Evening star., 1948-03-13
kasaryk Sacrificed
Self 10 Dramatize
Plight Of Country
Writer Recalls Czech
Patriots Vow to Keep
Fuith With Futher
By Dorothy Thompson

Jan MaSaTyR COmmlJtSQ SUICIDE.
I know why. He killed himself to
keep his word of honor to his dead
father. And he killed himself as
the one certain way to call the at
tention of the whole world to the
murder of his country, as warning
to all men everywhere who are still
free. What he did was, I am GER
tain, absolutely deliberate. There
was nothing now that he could do
for his country. But he could do
one more thing for human freedom;
he gave his life for it.
In the spring of l945 I was in
London, and had a conversation
with Jan in the offices of the
Czechoslovak embassy. That very
day the American delegates who
were starting to present their Gre
dentials to the provisional CZecho-
slovak government in Kosice had
been ordered to postpone their
visit. The order had come, not from
the Czechoslovak embassy, but from
the Soviet Embassy in London. The
CZechoslovak embassy had not even
been informed of the step by the
Russians. Jan told me this conflden-
TALLY, saying rather bitterly, "We
begin our liberation in a strange
way. Apparently our affairs are to
be ordered by our Russian allies"
'No Do, Johnny"
Then, with that wry humor that
protected a fundamentally melan-
choly and sensitive nature, he said:
Dorothy, things will be different
after this war. Nothing can be put
together again as it was. Russia is
great and strong, and Czechoslova-
kia is like little drugstore in COM
parison with, say, British imperial
chemicals. I'll go all the way with
Russia up to one point. If we. are
ever asked to yield our minds and
souls-thep papa and mama will
come and stand beside me, and papa
will shake his finger at me, and
d. he will say, No do, Johnny. ,Remem-
Der whose son you are. And then
I will no do"
Jan Masaryk, like all Czechs, was
wounded to the heart by Munich.
He used to talk about the light
hearted way the former American
Ambassador in London, Joseph Ken
nedy, had taken the delivery of
Czechoslovakia over to Hitler.
My God, he didn't even have
any tact or sympathy about It'll"
he said.
Masaryk's bitterness over Munich
led him initially to be very pro-
Russian. But before the war was
over. he was on to the Czech Com
munists Actually, he was half a
prisoner of the wretched Gottwald,
whose agents watched him con-
staptly. Many of his old friends,
like myself, came to know that it
was embarrassing to him, perhaps
even dangerous, to associate with
persons known to be outspokenly
angry over Russian aggrandize-
ments. Rarely and with very old
friends, he blew off.
Il feel like a Swine" he said,
once. Il am a Stinking coWard!"
on dOrnS Oh Dllemma.
But MaSaryk was not a coward,
he was man pilloried on the horns
of an unsolvable dilemma. Dr.
Eduard BeneS and he stood between
the Czech republic and what has
now happened. No Russian could
claim that either had been anything
but absolutely loyal to the Russian
ally. Both had leaned over backward
to appease Russia. Both had never
in public, uttered word that could
give the Soviets any ground for
ovefturning the Czechoslovak state
But the sense of justice was in
practicable in this most unfortunate
man. When I read the words attrib-
uted to him after the putsch did
not join his attackers. I could,
thought, discern in his words his
old irony.
Behind a phrase ostensibly ac-
cepting the fait accompli was NOR
dant hit at the Soviet Union.
During the last week, the men
who fought for Czechoslovakia
companions of Masaryk since child
hood, teachers, judges, journalists
and old confidants of his father
have been thrown into Jail or tick
eted for slave labor. Everything that
Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, founder
of the republic, cherished as the
necessary foundations for a civil
lied state-law, justice, and, above
all, the free mind and unintimidated
spirit-were crushed. Men who had
fought for the nation and suffered
years in concentration camps were
being purged. and collaborators. in
formers, and spies-some of them
men who had earlier served the
Germans-were being elevated to
office
Then papa and mama stood at
their sons side, saying, in his mind
Johnny, no do" 1t was too late
then, to do more than what Jan
Masaryk did But in his death ne
cries to us: Stop these scoundrels
before your fate is the same as
mine: Death or utter slavery ano
dishonor."
(Released by the Bell Syndicate. Incl