VIOLATIONS OF AIRSPACE AND NO END IN SIGHT
No end was yet in sight for the violations of Austria’s borders. In the first days after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, several incidents took place. On 23 August, a Soviet helicopter gunship landed near Unterretzbach, and two Soviet jets penetrated approximately ten kilometers into Austrian airspace near Altnagelberg. Yet these and other comparable incidents still failed to draw protests from the Austrian government. In the manner that had already become almost a routine, the Soviet ambassador was, in his own words, “invited” to the Austrian Foreign Ministry.29 That day, at 10:45 a.m., the Foreign Ministry general secretary, Wilfried Platzer, acting at Waldheim’s behest, handed the Soviet diplomat a list of the border incidents. He explicitly stated that “this was not to be interpreted as a note”; the Austrian purpose was to inform the Soviets as to the precise timing and location of the incidents.30 Podtserob once again expressed “regret at the violations of Austria’s borders,” adding “that these were not intentional.” He renewed his assurance to “inform Moscow so that adequate measures would be taken.”31 In the further course of the meeting, the Soviet diplomat also mentioned the Austrian chancellor’s televised address of the previous night. He asked Platzer whether it was the chancellor’s intention “to call Austria’s policy of neutrality into doubt.”32 In his reply, Platzer averred that “reducing tensions and enhancing security and cooperation in Europe were longstanding political objectives of the Austrian government” and “that Austria is committed to a policy of neutrality and determined not to be deflected from this course.” Platzer also assured Podtserob that he was going to discuss this issue with Chancellor Klaus. At the end of the conversation, Platzer thanked Podtserob for the fact that Austrians were free to leave Czechoslovakia without permission or hindrance and that Austria’s ambassador to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR), Rudolf Kirchschläger, had likewise been enabled to return safely to Prague by car.33
After this meeting between Ambassador Podtserob and General Secretary Platzer, a certain amount of hectic activism seems to have taken hold of the Ballhausplatz. Foreign Minister Waldheim repeatedly tried in vain to reach the Soviet ambassador on the phone. His failure was due to the fact that the diplomat had left the meeting at the Foreign Ministry to attend a function at the Romanian embassy on the occasion of Romania’s National Day. On his return to the Soviet embassy, Podtserob was informed of Waldheim’s urgent wish to speak to him. In the phone call that followed, Waldheim once more underscored the statements made by Chancellor Klaus in his televised address and Platzer’s assurances as to Austria’s commitment to neutrality. Waldheim added that Austria was going to “adhere to its course of neutrality and would not consider other options under any circumstances.” The Austrian Foreign Minister made it explicitly clear that his statement was official in character.34
In this way, positions were made quite clear immediately after the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Moscow had informed Vienna of the reasons that had motivated it to make this move and had given assurances that Austria was not going to be affected by it in any way. Vienna, in turn, had explicitly repeated its commitment to a strict course of neutrality several times vis-àvis the Soviet Union in the days following the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
VIENNA LODGES A PROTEST AFTER ALL: DIPLOMATIC SPARRING WITH CONSEQUENCES?
All the clarifying talks with the Soviet ambassador notwithstanding, the Austrian government mandated its envoy to Moscow, Walter Wodak, on the same day, 23 August, “to register formal protest with the Foreign Ministry on account of repeated violations of Austrian sovereignty.”35 It is said to have taken Wodak three days before he was granted an appointment at the Soviet Foreign Ministry. Waldheim was also mandated to protest formally on behalf of the federal government to the Soviet ambassador, but, as Waldheim put it in an interview later, the latter “did not turn up at my office for three days—under the pretext of having fallen ill.”36 For this reason, the official protest was not entered until 26 August. The Soviet Foreign Ministry representative is said to have expressed regret at the border incidents and to have asserted that care would be taken “to prevent a repetition of such incidents.”37
Three days later, the tone on the part of the Soviet embassy became much more direct. In a démarche made by the Soviet embassy counselor, the diplomat conceded on one hand that “the Soviet Union was gratified to take note of the official statements issued by the Austrian federal government” but criticized the fact that “the Austrian press as well as radio and TV had shown themselves to be partisan in a thoroughly non-objective and tendentious manner, which was incompatible with the standards of a neutral country. They had in fact become mouthpieces of the counterrevolution in the ČSSR.”38 Ambassador Podtserob had been informed two days before by the president of Parliament, Alfred Maleta, that “there [was] going to be a meeting involving the Federal Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor, the Minister for the Interior, and [ORF] Program Director Gerd Bacher.” The Soviet envoy conveyed to the Ballhausplatz that the Soviet Union was aware of the concept of freedom of the press; at the same time he made it clear, if almost apologetically, how important it was for the Austrian government to keep an eye on the “line taken by the mass media.”39
The Ballhausplatz reached the conclusion that the démarche was not meant “as a protest against Austria’s state authorities” and that it was obvious that the Soviet side “had been intent from the start to avoid any hostility or acrimony in their dealings with Austrian authorities.” This was also the reason why Austria had deliberately waived the opportunity to focus on negative reports on Austria that were appearing in the Soviet press.40
In the afternoon of the same day, Kurt Waldheim invited the Soviet ambassador to the Foreign Ministry, where they discussed a recent Literaturnaya Gazeta article in which Austria was accused of turning a blind eye to the presence of North Atlantic Treaty Organization special commandos on its territory.41 Waldheim had been alerted to the article only a few days before by the U.S. ambassador.42 He assured Podtserob once more that Austria was not tolerating any activities on its soil that were incompatible with its neutrality. Austria, as Waldheim told the diplomat, “appreciated friendly relations with the Soviet Union very much and was doing its utmost to keep them from being tarnished.”43 In the conversation he repeatedly queried the purpose of the Literaturnaya Gazeta article. Podtserob replied that the journal apparently had contact to credible sources and added that the Gazeta was published by the Union of Soviet Writers, which was neither the mouthpiece of a party organization, nor of any other state institution of the USSR. As opposed to reports in Austria’s media on the Soviet Union, the article in question had been “a very moderate reaction.” Waldheim subsequently repeatedly clapped his hands together and remarked that its freedom made the press immune against government influence. Off the record, he confided to the Soviet ambassador “that he had repeatedly talked to newspaper editors… and had instructed them to take into account in their reports on events in Czechoslovakia the limits imposed by Austria’s neutrality. These people, however, were not accountable to the Austrian government; they were de facto independent.” Waldheim agreed with Podtserob “that the actually existing freedom of the press had limits, which were imposed by Austria’s obligations resulting from the State Treaty.” It is not surprising that the Soviet sources contain no clues as to whether the Soviet ambassador actually submitted an apology to Waldheim for the conduct of the Soviet government.44