World: RUSSIANS GO HOME!

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After the clandestine radio network broadcast the declaration, virtually the entire nation stopped work for one hour at noon the next day. Many joined in solemn demonstrations. About 60 youths linked arms and walked through Wenceslas Square in Prague, asking the crowds to leave the square to the tanks. A deadly hush fell over the square as the people drifted away, clearly unnerving the Russians. Then the city suddenly exploded in noise as drivers in cars leaned on their horns, factory whistles sounded and church bells rang.

Soviet Viceroy. Meanwhile the Soviet ambassador to Prague, Stepan Chervonenko, acting like a Soviet viceroy, feverishly tried to put together a workable government. The Russians imposed a 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew in the streets, tore down inflammatory posters, and issued stern warnings against provocations. They also set up their own newspaper and a radio station called Radio Vltava, which could hardly compete with the free stations. Russian security men began arresting liberal intellectuals who had caused chagrin in the Kremlin. Among those held under house arrest was Ladislav Mnac-ko, author of the novel The Taste of Power, who was locked up, along with the editors of Svobodne Slovo in the newspaper's office in Prague.

Back in Moscow, the Soviet propaganda machine, slow in starting, had finally begun cranking out excuses for the military action. In a 13,000-word editorial, Pravda offered detailed criticism of the behavior of the leading Prague progressives, describing Dubcek as a "betrayer of Communist ideals." Pravda was particularly severe in condemning the plans for a party purge; it spoke of "an atmosphere of real pogrom and moral execution." After the takeover, Tass even claimed that the secret party congress in Prague was a reactionary attempt to take over the government—a feat that was hardly possible while So. viet tanks were in the streets. To prevent the real story from reaching their own people, the Russians began to jam the Voice of America broadcasts for the first time in five years.

Reassuring Words. While the Soviets were trying to create at least a modicum of government over the recalcitrant Czechoslovaks, the destiny of the nation's reformist vision of Communism was being debated behind closed doors in both Prague and Moscow. Dubcek and Cernik were flown off to Moscow in a Soviet military jet. The Czechoslovaks at first broadcast reports that Dubcek had been killed, but that was cleared up in one of the many weird, almost unreal vignettes of the week. Dubcek's mother marched in to see the local Soviet commander in Bratislava, demanding to know what the Russians had done with her son. Slightly dumfounded, the Russian officer told her: "We are negotiating with him."

The Russians were also negotiating in Prague with President Ludvik Svoboda, who as head of state could provide a stamp of legitimacy for a puppet government—and who commands immense popular prestige in both Czechoslovakia and Russia as a World War II leader of the Czechoslovak army that fought with the Soviets against Hitler. Though troops ringed his residence in Hradcany Castle, Svoboda was able to broadcast over the free radio in