At the end of August 1968, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia and my sister immediately wanted to go back to be with my mother. I talked her out of it, and we decided that we would first try to get my mother out to join us; only if that failed would my sister go back. We made the invitation right away, and some friends in Prague helped my mother get a passport quickly and obtain her visa. She was able to come. I do not remember the exact timeframe, but it worked out. After the invasion, even the hardline communist government employees were helping people get out — it took several months for the regime to tighten its grip on the population again and close things back down. We were lucky to get her out when we did.
I thought I knew what to do, since I had learned enough about the Geneva Convention rules from my own experience. I took my sister and my mother to the immigration office in Boston and told them that my mother and sister had come to the United States as the first Western country they had stepped into after the invasion, and that they would like to apply for political asylum. To my surprise, I was told that the United States did not give political asylum — that only the CIA could issue it, and mainly to people who had been Communist Party members and could provide useful intelligence. I was very upset and asked to speak to a supervisor, since I could not believe what I was hearing.
While we were waiting, there was another Czech person sitting in the waiting area. He heard us speaking Czech, came over, and warned me in a low voice that the immigration people would try to persuade me to stay and offer me asylum, that they had offered it to him, and that I should be prepared and resist it. He was obviously some desirable communist. I did not respond to him.
When we went in to see the supervisor, she told us the same thing as the woman before her. I brought up the Geneva Convention and asked her to explain why my mother and sister could not even be given the chance to apply. Her explanation was that they did not want to upset the Czech government. I asked her whether she had read a newspaper recently, since the Czech president and prime minister had been captured and taken to Moscow. She said that the Soviet Union had declared itself the governing authority and they did not want to upset that. She referred me to a nearby organization that provided legal help to immigrants — I have forgotten the name, but they were close to the immigration office. I went there and was told the same thing and that they could not help.
After my experience with the draft, I knew what to do next. I decided to write to a senator — this time to Senator Ted Kennedy, since I did not want to trouble Senator Brooke again. I received back a standard form letter thanking me for writing; it was clear no one had actually read what I sent. I called and then went in person to see the lawyer Ralph Fine, who had helped me with my draft situation. He took my letter to Senator Kennedy and sent it on the firm’s letterhead. This time I received a real response.
Senator Kennedy’s letter outlined a legal path for both of them. He said that as an exception, my sister could obtain a work permit in her profession — she was an experienced plumbing draftsman with an associate degree from Czechoslovakia — and after 5 years she could apply for citizenship. For my mother, because of her age, he said she could keep extending her visa, and after 2 years she could apply for political asylum, and after 5 years apply for citizenship. Unfortunately I no longer have that letter.
When my mother applied for her first visa extension, she received a deportation order instead. I went to the immigration office with Senator Kennedy’s letter and told them directly that if they tried to deport her I would go to the television stations and the newspapers. They let it be.
With my sister, she found a job as a plumbing draftsman at Francis and Associates in Boston. When she went for the interview, she wanted me to come along to translate. I told her no — that she had a better chance of getting the job if she could show them she was able to communicate on her own rather than needing a translator beside her. They offered her the job. The immigration office then told the company she was not permitted to work. I had to go back there again with Senator Kennedy’s letter, which they already had on file, and they finally allowed the company to hire her.
I was in great debt to Ralph Fine. That Christmas I bought a very expensive set of whisky and mailed it to him. He called me back and told me I should not have done it, that he had done everything pro bono and was glad to help. I have never forgotten him, and I remember both him and Martin Linsky whenever I think about the people in this country who helped me when I needed it most.
I learned sometime in 1969 that there was a reason behind all of it — the passport, my mother and sister being denied the chance to even apply for asylum, all of it. Someone told me that the United States had never actually signed the Geneva Convention dealing with refugees, even though the USA was actively promoting it in Europe. I was shocked. I could never fully understand why no one at the immigration office — not one person, in any of those visits — ever told me that directly. If they had simply said that the USA was not a signatory to the Convention and therefore was not bound by it, I would have understood. I would not have liked it, but at least I would have known what I was dealing with and would not have been angry at them. Instead they argued with me as if the Convention applied and they were simply choosing not to honor it, which was far worse.
When I left Czechoslovakia I believed that everything in the West was fair. I learned the hard way that it was not so simple. There were good things in the West and bad things in the West, just as there were some good things in the communist system alongside the very bad. But the difference that mattered most was this: in the West, if you found something unfair, you could fight it and sometimes win. That was what I did with the draft, with my sister’s work permit, with my mother’s deportation order. I did not always win easily, and I needed help from good people like Martin Linsky and Ralph Fine to do it. But the option to fight was there. In Czechoslovakia it was not.