Invasion Talks Described

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32378, 18 August 1970, Page 17

Invasion Talks Described

(N.Z.P.A-Reuler— Copyright) BONN, August 16. Hungary is depicted as a reluctant participant in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia in a book written by Austrian-born Erwin Weit, who was formerly an interpreter for the Polish Communist Party leader, Mr Wladyslaw Gomulka.

The book, due for publication shortly in West Germany, gives behind-the-scenes details of the June, 1968, conference of Warsaw Pact party chiefs two months before the invasion. Mr Weifs presence in West Germany was disclosed yesterday by the Danish newspaper, “Belingske Tidende,” which said that he had defected to West Germany after being Mr Gomulka’s interpreter for 10 years, and one of the most trusted men in Poland. It said that he had talked his way out of the country at Warsaw Airport without an exit permit, but that his defection had been kept secret by the West German authorities. An Interior Ministry spokesman in Bonn declined to comment beyond saying that “the affair was closed in 1968.” Sources close to Mr Weit said that he was now living in Ludwigshafen, and that bis book described what went on when the Warsaw Pact leaders were discussing the reform movement in Czechoslovakia which prompted the August invasion. Mr Weit relates how the

Hungarian party leader, Mr Janos Kadar, while favouring an ultimatum to the Czechoslovak reformers, wanted to do everything possible to avoid an invasion. At one stage in the June, 1968, meeting, according to the book, Mr Walter Ulbricht, of East Germany, shouted at Mr Kadar that he did not understand the danger for Czechoslovakia from the West German and United States imperialists. He told Mr Kadar that if Czechoslovakia were lost to the Soviet bloc, Hungary would be the next in line, saying: “Either you don’t understand that or you don’t want to understand it”