Reformer New Czech President

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31661, 23 April 1968, Page 22

Reformer New Czech President

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) PRAGUE, April 22. Josef Smrkovsky, aged 57, a resistance hero and ardent reformer gaoled during Stalinist trials in the 19505, has been elected president of the Czechoslovak National Assembly.

In a secret ballot he won 188 votes against 68. He replaces Bohuslav Lastovicka, a veteran Communist, who has been dropped by the party for opposing reforms introduced by the new Czechoslovak leadership. The assembly at its present session is also due to bring men pledged to reform the country’s political and economic life into Parliamentary commissions. The newly.liberalised Communist Party said today it was the unquestionable right of each socialist country to choose its own way to socialism. Outspoken Statement The statement, in the official party newspaper, “Rude Pravo,” was unprecedented in its outspokenness. It said Czechoslovakia had the right to reject outside interference, no matter where it came from. The article marked a major break with the past—when the regime of the ousted President, Antonin Novotny, followed the leadership of Moscow without question. An orthodox wing led by the former President and party chief has been given an ultimatum to surrender positions or face public exposure of their role in Stalinist terror trials, according to informants in Prague. Novotny’s supporters include once powerful men now reduced to bare committee membership, but he still has a considerable following among lower-echelon party bureaucrats. According to the sources, he threatened at one stage of the struggle to bring Soviet pressure on the liberals unless he is allowed to remain in the central committee of the party. Authorities have reopened inquiries into the death of Jan Masaryk, the Czechoslo-

vak Foreign Minister in 1948 who was found dead in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry shortly after the Communist take-over, and the Czechoslovak news agency, Ceteka, has announced Major Bedrich Pokorny, the former Czechoslovak intelligence officer who investigated the death of Masaryk, was found

hanged in a wood near Brno three weeks ago. At the time, Masaryk's death was registered officially as suicide but many Czechoslovaks believed he was murdered. Major Pokorny worked in the political office of the Interior Ministry in 1948 and took part in investigations of

Masaryk’s death as well as the death of Major Augustin Schramm.

Schramm, a security officer at the Foreign Ministry, was himself murdered by Czechoslovaks, who held him responsible for Masaryk's death. The Czechoslovak daily newspaper, “Zemeldelske Noviny” said today that shortly after Masaryk’s death there were reports published in France that Masaryk had written to Stalin three days before his death.

Masaryk’s letter to the Soviet dictator was alleged to have complained that he had been deceived over the future plan for political life inside Czechoslovakia.