World: The Lingering Effects of the Invasion

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As British Political Scientist Philip Windsor points out in the new book Czechoslovakia, 1968, the invasion undermined the West's assumption that growing prosperity in the Soviet Union would lead to greater preoccupation with domestic affairs and a more relaxed political attitude toward Eastern Europe. "This assumption was the comfortable one that 'a fat communist is better than a thin communist,' " writes Windsor. "Unfortunately, it failed to take into account the possibility that if he was pushed too far, a fat apparatchik might feel that he had more to lose than a thin apparatchik."

Reflecting that feeling, U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers said at his news conference last week that Czechoslovakia was "a grim reminder of the difficulties we face in entering an era of negotiations with the Soviet Union." Indeed, the Soviets have demonstrated since the invasion a renewed hostility by denouncing Western attempts at "bridgebuilding" as plots to weaken and destroy Communist solidarity. The Soviet bluster does not mean that the U.S. and the Russians cannot conclude specific, mutually advantageous treaties. But it may well mean that a general relaxation in U.S.-Soviet relations, however desirable, remains a highly elusive goal.