The New York Times and Christian Science Monitor on Charter 77 and Human Rights

• In Event: New Directions in the Study of Czechoslovak Dissidence: Charter 77 in Transnational Perspective

Abstract

In my presentation, I would like to expand on my recent article dedicated to the reception of Charter 77 in the American press and the interaction of American journalists with Czech representatives of culture and politics.

In my presentation, I would like explore unknown archival materials to focus on the work of correspondents Paul Hoffmann and Eric Bourne, who worked for The New York Times and Christian Science Monitor respectively. They both knew Central Europe well and were posted in Prague in 1968 and 1969 to cover the events of the Prague Spring. In 1977, they authored many important articles dedicated to Charter 77 and human rights in Czechoslovakia. My presentation will focus on their long-term perspective on the political developments in Czechoslovakia and the extended circle of correspondents of both newspapers, who focused in their work on Central Europe since the 1950s. In the 1950s the Prague NYT office was managed by Dana Adams Schmidt (1915-1994) and since 1955, it was managed by the foreign correspondent Sydney Gruson (1917-1998), but moved to Warsaw two years later. Gruson had a file both with the Czechoslovak secret police and with the CIA, as he was critical of American involvement in Latin America and his work thus offers an interesting comparative study of involvement of American journalists with countries of the Soviet Bloc and in Latin America. The NYT office was reopened in August 1968 by Tad Schulz. Indeed, The New York Times maintained their presence in Czechoslovakia (although intermittently) throughout the 1950s, till 1969, when they were forced to close the office and the experiences of their reporters were fundamental, as I will show, for the future reporting on Charter 77 and human rights in the 1970s and 1980s.

Author

• Petra James, U libre de Bruxelles (Belgium)