Group XXIII

There were days during that time at Stanford-in-Germany when the world seemed close to splitting apart at the seams from the wild spin of geopolitics. However, until I found myself running down a street in Prague, ears cocked for gunfire, because of the collapsing economy in Biafra, I didn't fully realized the torque that the large-scale twist of events in the world could apply to one small life.

Let me backtrack. The Herald Tribune was thick with the news of international tumult during that summer and fall of 1969 when Gruppe XXIII was overseas: Western Europe was itchy with student and worker dissent, the US and USSR were fully engaged in Cold War chest-thumping, a Libyan coup brought a young colonel named Gadhafi to power, and civil war in the breakaway nation of Biafra droned on- as did the war in Vietnam. Back in the States the trial of the Chicago Eight began, a concert at a place called Woodstock drew a throng, reports of the My Lai massacre first began to surface, a lottery for the military draft began, the largest antiwar demonstration in U.S. history took place in Washington, President Nixon criticized protesters and America: Love It or Leave It bumper stickers first appeared.

Oh, and humans walked on the moon for the first time ever.

On July 20, 1969, in fact, I was watching TV from the doorway of a crowded room in an old student hotel in Prague, Czechoslovakia, when Neil Armstrong plopped his foot into the moondust. The throng of young Czechs cheered.

My reaction at the time was closer to disdain, skepticism being the prime component of my political sensibility then. Why, I thought, were we spending billions of dollars on a space competition with the Russians when there were so many more pressing human needs here on terra firma? In the face of poverty and inequality at home, and in the light of what I saw as a wrong-headed war in Vietnam, the moon landing seemed like nothing more than circus.

My contrary viewpoint had been reinforced by a letter that had arrived from my draft board three days earlier. This was in a time, remember, when young draft-age men had to ask permission to leave the country. Long before I headed off to Stanford-in-Germany, I'd written a note requesting this permission, adding an unsolicited editorial comment expressing my opposition to the Vietnam War. Upon receiving no reply, I figured everything was in order, and I left on the charter plane with my fellow group members, arriving in Beutelsbach in time to celebrate the Fourth of July.

On July 17, my draft board finally got around to my request. This was their full reply (I still have the letter): "This is to advise that the local board considered your request for a permit to leave the United States. The local board has determined that your request be denied at this time." My father called and read the disembodied prose to me on a scratchy connection over the single phone down the hall in the men's dormitory at Landgut Burg. No reason was given for the decision. My reaction was outrage; I was angry at the maddening bureaucratic sluggishness of the draft board and angry at what I figured was punishment for my political beliefs. With no hesitation, I resolved not to go home but to finish my six months' stay in Germany, regardless of what the draft board said. I had no idea what the consequences of such an act might be, but I was not coming back home till December, I told my father. He sighed. Over the next few weeks, this decision hovered over everything I did. In the shadow of my sense of homelessness and anger, I even considered the possibility of not going back to the U.S. at the end of our six months in Beutelsbach.

So I was not in a particularly nationalistic mood that night of the moon landing. All that "the Eagle has landed" stuff seemed to me mere sleight-of-hand to distract us from the real problems facing the country.

But I wasn't in my country. I was in Czechoslovakia. The room with the small, grainy black-and-white TV was crammed with dozens of rapt Czech and international students. The TV announcer's commentary in Czech was lost on me, but in the background I could faintly hear the English of the actual space mission, including Neil Armstrong's "...one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind..." underneath the simultaneous translation. I hadn't even originally planned to watch the event, but I was drawn down the hall by the vocal enthusiasm of the audience.

Those exultant Czech students had a vastly different perspective than mine regarding that moonwalk. Less than a year earlier, the USSR and other Warsaw Pact forces had invaded Czechoslovakia to crush Alexander Dubcek's inspiring experiment in liberalization, the "Prague Spring." These students were cheering us Yanks because our lunar achievement was a pie in the face of their oppressors. They were happy that the Soviets had lost the space race. My cynicism didn't play well in that crowded hotel room.

I'd come to Prague with three other Stanford-in-Germany students--

my roommate Skip Stiver, Nancy Barry, and Jan Giske--for a three-day visit. We all had friends among a small group of Stanford students spending the summer in Czechoslovakia as part of a Ford Foundation-sponsored study group. In that tumultuous time in Czech history, this troupe of Stanford students found itself smack dab in the middle of things. Our friends were meeting with journalists, trade unionists, writers, film-makers, professors and students, many of whom put themselves in danger by showing photos and home movies of the invasion and by criticizing the occupation. My great-spirited buddy Dave Schaffarzick had written me a letter saying that I had to come visit him in Prague, a place more beautiful and tragic than I could imagine. There were rumors that the border would be closed to foreigners soon, he said, because of the upcoming one-year anniversary of the invasion. So the four of us decided to go.

When we picked up our visas, I was told that the Czech border guards were so uptight since the invasion I might be forced to cut my beard, since my passport photo showed me clean-shaven and the guards were suspicious of outside agitators among young "radicals and hippies." I wouldn't have called myself either, but I packed a pair of scissors in case.

We took the overnight train from Stuttgart to Prague, the four of us sharing a sweltering sleeping compartment. I had an upper berth above Jan, and we still laugh (two years later we got married) because all night she worried that my socks would catch fire from glowing smokestack cinders flying by the open window. When we crossed the border early in the morning, the officials were gruff, but I didn't have to cut my beard.

Those three days in Prague were a blur of activity. Jan, Skip, and Nancy hung out with their friends. We watched the moon walk. I slept on the floor in the room of Dave Schaffarzick and Carter Newton, and through them plunged into the intensely political world of the young Czechs they knew. Though the Warsaw Pact tanks had been removed to a distant ring around the city and everyday life seemed to proceed normally, there were enough great-coated, rifle-bearing soldiers on corners to remind us of the occupation. Flowers were piled every day on the spot where Jan Palach, a Prague University student our age, had seven months earlier set himself on fire and died to protest the invasion. Walking by the National Theater one day, its stone walls pocked by bullet holes, one of the young Czechs had whipped out some chalk and surreptitiously scrawled graffiti near the holes: "This is an example of Russian culture."

Dave and his Czech friends were perfect guides to Prague. We walked the city all day and talked late into the night, drinking pilsner and rehashing the invasion that had squelched the Czechs' unique third way--their brief, liberating experiment of democratic "socialism with a human face." As we explored, we were stopped often by citizens asking us--usually in English--if we wanted to change our U.S. dollars to Czech krona at bargain rates, especially compared to the pitiful government rates; at the official rate a dollar would get you 14 krona, whereas you could get 35 or better on the street. Dave told me his Czech friends encouraged the exchange of our money on this black market; foreign currency could help endangered Czechs get out.

On our second day in Prague, I was sitting with Dave and some of his Czech friends in a café off Old Town Square. Dave was showing me some rare money from Biafra, the desperate region that had broken away from Nigeria and declared itself an independent country. As it happened, another Stanford acquaintance of Dave's, Tom Belknap, had been working for a relief agency in Biafra, helping dig wells and service a motor pool of European trucks delivering foodstuffs to war-ravaged refugees. Tom had gone to Stuttgart a couple of weeks earlier, looking for truck parts at the Mercedes factory, then had stopped by Prague to visit. He'd left Dave with some examples of the colorful Biafran bills.

As I was examining a Biafran five pound note, the mustachioed, tuxedoed maitre d' came over, noticed the bill, and expressed interest in the foreign currency, asking in passable English what it was. "Pounds from Biafra, a nation in Africa," Dave said.

Then the guy asked what it was worth and if I would be willing to trade it. He was talking to me because I had the bill in my hand. Dave nodded his assent. "Sure," I said.

Then the man left for a few minutes to seat another customer, and the young Czechs we were with encouraged Dave to get the best exchange rate he could. The man, they explained, was the owner of the restaurant, notoriously unscrupulous, an apparatchik of the worst kind who'd bribe anyone or thrive on anyone's misfortune. He had profited under the Czech liberalization and he had profited under the Soviet occupation, his only ideology apparently being money. One young man said, almost spitting with disdain, that this fat cat had two cars, as if that fact alone said everything about his corrupted values. My family has two cars, I thought, struck by the great extent of my privilege. The young Czechs encouraged Dave to do whatever he could to make a deal that would screw the guy.

Then the owner returned. "How much is this money worth?" he asked me, again probably because I was still holding the note.

For no apparent reason, and in complete ignorance, I blithely replied, "It's worth the same as the equivalent in English pounds." Dave nodded. After a bit more discussion in Czech with the students, the man offered an excellent exchange rate for the Biafran five-pound note. Dave ended up with a fistful of 450 Czech krona for his single Biafran bill.

When the owner left the table, Dave laughed and said that Tom Belknap told him five Biafran pounds might at best buy a couple of cigarettes or half a pineapple in Biafra. We'd taken the guy, apparently, for what would work out to over ten bucks American at a great exchange rate. For the Czech students, this was a hilarious fact and what they applauded as one more small insult to a corrupt system. The deed perfectly suited the Czech ethos of Good Soldier Schweick: a small act of resistance wrapped in a package of wit and mischief.

The next day--my last in Prague--we decided to eat in the same café again. I don't know what mix of obliviousness, hubris and foolishness compelled us, but that's what we did. Was the unscrupulous owner going to be able to report that he'd gotten swindled engaging in the highly illegal black market money exchange? We thought not.

So we sat and ate and drank and talked. Then the owner came up--to me--and in a soft but angry voice demanded his money back. Clearly he'd discovered overnight that he'd paid too much for the near-worthless Biafran currency. Though it wasn't a huge sum, his pride was obviously injured. He did not want to upset the rest of his patrons, but he made it clear that he wanted his dough back. He was mostly talking Czech, having the students translate. And he was focusing most of his considerable--albeit quiet--anger at me. I was taken aback; it wasn't even my transaction, really. Then he left, saying he'd be back in a few minutes for his money.

Dave and the young Czechs conferred. They all agreed that I should refuse him, that he was bluffing, that he had no recourse and that I should stand fast.

Mostly I was nervous and a bit befuddled as to exactly how I had become the prime player in this scene; I would have been quite happy--overjoyed, indeed--to share the spotlight. But it was not to be. I had to take responsibility for my part in the scam. But I wondered; maybe all bearded Americans looked the same to the owner. Sitting next to each other, Dave and I did look a bit like the Smith Bros. on the side of the cough drops box.

"Well..." I said.

Then the owner came back. With great reluctance but with the supportive nods of all those around me, I said, with a gulp, "No, you can't have it back. You made a deal."

"Then," said the owner, "I will have a policeman here waiting to arrest you when you leave." He stalked off again.

This set up another ferocious round of discussion. The main issue seemed to be whether or not the owner could follow through with his threat. Was the system so corrupted with payoffs that he could have the police help him even though he himself had engaged in illegal activity?

My heart was pounding. I wasn't sure I wanted to be the lab rat for this experiment in defiance. I could make a principled stand in my own culture about the conduct of the Vietnam War, but I didn't really know what I was getting myself into in this place; I didn't understand the terms or rules. The Warsaw Pact occupation of Czechoslovakia was certainly something to resist, but was a black market swindle a justifiable tactic of protest? Even as an act of mischief, a tweaking of the mustache of corruption, the deed seemed something short of noble since it was putting money into our pockets. And if I thought I was confused about the cause, my ignorance about the possible costs and consequences put me in a serious sweat. All my seemingly clear previous ideas about one's responsibility to take a stand swirled formlessly through my head.

To complicate the question, a policeman did in fact show up on the sidewalk outside. We could see him through the window, talking to the owner in the outdoor section of the café. What happened next is a bit vague in memory (probably because of oxygen debt from hyperventilation), but basically the young Czechs decided to spirit me out of the place. I was too frightened to protest. When the owner was occupied for a moment with a table outside and the policeman seemed to be looking away, we got up in a big clump, me in the middle of a dozen young Czechs, and casually shuffled quickly to the nearest door and out. Walking down the street a half block surrounded by an amoebae-like throng seemed ridiculous enough, but when the students yelled for us all to split up in different directions and everyone started to run, I really thought we'd gone mad. Dave and I ran down streets and alleys, me imagining all the while the zing of a bullet or a cell in some Prague dungeon. But nothing happened. We eventually made it back to the hotel.

