The Soviet troops occupied Czechoslovakia to suppress the Prague Spring reform movement as from 1968.
They left the country only in the early 1990s, after the communist regime's fall. Vacek said the Czechoslovak military had not had nuclear weapons then. "It was an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union that they would not give nuclear weapons to their allies in times of peace," he said, referring US considers altered Afghanistan role ...
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Czech Christian Democrats vow to attract Christians ... to NATO and the former Warsaw Pact, associating communist states from central and eastern Europe. However, he added that the Czechoslovak military would have certainly got the weapons from the Soviets in case of a nuclear threat. Vacek occupied various posts in the Czechoslovak military. At the time of the regime's fall, he was chief of staff and deputy defence minister. He was defence minister in the first Czechoslovak government appointed after the regime fell. Nuclear ammunition, including warheads, was stored in Ralsko and Bilina, both north Bohemia, and near Misov, west Bohemia, which is the site of the planned U.S. radar base. These facilities were controlled exclusively by the Soviet military, Vacek said. He said the U.S. military had comparable weapons in West Germany at least from 1959. Former Czechoslovak foreign minister Bohuslav Chnoupek writes in his memoirs that one day he received a brief letter in his post announcing that Soviet nuclear missiles would be located in Czechoslovakia and East Germany. "I was completely astonished," he writes. Chnoupek writes that his East German counterpart received a similar letter. The Soviet Union started to withdraw its SS-20 missiles only based on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed at Washington on December 8, 1987. Vacek said he believed that NATO and the Warsaw Pact were prepared for both defence and attack. Czechoslovakia would be one of targets of NATO's second attack, while the main attack would go from East Germany via Poland to the Soviet Union, he said. Under an offensive operation, the Czechoslovak military was to reach the Rhine River in 16 days, Vacek said.
(Ceske Noviny)
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