For Czechoslovaks, 1st Look at Urbanek : East Bloc: New leader appears nervous in televised address.

The people got their first glimpse of the country’s new Communist Party leader, Karel Urbanek, on Saturday, and their initial reaction was mixed.

“We don’t believe him,” commented one worker after watching Urbanek’s first television speech Saturday night.

An office worker who also saw the speech said the 48-year-old party boss appeared honest, but she remained skeptical about his intentions.

In his speech, Urbanek coughed nervously and stared attentively at the camera as he talked of party mistakes and appealed to those both inside and outside the party to help negotiate what he called a new beginning for Czechoslovakia.

He also admitted the party had made major mistakes.

“We’ve been separated from the people . . . their needs and interests,” he told the nation.

“The party ignored the people, the truth and everyday life. There must be a break with everyone who misused their positions.”

He added: “It was an immense mistake to ignore the country’s greatest assets--its brains and its hands.

“I know that in the leadership of the party, this authority and leadership is missing . . . ,” he added.

Urbanek called for a new start and issued a plea for negotiations to resolve the country’s political problems “with everyone who is ready to contribute to the future of Czechoslovakia.”

For most of Czechoslovakia’s 15 million people, it was the first time they had seen the former railway worker, who emerged Friday as the choice as party leader.

His appointment came as party hard-liners fought to keep control against a wave of public protest demanding political liberalization.

Five of those hard-liners were removed from the party Politburo in a major shake-up Friday.

Rarely has a European country been presented with a leader so completely unknown.

Jiri Kratky, editor of the Czech newspaper Free Word, who has met Urbanek, said, “My impression was of a neutral man. It’s very hard to speak about someone whose intelligence I can’t assess.”

Even his political opponents were unable to comment with any degree of substance.

“So far, he’s been completely expressionless,” said Vaclav Maly, a spokesman for the opposition coalition group Civic Forum, before Urbanek’s television address. “We know so little about him.

“He was much less visible and had less clear opinions than others in the party,” Maly added.

The son of a Moravian farming family, Urbanek made his power base in the industrial city of Brno.

Urbanek joined the Communist Party at age 21 and attended the party’s college in Brno before eventually rising to head the city’s party committee in 1982.

He entered the national Central Committee in March, 1986, and was promoted to the Politburo only 13 months ago.

He was given the tasks of monitoring the impact of reforms on the party and also overseeing “cadre policy”--a role that included the study of party promotion and expulsion matters. While important within the party, the jobs gave Urbanek virtually no public profile.

He is a man described as colorless but someone who had refrained from making excessively hard-line statements.

“He’s a brand new face,” said Kratky. “The situation he faces will have to be handled very skillfully. He’s going to need many good advisers.”