INTELLECTUALS HIDE

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31774, 3 September 1968, Page 15

INTELLECTUALS HIDE

IN.Z,P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

PRAGUE, Sept. 2.

Czechoslovak intellectuals who have gone into hiding are convinced it will not be long before the Russians start rounding them up to charge them with involvement in a counter-revolu-tionary plot.

News of a Soviet blacklist of 2000 to 2500 names filtered down to men who have spent the last six months spurring on the Communist Party First Secretary (Mr Alexander Dubcek) in his reform programme. An official Czechoslovak denial was issued yesterday of an N.Z.P.A.-Reuter report saying news of this blacklist emerged at a press briefing given by the Prime Minister (Mr Oldrich Cernik). The denial failed to reassure intellectuals who fear they are listed for arrest. These men believe the Russians—who were reported by Czechoslovak sources to have 1200 security men in Prague —are closing in.

Government sources said today that Mr Jan Zaruba, who was Deputy Interior Minister under the now-resigned Mr Josef Pavel, had committed suicide rather than hand over ministry files to the Russian secret police.

The rush to get out of the country continued, and the total number of visa applications at Western embassies since Mr Dubcek returned from Moscow last Wednesday is estimated at 2406.

Prague’s Jewish population —the small number who survived the Nazi occupationare particularly apprehensive, and Jewish leaders are warning those of the 13,600 Czechoslovak Jews who have actively supported the Dubcek programme to get out of the country now. Intellectuals or anyone who held important administrative jobs were said to be particularly in danger. One member of the Jewish community said today: “It is not safe for us—they will make out that Zionists were part of the counter-revolution. We have seen it all before.” In Warsaw, a television reporter accused “Zionists” of playing a big role in antiCommunist activities which

provoked the present Czechoslovak crisis.

Soviet occupation authorities in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, were arresting people despite a promise to stay out of internal affairs, a radio still controlled by local Communists, said yesterday. The Soviet press yesterday continued its bombardment of Czechoslovakia with a call for the liquidation of the main progressive magazine, “Literarny Listi,” and a report of an attack on Soviet troops by Czechoslovak "counter revolutionaries”.

The Soviet Communist Party newspaper, “Pravda,” described the Prague-based weekly magazine as “a wasps’ nest which continues to play its ideological role as one of the main ideological centres of counter-revolution.” It added: The sooner it Is liquidated the better it will be for the Czechoslovak people and their intelligentsia, whose minds those who operate in this nest are trying to poison.” “Literarny Listi” last week defied the introduction of press censorship in Prague and came out with an underground edition bitterly criticising the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia.