Nation: How the U.S. Got the Word

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The NSC meeting was relatively routine. The participants reviewed the skimpy information available, speculated on the Soviets' motives, decided that a response be given to Dobrynin immediately. Rusk summoned the ambassador to the State Department for an 11:30 p.m. meeting to hear a strongly worded U.S. protest against the invasion. Rusk specifically rejected the contentions that Prague invited the intervention and that there had been any external threat to Czechoslovakia. Between the lines was Washington's all too apparent awareness that it could do as little in secret as it could openly to save Czechoslovakia from its fate.