U.S. Artists Offer Tributes to Havel : Diplomacy: The Czechoslovak leader also receives a degree from Columbia and visits New York’s mayor.

Major American figures in the arts, literature and theater paid tribute Thursday to colleague Vaclav Havel, the playwright who endured confinement and official recrimination during decades of Communist domination in Czechoslovakia, but whose work carried him to the presidency of his country last year.

Havel, who has gained stature as a dramatist in the tradition of Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett, was praised at impressive ceremonies at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine after receiving an honorary degree at Columbia University.

He entered the huge arched gray stone church to a fanfare mixed with the tinkling of tiny gold bells that were handed out to the audience.

“I am sorry I had no opportunity to write my speech because I was not today two hours in a prison,” Havel said, calling the tribute a “big and moving celebration.”

“I thank all who participate. . . . We will feel it as sympathy and support for freedom.”

The Czechoslovak president lit a candle for freedom. Thousands of candles were held high by the throng in the cathedral.

The cathedral ceremony was symbolic of deepening artistic ties between Eastern Europe and the West. It had its roots in a January visit to Prague by a group from New York’s Actors Studio, who presented Havel’s play “Audience.” Havel, who spent years in prison, had never seen the play staged.

Thursday’s tribute in New York brought kudos to a politician-playwright with a sardonic sense of irony who once said in an interview: “Every morning I fight depression--a black mood, guilt that I am not writing.”

The day’s program featured appearances by a host of major figures in the arts ranging from Nobel Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel to Paul Newman and producer Joseph Papp.

“I have been in the presence of some great artists. I have been in the presence of some great statesmen,” Newman said. “I have never been in the presence of an artist-statesman.”

Havel replied to cheers from an audience at an Actors Studio reception before the tribute began. Standing next to Newman, he said:

“I am very glad that I am among my colleagues. I will not speak a very long time because I am very nervous.”

The Czechoslovak president said Newman loomed as large as a legend and that “I didn’t think Mr. Newman physically existed.” There was great laughter and applause.

Earlier in the day, Havel, 53, who was elected Czechoslovakia’s president Dec. 29, mixed international affairs with artistic politics. He visited the Council on Foreign Relations, held a news conference at the United Nations, visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and met New York Mayor David N. Dinkins for breakfast.

“I didn’t run for president,” Havel told Dinkins. “I was raised to that post by public opinion, public pressure.”

Guests at the breakfast included Papp, fellow playwrights Arthur Miller, Edward Albee and Wendy Wasserstein.

Havel said he enjoyed a “wonderful evening” while touring pubs in Manhattan’s East Village with film director Milos Forman. Havel and Forman, an emigre, attended boarding school together in Czechoslovakia 43 years ago.

“If a playwright succeeds to orchestrate the overthrow of a dictatorship without one bullet being fired, it is a miracle,” Forman told the audience at the packed cathedral. He added: “We are all here to show you our faith, our admiration, our support, our affection--and if you ask for it, our help.”