Belgrade and then, together with Šik and the rest, to Prague. They were received by the vice president of the Yugoslav Executive Council Kiro Gligorov and left for Czechoslovakia. KPRI-5-b, Br. Kutije 236, Czechoslovakia; Conversation between the chairman of the Republic with U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia B. Elbrick, 23 August 1968; bulletin on the developments in ČSSR, br.1, 24 August 1968; Iljičov, deputy minister of the Foreign Affairs of the USSR; Yugoslavia and the developments in the ČSSR; minutes on the talk of the Deputy State Secretary M. Pavićević with the ambassador of the ČSSR to Belgrade, 29 August 1968.

66. KPR, I-2, 63/J:1107–12, Br.kutije 82.; Pavićević to the cabinet of the chairman of the Republic and the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Brioni. Almost the same message was delivered orally by Ambassador Smirnovsky to the British prime minister at 1:30 a.m. on 20 August 1968: “Our actions are not directed against any European State and in no way infringe upon anybody’s state interests, including the interests of Great Britain. They are dictated entirely by the concern for strengthening peace in the face of a dangerous growth of tension, which left no choice to the Socialist countries,” National Archives, London, UK, Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), Foreign and Commonwealth Office (hereafter FCO) 28/68.

67. Thomas Alan Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, in the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 217.

68. Pero Simić, Tito, svetac i magle: Tito i njegovo vreme u novim dokumentima Moskve i Beograda (in cyrillic) (Belgrade: Službeni list SCG, 2005), 212. Todorović was in Prague together with Tito from 9 to 11 August. In a speech, Norbert Weber, a member of the Central Committee of the Yugoslav League of Communists and a long-time manager of a large metallurgic complex in Sisak, a city fifty kilometers south of Zagreb, said: “Yugoslavia is today exactly what it was in the year 1941 when all of Europe looked to her as she resisted a much stronger enemy; today the international worker’s movement of the world gathers around and looks up to her, because Yugoslavia shows the path which should be taken, Yugoslavia reveals that it is not socialism which the Soviet Union presents with the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Therefore it must be understood that today socialism is much broader… we must once again raise the shaken belief in socialism.” HDA Sisak, Records of the municipal conference of the Savez komunista Hrvatske (League of Communists of Croatia, or SKH), Sisak, 10 September 1968. The Soviets were furious about the meeting in Belgrade. The Yugoslav military attaché in Moscow was verbally attacked by Astavin, head of the Fifth Department of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He expressed his surprise regarding the Yugoslavs’ overall attitude, which was not neutral at all.