Former Film Star Gives Account

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31768, 27 August 1968, Page 20

Former Film Star Gives Account

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) SAN FRANCISCO, August 25. Mrs Shirley Temple Black claimed yesterday that chattering machine-guns and rumbling tanks outside Prague’s Alcon Hotel shocked her into awareness of the Soviet military occupation.

Appearing nearly exhausted after a 13-hour flight from Frankfurt, the former child film star rushed into the arms of her husband, Charles, and their three children when she stepped off the plane on Friday night. Then she went to a reception room at San Francisco international airport with 300 curious onlookers and a score of news, television and radio men.

"It’s very bad and very serious,” she said. “I left 12 good friends in Czechoslovakia. They wanted me to tell you how serious it is. The Soviet tanks. The tanks have their gun covers off and are ready to shoot.” She said that on her carcaravan trip from Prague to

West Germany she saw Czechoslovak signs that read: "1939 equals 1968. Yesterday you were our brother, today you are the Invader.” Lots of them say. “Russkies, go home,” she said. Mrs Black said the carcaravan was stopped right at the start by Soviet tanks. She was in the lead car, and it could not move until the tanks got out of the way. Someone told her the car had to get going within five minutes. She had never driven a Mercedes, “but we got in and drove it right up to the Russian tanks.” She sat there while American diplomats talked the situation over. “Finally one of the tanks moved, or I would not be here,” she said. Mrs Black was in Prague as cofounder and vicepresident of the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies.