Czechoslovak Didn't Ask for Money

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Your article "Czech Officials Ask for U.S. Financial Aid" of 5 October 1990 misrepresents the message of Foreign Minister Jiri Dienstbier. Czechoslovakia has been notable among the former Communist countries in that it has not asked Western countries for any direct financial aid.

Mr. Dienstbier did not come here to plead for money. He asked, rather, that the Western countries help create the conditions necessary for Czechoslovakia's successful transition to a market economy. He asked for technical assistance, for Western investment, and for a monetary fund to ensure the stability of the Czechoslovak currency.

At the Kennedy School panel discussion, Graham Allison and Shirley Williams did indeed harshly criticize Western governments' stinginess in helping newly-democratic Central and Eastern Europe (and rightly so, I believe). But your paraphrase of Mr. Dienstbier's message as a plea to the West to "send more economic aid" is entirely misleading. Czechoslovaks do not want us to pay for their transition; they want to rebuild their country themselves, and they deserve enormous credit for this commitment.

Mr. Dienstbier did not tell us that "his country was in dire need of economic help from the West," nor would he do so. To suggest otherwise is the product of an overactive journalistic imagination. Allon Percus '92