Not Censored, Dubcek Says, Stands Behind Speech Text

Former Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek denied today that he had been forced to tone down a speech harshly criticizing his nation’s Communist leadership over the past 20 years.

Meeting with political science students at the University of Bologna, Dubcek, 66, said he stands by the full 12-page address that he wrote for a university convocation Sunday and distributed but delivered only in part.

In the text of his speech, Dubcek said Czechoslovakia had suffered “economic stagnation, sterility and incalculable moral losses” in the 20 years since Soviet tanks crushed his “Prague Spring” reform movement in 1968.

In the delivery, however, Dubcek omitted much of the political content of the address, leading to speculation that he had censored it for fear that he would not be permitted to return to Czechoslovakia.

“I firmly deny the idea that someone could have performed censorship or that I was self-censored,” the former Communist Party leader said. “Everybody knows that the translation of my address was distributed before the ceremony. The entire text in the original will be published.”

In Prague, Czechoslovak government spokesman Miroslav Pavel said there are no obstacles to Dubcek’s return. “Alexander Dubcek is a Czechoslovak citizen, and it is his right to return to Czechoslovakia when he decides to,” Pavel said.

Dubcek softens talk, Page 4.