F OCUS - American Foreign Service Association

the events of August was not a shining
moment in the annals of American
diplomacy. Well aware by the
summer of 1968 that the United
States could not use military force to
help Czechoslovakia, the Johnson
administration was anxious to deflect
any charge that we were involved in
developments there. Only with reluctance,
and to be able to respond to
Republican criticism, did Secretary of
State Dean Rusk summon Soviet
Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin on a
single occasion to say that public opinion
in the United States was “beginning”
to view the situation with alarm.
In reality, our use of force was precluded.
In addition, a compelling reason
for this exaggerated restraint was
the hope of Lyndon Johnson and
Rusk to conclude an ill-starred administration
with a trip to Leningrad,
where Johnson and Soviet Premier
Kosygin would promote détente and
arms control. This would have permitted
Johnson to leave office as a
peacemaker. The Soviets milked this
desire with their customary craft.
On the night of Aug. 19, with the
invasion about to commence, Dobrynin,
Washington’s favorite Russian,
conveyed Kosygin’s invitation to a
happy LBJ while quaffing champagne
on the presidential yacht Sequoia.
When Dobrynin called at the White
House the next evening to inform
Johnson and Rusk that Soviet forces
were entering Czechoslovakia, the
president thanked Dobrynin for his
courtesy, promised to study the diplomatic
note with great attention and to
be back in touch. After that there was
good will and even some shared
laughter.
The first telegrams the department
sent warned our allies not to overreact.
Supposedly excitable West Germans
were especially advised to keep away
from the frontier. Our representatives
in international meetings, especially
those concerning disarmament or
arms control, were not to raise this
Dobrynin conveyed
Kosygin’s invitation
to a happy LBJ while
quaffing champagne
on the presidential
yacht Sequoia.
allegedly extraneous matter unless the
Soviets did so first, in which case our
representatives were to keep their
responses brief.
Speaking to Dobrynin, Rusk
referred to Czechoslovakia as a “dead
fish” with which we had been slapped
in the face. More than once, he informed
third-country officials that we
had raised the issue in the United
Nations only because a small country
had been attacked. We had not enjoyed
good relations, he was careful to
point out.
While Rusk’s caution was perhaps
understandable, it was regrettable that
he was unable to recognize that the
Prague Spring, now crushed by an
invader’s heels, had reflected the
ardent aspirations of an entire nation.
We had no way to help the Czechs,
who had no useful friends and only
disaffected “brothers,” but we still
should have sought a more appropriate
way to express our dissatisfaction.
The Legacy
In New York, our representative in
the United Nations, George Ball, did
take note that the Soviet forces
seemed to have come to Czechoslovakia
searching for someone who had
invited them. He commented that
their brotherly help recalled the assis-
tance Cain had given Abel. Even this
mild sarcasm brought a pained lament
from Dobrynin to Rusk.
What did the Prague Spring achieve,
aside from arousing false hopes in
a country doomed to 20 more years of
dictatorship? In November 1969,
Embassy Moscow reported that the
USSR had achieved all of its objectives
in Czechoslovakia at an acceptably low
cost. Most scholars thereafter agreed.
But the Russians paid a price for
their shock tactics. In China, especially
after the battle on the Ussuri River
in the spring of 1969 and a Soviet hint
that Chinese nuclear facilities at Lop
Nor might be surgically removed, the
Czechoslovak experience must have
contributed to Beijing’s growing
awareness that the Soviet threat was
not merely theoretical. This facilitated
Richard Nixon’s strategic breakthrough
to China.
Moreover, the memory of the
spring was not lost to human rights
watchers in Helsinki after the Soviets
achieved their wish for a conference
on security and cooperation in
Europe. Although the Brezhnev
Doctrine was alive and well, memories
of the Czechoslovak resistance made it
more difficult for Moscow to contemplate
the use of force against Poland.
(The same cast of characters in
Moscow should have remembered
that lesson in 1979 before plunging
into Afghanistan, where resistance
would prove to be anything but passive.)
Obviously, Moscow was still the
decider in that part of Europe. Only
when a new generation was in office
there, and when the Soviet Union was
beset with other problems, could
there be a Velvet Revolution in
Czechoslovakia. Jack Matlock, U.S.
ambassador to the Soviet Union, has
written that Gorbachev was hoping
the process would resemble the
Prague Spring. If so, he was selfdeceived,
but we are all better off for
the deception. ■
JULY-AUGUST 2008/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 57