World: RUSSIANS GO HOME!

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Vise of Power. It was morning before most Czechoslovaks came face to face with the reality of the invasion, and by then tanks were lumbering through the streets of Prague and the entire country lay in the vise of Soviet power. The occupation force was largely in place: twelve Russian mechanized divisions, one division of troops from Poland and one from East Germany, along with token units from Hungary and a few from Bulgaria that had been brought in ships to Russia across the Black Sea. The Germans were prudently kept out of sight in the countryside, because Czechoslovaks remember all too vengefully the last visit by German troops in 1939.

The long guns of tanks swiveled from side to side in the baroque alleyways of Prague. The Russians surrounded the presidential palace on Hradcany Hill, planted artillery on the heights of Letna Hill, where a mammoth statue of Stalin once overlooked the city. In Old Town Square, they even placed six antiaircraft guns by the Jan Hus monument, the symbol of Czechoslovakia's historic quest for liberty. Everywhere, paratroops in purple berets stood guard alongside tank crews in full battle dress, cradling automatic rifles in their laps. In swiftness of execution, the invasion had been a model military operation. But the occupation was soon to prove quite another matter in ways that the Soviets had not foreseen. The Czechoslovaks, as the invaders discovered to their discomfiture, were simply not impressed.

On the first day of the occupation, Czechoslovak crowds surged around the alien tankers and sentries and virtually smothered them in fraternal attentions.

As the tanks moved down Wenceslas Square, youths marched to their front and rear, shouting in chorus, "Long live Dubcek! Russians go home!" The statue of King Wenceslas was covered with boys waving the red, white and blue Czechoslovak flag. Atop the king's head, they erected posters proclaiming

HURRAH, DUBCEK and U.S.S.R., GO HOME. WE ARE A FREE NATION,

Whenever the tanks stopped, the interrogations began—surely some of history's most curious confrontations between conqueror and conquered. Hounded by questions, many of the Russians—some of whom were youths no older than 18—looked nervous and stared blankly into the distance to avoid further embarrassment. A few told crowds in the street that they were in Czechoslovakia to protect the people from "counterrevolution" or the "re actionaries" in West Germany. But many had little notion of their mission and were apologetic. "We are only following orders," a youthful paratrooper said to an irate questioner in Prague. "We have our orders. Surely you, too, were once a soldier and know what it means. The political decisions are not our affair."