The Protracted Conflict: Coming: Prague’s Winter

The publication in London of General Jan Sejna’s long-awaited book, We Will Bury You, prompts some reflections on the role of his native Czechoslovakia in the Soviet empire. It may be recalled that Sejna, who came over to the West in 1968, was and remains the highest-ranking Communist ever to defect. A general at forty, he was Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defense and Assistant Secretary to the powerful Czech Defense Council. The material he brought with him (in the form of the extensive recollections of a very precise and reliable memory) was of the highest importance, but so sensational that professional skeptics in the intelligence community found some of it hard to accept. Yet events have consistently proved him right.

Czechoslovakia (along with East Germany) is the most important and useful of the Soviet Union’s European colonies, and both are particularly useful in the secret world of undercover work, including disinformation and clandestine propaganda.

The publication in London of General Jan Sejna’s long-awaited book, We Will Bury You, prompts some reflections on the role of his native Czechoslovakia in the Soviet empire. It may be recalled that Sejna, who came over to the West in 1968, was and remains the highest-ranking Communist ever to defect. A general at forty, he was Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defense and Assistant Secretary to the powerful Czech Defense Council. The material he brought with him (in the form of the extensive recollections of a very precise and reliable memory) was of the highest importance, but so sensational that professional skeptics in the intelligence community found some of it hard to accept. Yet events have consistently proved him right.

Czechoslovakia (along with East Germany) is the most important and useful of the Soviet Union’s European colonies, and both are particularly useful in the secret world of undercover work, including disinformation and clandestine propaganda.