World: CZECHOSLOVAKIA'S TENSE ANNIVERSARY

SINCE the party cannot change the people," Alexander Dubček once said, "it must itself change." One year ago this week, Dubček's historic attempt to guide Czechoslovakia's Communist Party in the direction of that change was suddenly and brutally undone. On a quiet August night, some 200,000 Soviet troops, with token support from East German, Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian forces, crossed into Czechoslovakia. Whatever Dubček's miscalculations in conducting the most democratic experiment in Communism's history, he was undoubtedly right about the desires of the people. They have not changed. As the nation moved tensely toward the anniversary, both the Soviet Union and...

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