jozef lenart

Jozef Lenrt (3 April 1923 in Slovakia - 11 February 2004 in Prague) was Czechoslovak politician. Member of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He was member of parliament (whose name changed several times) from 1960 till 1990. Served as Prime Minister 1963-8. Acting as president 20 September 1963 - 8 April 1968. Although Slovak, he became a Czech citizen after the country split in 1993. On the basis of insufficient evidence Lenrt was acquitted on 23 September 2002 of treason charges (along with co-defendant Milos Jakes), related to his handling (or lack thereof) of the Prague Spring events in 1968. He was accused of attending a meeting at the Soviet Embassy in Prague on the day after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, planning to establish new workers' and farmers goverment. Jozef Lenrt was one of the most resilient figures in Czechoslovakia's Communist hierarchy, occupying one post or another in the leadership for no less than a quarter of a century. That achievement was all the more remarkable because his career at the top straddled a succession of regimes and several abrupt changes in policy.

Jozef Lenart

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