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Reviews

Summary/Abstract: This paper contains several book reviews: 1. On the Waves of RFE: The First Historical Synthesis of the Czechoslovak Service of Radio Free Europe Československá redakce Radio Free Europe: Historie a vliv na československé dějiny. Prague: Academia, 2015, 422 pp. + 32 pp. of illus., ISBN 978-80-200-2490-9. The book under review, whose title translates as ‘The Czechoslovak Service of Radio Free Europe: Its Development and Infl uence on Czechoslovak History’, is considered here in the context of current research on the history of Radio Free Europe and Tomek’s own work in which he presents a synthesis of his long-standing interest in the topic. The reviewer sees the contribution of the book chiefl y in its bringing together and clearly sorting out a wide range of facts, and, to a lesser extent, its preliminary analyses. The author chronologically traces the development of Radio Free Europe, especially the Czechoslovak Service, and also determines the effects of its broadcasts and the interaction with its audience at home behind the Iron Curtain as well as amongst the top-level Czechoslovak politicians of the time. With this work, he has fi lled a palpable gap in the Czech historiography of mass media in exile, and has established an important basis for further research. 2. The Long, Hard Road to the Collapse of the Iron Curtain Raška, Francis D. Dlouhá cesta k vítězství: Československá exilová hnutí po roce 1968. Trans. from the English by Vojtěch Pacner. Prague: Academia, 2015, 272 pp., ISBN 978-80-200-2472-5. The book under review is a Czech translation of The Long Road to Victory: A History of Czechoslovak Exile Organizations after 1968 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia UP, 2012). Raška’s work is, according to the reviewer, the result of careful research using personal papers and other archival documents in the Czech Republic, Great Britain, the United States, and Italy. It is a unique comprehensive work that offers much that is new and of interest, concerning a little known chapter in the history of Czechs and Slovaks in exile. In nine chapters, the author acquaints us with Czechoslovak life in exile, that is, clubs, organizations, and individuals, after they had caught their second wind, and were listened to by other exiles after 1968, once the West had received the large wave of Czechoslovak refugees driven out of their country by the Warsaw Pact military intervention. Although the book under review does not, in that sense, cover the full range of exiles and their activities, it remains an extraordinarily useful work of reference. A Czechoslovak Spy Story Soberly Told 3. Ševela, Vladimír. Český krtek v CIA: Cesta Karla Köchera z StB přes americké tajné služby do Prognostického ústavu. Prague: Prostor, 2015, 400 pp. + 80 pp. of photos, ISBN 978-80-7260-320-6. The reviewer fi rst presents the central fi gure of the book under review, Karel Köcher (b. 1934). A graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University, Köcher had previously been anti-Communist in his thinking, but by the 1960s became an agent of the Czechoslovak secret police (Státní bezpečnost – StB) and, together with his wife, was sent to the United States. He found employment there at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but, in 1982, was exposed and sent back to Czechoslovakia, where he eventually found work in the Forecasting Institute at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The author of the book, Vladimír Ševela, is a journalist who has dealt with this fascinating story in a sober way, sticking to the facts and avoiding any unfounded hypothesis. The book is based on a wide range of archival records and the author has also interviewed a number of eyewitnesses in the Czech Republic and the United States, including Köcher. According to the reviewer, the publication, which contains an unusually large number of facts, raises many questions, for example, about Köcher’s motivation, psychology, and choices, the mentality of his generation, the victims of his work for the StB, and the level of security measures at the CIA during the Cold War. 4. In Search of Václav Chaloupecký Ducháček, Milan. Václav Chaloupecký: Hledání československých dějin. Prague: Karolinum, 2014, 515 pp., ISBN 978-80-246-2482-2. 5. All the Things Film History Is Skopal, Pavel. Filmová kultura severního trojúhelníku: Filmy, kina a diváci českých zemí, NDR a Polska 1945–1970 (Filmová knihovna, vol. 3.) Brno: Host, 2014, 308 pp., ISBN 978-80-7294-971-7. 6.Revealing a Well-concealed Mystery of Films and TV Series in the Years of Normalization Kopal, Petr (ed.). Film a dějiny, vol. 4: Normalizace. Prague: Casablanca and Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů, 2014, 664 pp., ISBN 978-80-87292-26-6 and 978- 80-87912-13-3. 7. Keeping a Check on Artistic Freedom: The Czech Philharmonic after February 1948 Iblová, Michaela. Česká fi lharmonie pod tlakem stalinské kulturní politiky v padesátých letech. Prague: Karolinum, 2014, 247 pp., ISBN 978-80-246-2332-0. 8. Dumitru, Laurentiu-Cristian. Romania and the Warsaw Pact, 1955–1968: From Obedience to Defi ance. Sine loco: Italian Academic Publishing, 2014, 337 pp., ISBN 978-88-98471-03-4. 9. Four Politicians Look at a Quarter of a Century Rovenský, Jan, et al. 25 let poté: Klaus, Pithart, Rychetský a Zeman v rozhovorech o společnosti a politice. Prague: Filosofi a 2014, 328 pp., ISBN 978-80-7007-424-4. In the publication under review, the past quarter of a century since the collapse of the Communist régime in Czechoslovakia is considered by four leading Czech politicians: a former Premier of Czechoslovakia and, later, Premier and then President of the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus, a former Premier of the Czech Republic and, later, Speaker of the Senate, Petr Pithart, a former Minister of Justice and current Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, Pavel Rychetský, and a former Premier and current President of the Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman. The reviewer discusses and compares their views of the central topics discussed in the interviews – the political and economic transformations, Czecho-Slovak and Czecho-German relations, the existence of the vetting law (lustrační zákon), the role of the courts in democracy, the question of the possible banning of the Communist Party, the so-called ‘opposition agreement’ (opoziční smlouva) between Zeman’s Social Democratic Party and Klaus’s Civil Democratic Party, and, lastly, Václav Havel’s ‘nonpolitical politics’.

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