Engineer Memoirs
Q ..
Let me go back to the time you resigned in late June 1990.
Didn't you then take a trip to Czechoslovakia and Poland?
A ..
Yes. I went to Czechoslovakia on June 30, 1990, shortly after I left the
government, and then on July 1st on to Poland. My trip to Prague was at the
invitation of the Czechoslovakian government to take part in a week-long
symposium on how to bring democracy to Czechoslovakia and how to further its
economic development. The interesting thing to me was that while I was no longer
an official representative of the United States, I was treated very cordially, even
royally. I had numerous meetings with high-level officials, for example: Mr.
Diensbier, Father Maly, and Vaclav Havel.
You will recall that I had gone to Czechoslovakia in 1985 after the first
Reagan-Gorbachev summit. I went again in 1986 at the invitation of the
Czechoslovakian government.
Before my second trip I put down a proviso that I would go only if I were allowed
to talk to the dissidents [the signers of Charter 77] if they wanted to talk to me.
To my pleasant surprise, the Jakes government said I should come and that they
would tender an invitation to the dissidents to meet with me. At that 1986 meeting
I met with about 12 dissidents in a three-hour meeting. The group included Havel,
Diensbier, Father Maly, Rita Klimova, and several others who have since come to
power. It was very encouraging to me to see in 1990 that the people who had been
imprisoned in the 1980s were now on top. As a matter of fact, I was there during
the inauguration of Vaclav Ravel as the new president of Czechoslovakia. Rita
Klimova, in the meantime, had been named to be the Czech ambassador to the
United States.
Q ..
Was Rita Klimova one of the dissidents you met in 1986?
A ..
Yes, I met with her again in the spring of 1990before going to Czechoslovakia and
was distressed to learn that she had leukemia. In Czechoslovakia, I talked to
Diensbier about her condition. He said that it was a serious illness and they felt
that they had to consider replacing her. But Rita Klimova's illness went into a state
of remission and she remained in Washington as the Czechoslovakian ambassador
to the United States.
The 1986 trip to Czechoslovakia was a very satisfactory and satisfying one. I then
went to Poland. As in Czechoslovakia, I was treated very well and invited to speak
to Polish officials at several levels. I not only talked to the members of
Parliament, but to Prime Minister Mazowiecki, President Jaruzelski, and Lech
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