The World - News from March 19, 1989

Former Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek, who has become increasingly critical of the Prague leadership, was not allowed to travel to Italy for the opening Saturday of a Communist Party congress. Dubcek’s wife, contacted by telephone from Vienna, said her husband had not been granted permission for the trip. The 67-year-old former leader last month condemned Czech authorities for police attacks on protesters at a series of anti-government demonstrations. Dubcek, who visited Italy last January, was leader of the “Prague Spring” reform movement that was crushed by a Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968.