Tuesday, December 17, 1968
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
5
Czech compares leaders
America's Eugene McCarthy and Czechoslovakia's Alexander Dubcek have a great deal in common, a visiting Czech professor at KU says.
"Both McCarthy and Dubeck gave the young people hope," said Nonna Kordova, a research associate in microbiology. "They have shown them that involvement in politics can work."
Kordova, member of the Institute of Virology in Prague, Czechošlovakia, is studying at KU supported by an NSF grant. She arrived here in April 1968, and is slated to stay until May 1969.
"I was much impressed by McCarthy," the Czechoslovakian M.D. said. "If there were more people like him, the United States wouldn't suffer such violence."
Dubecek's regime has been good for Czech young people, Dr. Kordova feels, in as much as it has awakened them to the realities of life.
"The Czech students were previously apathetic," she said. "The rest of the nation has appreciated their recent concern with politics."
In both America and Czechoslovakia, Dr. Kordova notes, students have recently been the leaders in promoting changes—and with good reason, she believes.
"They are the ones whose future lies ahead of them."
Dr. Kordova was attending a
Nonna Kordova
conference in Montana when the Russians invaded her homeland. She says Americans have shown her great kindness when they discover she is a Czechoslovakian.
"I have been touched by the sympathy of Americans," she says.
Scientific colleagues all over the world have also sent notes expressing similar feelings, she added.
Mail from Czechoslovakia reaches her regularly, Dr. Dordova says. From it, she is able to discover how those back
home are surviving the Soviet occupation.
"They are attempting to adjust themselves to the new realities."
Along with her other Czechoslovakian mail, Dr. Kordova receives a weekly packet of newspapers. As the papers arrive each week, Dr. Kordova says she can see the changes going on in the Czechoslovakian press. At the beginning of this semester, "Literarri Llisfy," a writers journal, was completely uncensored. Now it is an "approved" journal.
Still, she enjoys reading it.
"You can learn a lot by reading between the lines."
In discussing the Dubeck reforms, Mrs. Kordova stresses that the Czechoslovakians desire a more humanitarian socialism, not a return to capitalism.
"We don't want to turn the clock back 180 degrees," she says emphatically.
Much progress has been made under the socialist government, she said, especially in the fields of scientific research and education.
Despite the events of last August, Dr. Kordova is optimistic about the future.
"Progress cannot stop," she says. "It will be delayed, but in the end, the necessary changes will come."
Viets may pull back to Cambodia
SAIGON (UPI)—Allied military sources said yesterday North Vietnamese work gangs are building an estimated 1,000 barracks in Cambodia in what could be the prelude to a formal pullback from South Vietnam.
The sources warned however,
against drawing any hasty conclusions about the barracks. The location, about 50 miles west of Saigon in the so-called "parrot's beak" area.
Czechs oust US newsman
PRAGUE (UPI)-Tad Szulc, correspondent in Czechoslovakia for the New York Times, yesterday was ordered to leave the country because he "grossly abused the position" of a newsman with his "interest in secret military questions," the government announced.
The announcement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, distributed by the Czechoslovak news agency (CTK), said Sulez,
in Prague since May 9 for the Times, had tried to "secure information" about military secrets by "bribing . . in spite of a serious warning which he was given" last month.
Szulc, 43, said yesterday he was told to get out of Czechoslovakia by Thursday. He denied the charges against him as "without foundation absolutely untrue."
The University of Kansas Theatre
presents
MEDIEVAL CHRISTMAS PLAYS
The Annunciation The Offering of The Magi The Second Shepherd's Play