CZECH RESIGNS POST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27392, 18 May 1950, Page 7

CZECH RESIGNS POST

Protest Against Regime DELEGATE TO UNITED NATIONS NZPA—Copyright NEW YORK, May 16. Dr Vladimir Houdek, permanent Czechoslovakia!* delegate to the United Nations, resigned today in protest against the present regime which, he said, “makes Czechoslovakia no longer an independent State.” In a telegram to President Truman, Dr Houdek requested asylum in the United States for himself and his family. _ . , In a letter to Mr Bryon Price, acting Secretary-general of the United Nations, Dr Houdek said recent events in Czechoslovakia had forced him to examine fundamentally his relations to his Government. Those events showed that a few individuals installed in a “ Rokossovsky way ” in top positions mechanically applied methods which flagrantly contradicted Czechoslovakia’s best traditions. Dr Houdek later told reporters that Mr Vladimir dementis, Czechoslovakian Foreign Minister, who was recently dismissed, and two other Czech officials would be charged before the Communist Party in a few days with “Westernism deviation, too independent thinking, dictatorial aspirations and lack of party discipline." Dr Houdek said he wished to protest categorically before the world against the methods being applied in Eastern European countries contrary to the wishes of the populations. Under Soviet Union pressure, harm Was being done to the cause of Socialism by the policy of arbitrary arrests, isolation and mental fog, systematic news distortions, police methods, the complicated system of mutual spying even among highest officials, and the elimination of differences of thinking. Reuter learns that Dr Houdek was due to leave New York tomorrow, having been recalled to Prague by the Government. Dr Houdek had asked for, and obtained, a police guard for his’ Long Island home.