Havel Is an Excellent Choice

We are pleased to welcome Czech president and playwright Vaclav Havel to Harvard. As a distinguished dissident and prominent player in the demise of Communism in Eastern Europe, the man who will speak at the University's 344th Commencement this June is highly deserving of the podium.

Throughout the 1960s, Havel wrote essays and plays that went unpublished in his native country but greatly shaped underground Czechoslovakia. Over the next decade, he was a leader of the Charter-77 movement in which he helped to produce a manifesto of Czech citizens' criticisms of the autocratic regime.

The 1989 revolution was steeped in ethics, non-violence and moral solidarity. These qualitities emerged from Havel's widely disseminated--though publicly banned--essays like "Power to the Powerless" and "Letter to Dr. Gustav Husak."

Moralist though he is, perfect Havel is not. In the first elections held in free Czechoslovakia, Havel intimidated opposing Communist candidates from running for president by threatening to expose their secret police files. In attempting to exploit the old regime, Havel violated the spirit of the new democratic nation.

Later in 1990, Havel effectively broke the international isolation of Austrian Nazi-cum-President Kurt Waldheim by visiting him in Salzburg. Havel did castigate the still-dissembling Waldheim by telling him, "Lying can never save us from the lie." Yet the Czech leader's visit unjustifiably dignified Waldheim.

Perhaps Havel will enlighten us as to his past actions. But more significantly, we await the address of the statesperson and linguistic enthusiast who wrote: "Words that electrify society with their freedom and truthfulness are matched by words that mesmerize, deceive, inflame, madden; words that are harmful, even lethal. The word as arrow." What words has he for us?