A few weeks earlier, Tito’s state secretary for foreign affairs, Marko Nikezić, during a closed session with Serbian journalists had stressed how, in the Soviet’s opinion, Yugoslavia was a country with the most “concentrated revisionist” party program.54 In his opinion, developments in Czechoslovakia were contributing significantly to the consolidation of everything already achieved in Yugoslavia. No democratization should ever be expected from Moscow. Therefore, small steps forward in different Socialist countries should be supported in order to achieve democratization, ease tensions, and create a new environment in Europe.55 Bearing that in mind, it was clear why the Yugoslavs were so eager to help Dubček. A few days after Tito’s stay in Prague, Nicolae Ceaus¸escu of Romania followed. We know now that on 17 August, the day of the last meeting between Kádár and Dubček, the Soviet Politburo gave the final go-ahead for the invasion. Zdeněk Mlynář claims that Kádár, unable to change Dubček’s mind, had asked almost desperately, “Do you really not know the kind of people you’re dealing with?”56
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU, MRS. DUBČEK?
Mrs. Ana Dubček came to Rijeka on 2 August 1968 with two children and a personal driver. She called on the harbor authorities and asked for permission to board the Czechoslovak ship Gojnice. Her oldest son was supposed to get some world experience while traveling along the Mediterranean and working onboard.57 Her trip had not been previously announced to the Yugoslav authorities. Only after Radio Prague had asked Radio Zagreb colleagues to do a story on the first lady’s trip had Jože Smole, head of Tito’s office, asked the Croatian police to check her whereabouts. Tito’s personal wish was to have a member of the Croatian authorities pay her a visit. Ana Dubček was one of 50,000 Czech and Slovak tourists who had decided to spend their summer holidays along the Adriatic coast that year. Ota Šik, the vice president of the government, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hajek were the most prominent among them. Ana Dubček stayed in Crikvenica, a summer resort in the northern part of the country as a guest of the director of the port of Rijeka. She was probably preparing to go to bed when, on 20 August 1968 at 11:40 p.m., Florian Siwicki, the Polish general in charge of the Silesian Military District, received an order to start operation “Danube” from the north.58 His colleagues from Hungary and Bulgaria received similar orders from the Soviet general, as agreed in Moscow on 18 August.59 From a military standpoint, the occupation of Czechoslovakia was achieved brilliantly.60 Savka Dabčević-Kučar, president of the executive council of the government of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, together with Miko Tripalo, member of the highest party organs in Yugoslavia, and Dragutin Haramija, major of Rijeka, went to see her.61 Mrs. Dubček was depressed, but calm. She did not ask for any help.
General Zlatko Rendulić, commander of the technical service of the Yugoslav Air Force, was near Orebić in southern Croatia when the Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia. He, like all of his colleagues, was called to report to his military unit instantly. First he went to Belgrade, then to the northern city of Sombor. Armed soldiers who were waiting for the Soviets to attack surrounded the large military airport there. Some soldiers were even trying to escape. News came from Subotica, a city at the HungarianYugoslav border, that Soviet tanks were already entering the city. Eventually, it was revealed that the Soviet tanks purchased by the Yugoslavs before the Prague Spring were loaded on the Soviet train. They were waiting for clearance to be shipped to Yugoslavia. It could have been only a coincidence or a sign that in spite of everything, nothing was to change between Moscow and Belgrade.62
At the time of the invasion, Josip Vrhovec, a journalist at Vjesnik, a leading Croatian daily newspaper, but soon-to-become an ideological czar of the Croatian Communists, was with his family in Prague. Leaving Czechoslovakia proved to be tricky. Czechs were changing and replacing road signs to make the Soviet advance more difficult. However, many of the common people in small towns and villages were eager to help people driving Yugoslav cars get back home. Some, seeing Yugoslav license plates, were yelling at the drivers not to forget them, to tell the world what had happened in Czechoslovakia.63
The hottest activity was on the Brijuni Islands. As soon he received news of the invasion, Tito summoned leading politicians from all parts of Yugoslavia.64 Also invited were the vice-premier of Czechoslovakia, Ota Šik, State Secretary Hajek, and two other ministers and high party and state officials from Czechoslovakia. All were depressed and scared, but allowed to continue with political work as part of the legal Czechoslovak government.65 During the day, a note on the conversation between the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Belgrade with Deputy State Secretary Mišo Pavićević was delivered to Tito. The Yugoslavs were informed about the Soviet ambassador in the United States Anatolii Dobrynin’s conversation with the U.S. president Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Probably the Soviets’ position, which stressed how no “state interests of the U.S. or any other country” were to be endangered by the “fraternal” intervention of five countries in Czechoslovakia, garnered significant attention.66 What the Yugoslav leading politicians probably did not know was how almost indifferent President Johnson’s reaction to Dobrynin’s message was. Johnson had promised to study the paper, immediately changing the conversation to the arms control talks.67 Tito had opened the emergency joint session of the presidency and the Executive Committee of the CC of League of Communists of Yugoslavia by saying how a public demonstration must be made, and it was! The very next day, Mijalko Todorović Plavi, secretary of the Executive Committee of the CC League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Savez komunista Jugoslavije or LCY) addressed 250,000 people in Belgrade. During his speech, he used a phrase which eventually became quoted relatively often. The “most glorious flag of world communism,” muddied in 1948, has now fallen.68 Tito, who was addressing the gathered delegates on the Brijuni Islands, repeated that there were no reasons for the intervention because West Germany was not threatening Czechoslovakia, and socialism there was not endangered from within: