Diplomatic Exile

For weeks Alexander Dubcek has been the object of a secret struggle within the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia. The ultraconservative faction, led by Deputy Party Chief Lubomir Strougal, has wanted to put him on trial for treason. But Boss Gustav Husak, the Moscow-supported "realist" who last April replaced Dubcek as party leader, has sought to prevent a return to the terror practices that gripped Czechoslovakia in the 1950s and early '60s. Last week, after a meeting of the ruling eleven-man Presidium in Prague, party officials announced that some time after Jan. 1 Dubcek will become Czechoslovakia's Ambassador to Turkey.

The appointment was a clever move by Husak, who fears that outright persecution of Dubcek and his liberal followers would plunge the country into deeper political and economic trouble. In Ankara, Dubcek will be conveniently removed from Czechoslovakia, where he remains by far the most popular political figure. As an ambassador, Dubcek will be duty-bound to carry out the orders of his political opponents in Prague. In the highly unlikely event that Dubcek should decide to defect to the West, Husak could portray the act as one of political treachery.

Few Duties. In mid-December, when the Czechoslovaks sounded out Ankara about accepting Dubcek, the Turkish government responded with wholehearted approval. Dubcek is something of a hero to many Turks. Because of the extraordinary appeal of Dubcek's brand of "Socialism with a human face," the Czechoslovaks could not send him to another Soviet-bloc nation. They apparently chose Turkey because of its established reputation for suppressing foreign political intrigues.*

Ambassador Dubcek, who initially resisted the appointment, will find few pressing diplomatic problems between Ankara and Prague. The embassy has only a seven-man staff, and Dubcek's main duty will consist of overseeing Czechoslovakia's $44 million in trade with Turkey. Meanwhile, the campaign against liberals continued in Prague. Josef Smrkovsky, the former president of the National Assembly who was Dubcek's closest ally, was stripped of membership in the federal legislature, his last state function. Ten other liberals were also forced to resign, thus virtually completing the purge of deputies who remained loyal to Dubcek. But the struggle is far from over. Some Czechoslovaks expect a bitter battle over economic issues next month, when the party's 135-man Central Committee, which is composed of 35% conservative extremists, holds its scheduled plenum.

-There is a precedent for Turkey as a cooling-off place for Communist outcasts: Stalin permitted Leon Trotsky to take refuge in Istanbul in the early 1930s.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.