Private Conversation Televised

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32296, 14 May 1970, Page 24

Private Conversation Televised

(N.Z P A Reuter —Copyright? PRAGUE, May 12. Reformist groups in Prague have circulated a letter of protest from the Czechoslovak writer, Jan Prochazka, against the televising of what he says was a private conversation held in the apartment of a Prague University professor. Mr Prochazka said in the letter that the apartment was “bugged” with microphones by the secret police. The programme featured the voice of Mr Prochazka making critical remarks about the leading liberals of 1968, during a talk with an unidentified man. “I am powerless to do anything to inform the public of the truth,” the writer said in his letter, addressed to Prague 1 Television, which has re-

cently broadcast the programme twice. His letter was not broadcast on television. “Rude Pravo,” the Communist Party daily newspaper, received a copy but did not publish it. The Ceteka new’s agency attacked Mr Prochazka in a commentary but did not quote from the letter. On the television pro- > gramme, the author's voice > was heard against a backs ground of film shots taken from inside a Mercedes car' lidriving along a road, i Mr Prochazka said in his : letter that this conversation , was, in reality, a grosslydistorted version of a talk he had in the spring of 1968 with, Professor Vaclav Cerny, of Prague University. No other person had been present. | He termed it “regrettable”; that such a conversation be-':

■ tween two persons in private should be made public with- ■ out their knowledge, and with i the aim of damaging their ’ reputations. 1 On the television pro- ; gramme, Mr Prochazka’s i voice was heard describing i the former reform leader, Mr Dubcek, as a good man but politically pliable. The former ■ Czechoslovak National Coun-I cil chairman, Mr C. Cisar, was described as “ferociously am- ! bitious.” “I admit that in our present situation it would be ridiculous to point out that the unauthorised publication of ideas not intended for pub- 1 lication is forbidden by law,” Mr Prochazka said in his let- i iter. . : ; “I wish to apologise to all the comrades named in the i 1 programme."