„No Action“: Johnsonova administrative a invaze do Československa
‘No Action’: The Johnson Administration and the Soviet-led Intervention in Czechoslovakia

Summary/Abstract: In the article the author reconstructs the US Administration’s response to the Warsaw Pact military intervention in Czechoslovakia in August 1968. He points out that in May of that year Deputy Secretary of State Eugene V. Rostow, referring to the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956, recommended to his superior, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, to give Moscow a clear warning against intervening by force. Rusk rejected the recommendation with two words: ‘No action’. This laconic statement, according to the author, embodies the whole US reaction to the Czechoslovak crisis. The military intervention none the less took the Johnson Administration by surprise. The Administration unanimously agreed that the United States could not get involved in the crisis militarily, and concentrated instead on deterring the Soviets from further possible interventions in Romania, Yugoslavia, and perhaps even Austria, a threat that was, however, probably more psychological than real. Apart from that, the White House had to face the suspicion, expressed by a considerable part of the Western communications media and also, for example, by French offi cial circles, that it had given the Kremlin the green light for the military operation. The primary aim of US policy here was to continue the process of international detente. This was projected into their non-confrontational approach towards the Soviets. Two unexpected consequences of the intervention, argues the author, were increased unity in the North-Atlantic Alliance and a reconsideration of plans to withdraw US troops from Europe.

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