I didn’t grow up with a bomb shelter in my backyard or basement, but many members of my generation did. We knew all too well of the threat posed to America and her allies by the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.
In the 1960's, opportunities for Americans to visit Eastern Europe were very rare. The mutual mistrust was overwhelming. It led to a cultural and political rift between free people and Communists who seemed always to be on the brink of nuclear destruction.
Yet, when I was 17 years old – a senior in high school – I was fortunate to go on a school trip behind the Iron Curtain. That Easter break changed my perspective on the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and East Germany.
I met citizens of these countries I had feared, and I discovered my counterparts were friendly, proud, and as interested in politics as I was. There were differences, too. They all lived in the shadow of Communism. But because the Czechs were rapidly moving toward a free society, they could feel a confrontation looming.
While my future seemed bright and exciting in America, theirs seemed uncertain.
In August of 1968, the same year I visited Czechoslovakia, the Soviets drove that point home. Tanks rolled into the streets of Prague to silence the growing cries for freedom.
It was as though that column of Soviet tanks had smashed right into my living room.
Earlier this month, I returned to Europe, this time to take part in the Parliamentary Assembly at NATO. This forum for international affairs only faintly resembles the smaller group of nations formerly allied against Communism. Today, America’s international alliances are based as much on trade as they are on common enemies. I was at NATO and the European Union to discuss help for our mission in Iraq and opportunities for U.S. agricultural producers.
And at NATO in 1968 I never would have met a Senator from the Czech Republic who recently ran for president of her country. Jaroslava Moserova and I talked for an hour about how life has changed now that the Iron Curtain has been drawn back.
She wrote a story, which was read at the Library of Congress last year, about that fateful August in Prague:
"When the tanks came, when suddenly they were everywhere and all of us knew we had lost, we did not despair – we stuck together. Remember the road signs, how they disappeared overnight to the total confusion of the Soviet Army? .... How come there was no fighting? .... We, as a nation, didn’t lose when the armies invaded the country in 1968, no, we lost the moment we gave up."
Senator Moserova was working at a burn center in Prague in 1968, and though she was not one of the students I met that Spring, we recalled an event in January 1969 when student Jan Palach set himself on fire in a public square. I read about it in the newspaper, the horrifying account of the end of Palach’s life.
Palach was rushed to the hospital where Jaroslava worked. She helped treat his burns.
"He only lived three days, yet I feel as if it had been much longer; all of you who were there have this feeling. Endless three days. We kept telling him that what he had done was not in vain, that people understood – we read to him letters from young and old, from individuals and factory teams, from universities and mining crews. Everyone understood."
Palach’s act was to remind Czechs of a 15th Century martyr who was burned at the stake because he would not disclaim the truth.
All of those years, NATO applied confident, consistent pressure against the Soviets. Our steady hand ultimately prevailed, and the victory serves as an example to all Americans that we must always stand for what is right and free.
Jan Palach’s burning body, on the other hand, is disturbing proof of the violence of oppression and the desperation that follows it.
We must never forget Jan Palach’s passion for freedom, but we must also remember his act as a consequence of oppression. In the end, we can turn to Senator Moserova to provide the answer. She is a woman inspired by love of her country to serve her people and to guard against the creeping shadow of a bygone Soviet era.
Today, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary have entered NATO as free participants in global affairs. Yesteryear’s Cold War is today’s War on Terrorism.
We must use our collective will to defeat the enemies of freedom. We must fight oppressors and terrorists with every weapon in our arsenal – the greatest of them being vigilance. Steadfastness will see us through today’s turbulent times, when images of violence and unspeakable acts once again invade our living rooms.
Yes, the future of my Czech friends seemed uncertain to me in 1968, when Communism reared its savage head. But for the Czech Republic, the uncertainty following a time of oppression was answered by the blessing of freedom.
