Abstract:
The Soviet Union's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia posed particularly awkward problems for the United States. The US had, since the Truman administration in 1949, been on record in support of governments resisting communist domination. The long and divisive war in Vietnam was predicated on this doctrine. The appearance of Soviet tanks in Prague, moreover, threatened a government, led by Alexander Dubcek, whose promise of "socialism with a human face" had captured the Western imagination. Nonetheless, there were potent reasons for the US not to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia. The country had, since World War II, been in the Soviet sphere of influence as a member of the Warsaw Pact. The bloodless invasion itself seemed irreversible. There was neither appetite nor means for military intervention-which would threaten to spark a much wider war. President Johnson did, however, have the choice of whether to continue fledgling strategic arms limitations talks with the Soviets. He would weigh the fate of the Czechs against the promise of reduction in stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