That afternoon I had an extra beer or two with Dave and Carter Newton at their favorite workingman's bar and grill. Truth to tell, I was still looking over my shoulder a bit, worried about my transgression, fretting about secret police or something sinister. I was reassured that the Soviet puppet Husak government was more bureaucratic than efficient, so we talked into the early evening and I finally relaxed a bit.

Unfortunately, by some alchemy of nervous relief and pilsner, I was late to the train station where I was to meet Jan, Skip, and Nancy in time to catch our train back to Stuttgart. Arriving with only a minute to spare and having a hard time reading the schedule, I frantically asked an official-looking fellow, "Can you tell me which is the train to Germany? Der Zug nach Deutschland?" He looked slightly bewildered, but shrugged and pointed me to a long passenger train a couple of platforms away. I sprinted over and jumped on, throwing my backpack onto a seat, figuring I would find my friends later by walking through the cars. Then I, cigarette puffer at the time, noticed I was on a non-smoker, so I jumped back off to find the nearest smoking car. That was when I saw the destination sign on the side of the train that I'd missed: Moscow, USSR. Heading to Moscow--now that would be an apt ending to this wacky weekend, I thought. Saved by my bad habit, I realized I had been on the wrong train and looked around desperately to find the right one.

As it turned out, I missed my train completely. My three worried friends chugged back to Beutelsbach without me, and I had to go back to spend a few more hours with Dave and Carter at the bar and grill, then finally catch a later train and make my uneventful way back to der Burg alone.

All the way to Stuttgart, sitting in a rumbling train compartment by myself, I thought hard about this whole experience.

Somehow storm clouds from the wider world--from the civil war in Biafra, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the ongoing U.S. argument over Vietnam--had all gathered over that bustling café on Old Town Square in Prague with its famous and crazy clock. And buffeted by these many winds, scared to death, embraced and held up by a clump of far more courageous people, I'd thumbed my nose at a crook. Conning a con wasn't much of an act of principle, to my way of thinking. Yet to those young Czechs this small fleecing was a responsible moment of resistance, an act of wit and spunk to gum up the works of the bad guys. Any of my easy categories were complicated by our semi-comic dash from Old Town Square.

Clearly, the bubble of my comfortable middle class life was a fragile thing outside my own country, my assumption of safety a notion of great naiveté and privilege. Running from that restaurant in Prague felt a bit like walking on the moon, treading on some alien territory without fully knowing what the composition of the ground might be. Angry though I was at my own country, we hadn't had the experience of rifle-toting invaders posted on its street corners...though residents of American ghettoes and students a year later at Kent State and Jackson State might have argued the contrary. Maybe I didn't have it so bad back in the United States, I thought; the draft board could forbid me from traveling, but not from speaking. If forced to choose between the two political models, I knew I'd side with the democracy of my home country, even if flawed.

But maybe I needed to embrace the Czech habit of thinking a third way. Wasn't the Prague Spring all about rejecting the binary construct of communism vs. capitalism? "Love it or leave it" offered two choices, but weren't there a thousand more? Couldn't one love one's country but still object strenuously to its mistakes? Couldn't one recognize how good one had it but still want it better? Couldn't one be a patriot and an objector at the same time?

This experience in Prague helped me realize that no matter how angry I was with my country, I did still love it deeply. I understood that I couldn't be an expatriate, heading for Sweden or Canada as some were; I needed to go back, returning to my home ground and making my stand, raising my voice and working to make my country better.

(I should add that months later, long after I'd returned home from my stay in Germany, I received another letter from my draft board, telling me they had received information from the University that Stanford-in-Germany was a legitimate educational program, had reconsidered, and now would permit me to go overseas! At that point, I was grateful--a second time--for the ubiquity of bureaucratic torpor. I should also add that within a year I was granted conscientious objector status and spent the next two years working as a full-time volunteer in the Oakland Public Schools as my alternative service to the draft.)

More lastingly, the experience in Prague also helped me start the habit of trying to think in third ways. The train chugged through the night slowly westward to Stuttgart. The sparks have been blowing by my windows ever since.

[Tim Gillespie married Jan Giske two years after this experience in Prague. They are now teachers in Portland, Oregon, and the parents of two sons. See Mr. Gillespie's other contributions in this anthology. Editor]

©2000 Reisen mit Rico committee. Used here with permission of the author.

Previously published as an excerpt in Stanford magazine, Nov. 2000.