There is an end to everything...
I left Czechoslovakia in the shadow
of certain imprisonment in August, 1968. On my manager's table I left
a folder at least 20 centimetres thick with everything I compiled in
my 5-6 years of endeavour. I do not know what happened to it, but the
radar centre on „my“ mountain was built some three years later, even two radar centres: one
for the Area ATC purposes, the other for the Bureau of Meteorology. They can be
seen above Rača from almost anywhere in Bratislava. On the picture below (thank
you GONZO from Picasa Vajnory) is the Area ATC radar; the BOM radar is
a little to the left from this angle:
The picture of it above I found on
the internet, but I do not remember who to address my acknowledgment to.
I have never heard who managed to
push the whole idea to its conclusion, what dramas were played around it, how
it works... The few individuals who might know something – fewer and fewer
every year – remain silent; this narration has been published as blog on the
popular Slovakian news agency site a couple of years ago, and there has
been no meaningful reaction to it.
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The following text I discovered in 2020.
Dusan Podhorsky.....
...Employment 1963 - 1992 at Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute as synoptic and aviation weather forecaster, founder of radar and cosmic meteorology in Czechoslovakia, builder of regional seat of Radar and cosmic meteorology at Maly Javornik mountain (1972), etc., etc.......
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Years 1967 and 1968.
At the end of 1966 „my“ mountaintop
began to be overgrown with shrubs and new growth, when one nice day earth machinery
arrived at the beginning of the road to it from Rača, drums with telephone
cables were dumped next to the ditch being excavated, and the activity was
irresistible for me to ignore. Enquiring around the workers I learned that
it is telephone cable for the Ministry of Interior – another name for the State
Security.
My stupidity at the time could have
thrown me to prison, that was hanging above my head for a while already
anyway: I sent a letter to that Ministry whether us (that is Area Air
Traffic Control) could ask for some part of that cable to be reserved for our purposes.
The Ministry was at the time the most powerful organisation in the country, it
was the brain and the muscle behind the official puppet government. I was
summoned to the Ministry, to its office in Bratislava, and was threatened with the
entire arsenal at their disposal (almost all, that is!). I was accused of
trying to disrupt functioning of the state apparatus, of spying („how did
I know what the Ministry was endeavouring to do?“), etc., etc. These were
the highest possible accusations that could bring me behind bars – if the times
were any different. Thankfully, they were not, due to the so-called Prague
Spring.
At the time the political situation in the country began to mellow, it began to change for the better, at least as we saw and felt it. In that
political turmoil I, too, had my fingers. It was absolutely clear to me that it
is impossible to continue with the disinterested management, nor with the
political system supporting such managerial practices, and that a reform
is needed urgently. I was canvassing the possibility of some reforms in
the aviation circles around the country (of Slovakia), and managed to gain
almost widespread support. In 1967 the pressure for reform became almost
irresistible.
The so-called Prague Spring has been
described from all possible angles elsewhere, and by others, much better than
I possibly could, so that’s enough from me.
Just a few words: towards the end
of 1967 we organised a few meetings
to thrash out the nature of changes we deemed necessary for proper functioning
of the Air Traffic Control services. We were inviting to these meetings persons
who could contribute, in our opinion, to the nature of reforms. Once we managed
to rope in a Comrade Slaninka who was responsible for the air transport
sector at the Central Committee of the Communist Party – the boss of all the
bosses! Until then a name nobody ever heard of. We unearthed him by simply
asking about such high function at the Communist Party building, something
unthinkable until recently. He did not know how to wriggle out (the Party apparatchiks
had no experience with speaking with the plebs), and eventually turned up at
our meeting – and agreed with everything!!! Manager of the Bratislava Airport,
Comrade Želinský came, and agreed; Comrade Bella, Chairman of the Trade Union;
Comrade this and Comrade that agreed – I don’t remember all their names
any more. A few days after invasion by the armies of Soviet Union,
a few of those Comrades, those, who at our meetings agreed with everything,
came to me and whispered in my ears, with not a small hint of venom: „You are finally getting what you were
asking for, MISTER Hatvani...“
Many years later I found a quote in the Czech playwright Vaclav Havel's memoirs, a quote which seems to fit my position at work well:
(My efforts to improve) "....it begins as an attempt to do your work well and ends with being branded an enemy of society."
Btw, I used to frequent a small theatre in Prague called Na zabradli, where a young playwright (mentioned above) was introducing his new play. I did not understand what it was about, and thought of him as a bit of a nut. I saw him there a few times - same age as me (25, give or take) -, unremarkable appearance, in my eyes a typical cafe denizen of Prague. At the time I knew nothing else about him.
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