Trouble in the Eastern bloc
The innumerable bruises sustained by international relations as a result of Russia punching her way into Prague on 20 August are likely to be long lasting. Industrialists and scientists 鈥� whether or not they condone economic sanctions against the Warsaw Pact countries which participated 鈥� should do everything in their power to help Czechoslovakia back to her rightful place among the advanced nations of the world. Like it or not, this may mean maintaining as many links as possible with the Eastern bloc.
West European manufacturers have been wooing the East European market with vigour over the past 15 years and recently the United States decided to join in, overcoming the principles and prissy policies that had prevented it from trading with the Soviet bloc. Now, a return to the policies of the worst days of the cold war will mean isolating Eastern bloc scientists from their contacts with the economies of the West. Russia has cut off Czechoslovakia at a time when the Czechs were about to enter a scientific-technological industrial revolution of the kind already under way in the West.
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There will be calls to increase armies and armaments, including nuclear arsenals. Funds for research in fields such as astronomy and the biological sciences will be harder to come by, while an almost universal emphasis on defence research could greatly restrict participation in international science projects, a severe blow to CERN and similar ventures. And, with Republican Richard Nixon set to become the next president of the US, his party could well get its way in putting more military vehicles into space.
From New 杏吧原创, 29 August 1968