Czech Academic Contacts

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32214, 5 February 1970, Page 11

Czech Academic Contacts

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) VIENNA, Feb. 4. Mr Jaromir Hbek, the pro - Moscow Education Minister of the Czech regional Government, has banned all “uncontrolled contacts” between Czech and Western universities and scientific institutions, it was learned in Vienna.

The ban, which cuts contacts to a minimum and curbs travel to the West, was revealed in a directive to Czech university rectors, a copy of which has reached Vienna. The directive stressed that contacts must be restricted to those stipulated by plans worked out by the ministry.

All other contacts, including study trips, student exchanges and attendance at scientific congresses, must first be approved by the rector and then “submitted for final approval by the central approval committee of the ministry,” the directive said. “The rector will take measures to prevent uncontrolled private contacts of (academic) workers and students with individuals or institutions in countries with other social systems .. . “Only 10 per cent of the over-all total of teachers may visit non-Socialist countries at one time,” it said. It added that: “All employees are bound to announce these contacts in writing to the special department of the university.” Observers in Austria said that the new directive in effect, made a letter a Czech professor might want to write

to a scientific colleague in the West subject to approval. The directive stressed that the new regulations also applied to contacts with' Jugoslavia. Mr Hrbek also instructed university staff allowed to travel to the West on duty to press the Czechoslovak Communist Party line. “During these contacts the universities ... (should) also explain questions of our Socialist path in conformity with the appropriate party and State documents and consistently oppose the infiltration of alien ideologies into our countries,” it said. Mr Hrbek, aged 55, incurred the wrath of liberalminded students and professors last year when he asked rectors and deans to provide detailed reports on the political attitude of professors and students during the Prague reform period and

after the Warsaw Pact invasion in August, 1968. Mark Meredith, an N.Z.P.A.Reuter correspondent wrote that a question such as: And what, comrade, did you think of the intervention by the allied armies in Czechoslovakia in August, 1968? might determine an applicant’s future or continued membership of the Communist Party, according to guidelines laid down in Prague. The guidance took the form of a letter to the rank and file in the party daily, “Rude Pravo.” It set out criteria for the complete renewal of the party’s million and a half membership cards, the most profound step yet in the clean-out of party “progressives” after the Sovietled occupation. “The party must separate itself from those who have ideologically divorced from the party,” the letter said.