WHEN the curtain first went up on the drama of Czechoslovakia, TIME'S cover story (April 5) on Alexander Dubcek observed that, more than any other man, he had "planned, pleaded for and nurtured the sweeping changes that promise to alter the temper and quality of Czechoslovak life, and perhaps the nature of Communism in the rest of Eastern Europe as well." As that drama began to climax with a confrontation between Dubcek and a phalanx of irritated Russian leaders, TIME'S correspondents concerned themselves last week not only with the central characters but with the people on both sides whose lives and destinies will be affected.

TIME'S Vienna Bureau Chief Peter Forbath, who reported for the earlier cover and is a student of Czechoslovak character and politics, joined up with a massive Russian army convoy of heavy vehicles, field pieces and armored personnel carriers moving down the narrow roads in the foothills of the High Tatra Mountains. At their secluded camp sites in the pine-tree forests, Forbath chatted with Russian soldiers and officers, who talked amiably about their mission and offered him tea. While some other correspondents were running into trouble with both the Russian and the Czechoslovak authorities, Forbath was not prevented from visiting and viewing, perhaps because he speaks both German and Hungarian, the native tongue of most Slovaks in the area.

Back in Prague, Correspondent Friedel Ungeheuer covered a meeting of the Czechoslovak Presidium. Buttonholing key members in the lobby of the historic Spanish Hall of Hradcany Castle, he learned at first hand many of the facts that went into this week's WORLD story. In other times and in other Communist lands, such information has had to be pried out of turgidly written, heavily censored official reports. Ungeheuer found the Czechoslovaks willing and anxious to see that the West gets the facts about their plight.

Correspondent Roland Flamini, who was sunning himself in Malta prior to reassignment from Vienna to Chicago, responded to an urgent cable and within hours was back on station in rainy Vienna. There he kept a sharp eye on events and reactions in all of Eastern Europe and helped to speed files to New York from Prague, where 126 correspondents in the Alcron Hotel vied for the use of one Telex machine and five telephone booths staffed by a single switchboard operator.

In their travels throughout Czechoslovakia in recent weeks, TIME'S correspondents have been impressed by the new spirit of the country and the people. "I just took off," cabled Forbath, "reporting to no authority, dropping in anywhere. The people were warm, open, unafraid, though I was a capitalistic journalist whom most people had been taught for two decades to regard as little better than a Western spy." This time, being from the West was something of an advantage, and Forbath was happy to be offered not only tea by the Russians but the clear, potent and ever-present slivovice that Czechoslovaks lavish on their guests.

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