ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

most comprehensive collection of interviews about the Prague Spring available
anywhere. What happened then was that we returned to New York and started editing the
60 hours of film into a one-hour documentary. The idea was that it would then be offered
for sale to one of the networks or perhaps PBS. Such independent productions were more
common then than they are today, when networks basically do their own documentaries.
But as we were finishing the film, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia came on
August 21, 1968. This event raised interest in the Prague Spring, but, unfortunately, the
networks wanted footage of the invasion and the tanks rather than of what led up to these
events. So suddenly our film was overtaken by events and became history, literally. We
did still make a documentary that was shown in a few theaters and also on some PBS
stations around the country, but it was never purchased by a network. I have a copy of it,
which is now probably one of the few in existence, perhaps the only one. I am still
friends with the fellow who headed the company, and he told me in later years that the
outtakes, the entire 60 or so hours of film, were lost when the company dissolved.
However, the whole experience gave me an opportunity to really get acquainted with the
dynamics and personalities of the Prague Spring and was surely a factor in my choice of
dissertation topic.
Q: I would have thought there would be some resistance from the History Department. I
mean you're getting too close to the present time and history departments like to stand
back and look at things. Did you find this resistance?
PERINA: Well, it was unusual and pushed the envelope even in the field of
contemporary history. But my two primary sponsors at Columbia were also modern
historians who had written on relatively recent themes so I got away with it. Still, my
topic was about as contemporary as you can get for a historian.
Q: When you were in the middle of the Prague Spring and doing this interviewing, did
you get a feel for whether this reform process would last?
PERINA: Well, we interviewed many dissident groups and intellectuals, and I did start to
formulate some ideas on the dynamics of reform in authoritarian societies. My primary
thesis, which I later elaborated in the dissertation, was that sustained reform in this part of
the world must come from the top down rather than from the bottom up. In other words,
dissidents and reformist intellectuals can help to create reformist politicians, but they
cannot substitute for them. Real change must come from the political level. I think this
was seen in the Prague Spring itself, which would not have happened without Dubcek. Of
course, at the time, it was hard to imagine that a Gorbachev would appear in the Soviet
Union and completely change that system and the entire Communist bloc as well. I think
my thesis did not diminish the role of intellectuals in articulating the need for reform. It
just argued that the reform could not really happen without political backing from above.
Q: But looking at Czechoslovakia, the pressure for reform really did came from the
intellectual core rather than other places where you have it coming from shipyards, as in
Poland.
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