Havel Sees Own Play First Time--in Icelandic

Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel, on his way to Canada and the United States, stopped over to meet Iceland’s president Saturday and attended a play he wrote but had never seen performed.

The playwright president told reporters he decided to visit Reykjavik because the city is a symbol of peace--a reference to the U.S.-Soviet summit in 1986.

Havel talked with reporters before attending a production in Icelandic of his play “Slum Clearance.” Czechoslovakia’s former hard-line Communist government banned Havel’s plays for 20 years.

Havel said he and Iceland’s president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, have common interests, since she is a former director of Reykjavik’s municipal theater. Havel invited her to visit his country.

Havel, his wife, Olga Havlova, and an entourage of about 80 people were scheduled to depart today for Canada and a three-day visit to the United States beginning Monday. Havel will meet with President Bush and address a joint session of Congress.

Havel said during a recent interview in Prague that although many East Europeans resent the way the West abandoned them to Stalin more than 40 years ago, the United States is widely admired as a beacon of freedom. But Havel indicated that Washington will have to work hard to keep that standing now that Europe is changing.

“The United States was traditionally seen here as a guarantor of democracy, and (America) may be more popular here than in other countries, and rightly so,” he said.

“But that doesn’t mean that in a radically changing situation--the process of disintegration of the Soviet Bloc--the United States will not be called upon to pursue a different policy than to date.”

Havel was reluctant to give specifics before his talks with Bush.

Havel said in an essay released Saturday that he envisions a “smaller . . . nicer” Europe, molded by the Western concept of human rights.

Havel wrote an essay on Europe’s future for the Feb. 26 edition of U.S. News and World Report.

“So what kind of place will Europe be? When all is said, it will not become an Orwellian superpower, it will not become a fortress. It will be a smaller but perhaps nicer place,” Havel wrote.

The tide was turned in Europe, Havel said, by the Western concept of human rights.

“In less than 15 years, this simple concept of human rights came close to accomplishing what the theories of ‘containment,’ ‘deterrence’ and ‘mutual assured destruction’ could not . . . . This concept of human rights paved the way for the enormous changes in Eastern Europe that we have recently witnessed.”