U.S. Reporters’ Role Recalled

As Czechoslovakia celebrates the anniversary of its peaceful revolution, new monuments continue to be created in Prague. The latest, set up Thursday in the window of a clothing store on the city’s main shopping street, consists of a blood-stained tan raincoat and an explanatory placard.

In Czech and English, the placard explains that on the night of Nov. 17, 1989, when police attacked student demonstrators in downtown Prague, among their victims were American reporters covering the events. Paula Buterini, a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, was beaten so badly that “she fell back and her head split open,” later requiring 14 stitches, the placard says.

The bloody coat, the placard explains, belonged to Times correspondent Tyler Marshall, who caught Buterini as she fell and later accompanied her to a city hospital for treatment.