Dubcek May Face All Pact Leaders

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31768, 27 August 1968, Page 17

Dubcek May Face All Pact Leaders

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright? MOSCOW, August 26. Kremlin talks between Czechoslovak and Soviet leaders dragged on into their fourth day today with the possible participation of leaders of the four nations whose troops joined the Soviet Army in occupying Czechoslovakia last week.

But there was no official Soviet confirmation that the talks had been or would be joined by the leaders of East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria, said by a Czechoslovak Embassy spokesman to have slipped secretly into Moscow yesterday.

Reliable sources said last night that the confrontation, which would bring the Czechoslovak party leader, Mr Alexander Dubcek, and most, if not all, of his 11-man presidium face to face with the openly hostile leaders of the invading powers, was due today.

Mr Dubcek and several of his liberal associates in the presidium have been attacked in Moscow as revisionists, Right-wing opportunists, traitors, organisers of Right-wing forces, and in other terms which would have meant death in the days of Josef Stalin.

Observers noted the Czechoslovak delegation appeared to be weighted in favour of liberals. But it was not known how many of its members would keep their liberal bias if subjected to pressure. As a background to the meeting Soviet citizens heard

continuing reports of arms caches, counter-revolutionary sabotage, provocations and insults against the occupation forces in Czechoslovakia.

A “Pravda” article strongly attacked Chinese leaders for their reaction to the occupation.

The Chinese Prime Minister, Mr Chou En-lai, told a Rumanian National Day reception in Peking on Friday that the occupation could only be compared with Hitler’s occupation of Prague in 1938 and the American war in Vietnam.

But “Pravda” portrayed another of the Soviet Union’s ideological foes, the Cuban

Prime Minister, Dr Fidel Castro, as a supporter of the occupation. It gave prominence to his

statement of Friday night that the occupation was justified as Czechoslovakia was returning towards capitalism. But the carefully-edited report omitted his remark that the occupation was a tragic event, that Czechoslovak sovereignty had been violated and that it could not be justified by the reasons given by the Soviet Union. “Pravda” also gave big space to statements of support for the Soviet action from Finnish, Chilean, Ecuadorian, Venezualan and Luxemburg Communists but did not mention critical statements by many other nonruling parties