This year I will be making my third trip to Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic, once a part of the former Czechoslovakia which was a member of the Eastern Bloc, closely allied to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Bratislava is close to Vienna.

I expect to have a wonderful time, particularly since I will be visiting old friends, but I already know it will not be as memorable as the first time I was there, more than thirty years ago.

When I first traveled to Bratislava the Cold War was relatively hot (see below for background story) and it was not common to travel behind the iron curtain.

In November 1984, five months after moving to Los Angeles from New York, I attended a meeting of the International Society for Preventive Oncology (ISPO) in Vienna. For two years I had worked on the ISPO organizing committee. The Cold War might have been a little less intense than in the previous year but not as far as the public was concerned; the Soviet Union and its allied countries, including Czechoslovakia, were still the enemy. Despite this, I was determined to cross the Iron Curtain to visit my friend, Dr. Jan Slezak, who lives and works in Bratislava.

Jan came to the Pathology department at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, a decade before, when I was acting chairman. He spent three months furthering his research, returned to Bratislava and then came again a year later for additional studies. Well established as an important investigator of the molecular physiology of the heart, his research sabbaticals at Mount Sinai were supported by Dr. Robert Litwak, a pioneering cardiac surgeon and then the chief of Mount Sinai’s cardiovascular surgery department. Jan was decidedly productive (references 3-6); graciously and generously adding my name to these publications despite my contributing very little. In the intervening years Jan has earned international recognition as one of the most important and insightful investigators of cardiac molecular physiology. He eventually became President of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (7) and has been honored many times for his work.


Jan Slezak, M.D., Ph.D.

During his visits to America, Jan lived in our home in Teaneck, New Jersey. Once, we were in the midst of renovating our kitchen and bathrooms. We cooked with a microwave oven and hot plates and showered at the local tennis club. Jan built his own home in Bratislava and happily joined in he reconstruction of ours. Highly regarded by his country he was allowed to bring his wife, Olga, and two sons to visit in New York during his second sabbatical at a time when permission of that kind was only rarely granted. Each day Jan and I drove to and from Mount Sinai, in Manhattan.

Jan and I would meet in the middle of the bridge crossing the Danube. He would wait in one of the scattered bridge ‘outpouchings’ where cars stop out of the flow of traffic. “You will find me without any trouble,” he advised when we spoke on the phone, “I have a yellow Fiat-like car.”

Getting a visa while still in New York was quite challenging in those years but I was assured the American Express representative¬¬––AmEx was the official travel organization for the meeting––would get me a 24-hour visa when I was in Vienna. Early in the morning of December 1, the day after the meeting ended, visa in hand, I set out in my rented car for Bratislava. Bratislava is approximately 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Vienna and, at that time, there was only one main road to get there. With the Reisenrad (the great Ferris wheel) in the Prater park clearly in view––I knew the Ferris wheel well from one of my favorite (and one of the greatest) films, The Third Man––I was sure I was heading in the right direction.

Joseph Cotton as Holly Martins in “The Third Man” in front of the Reisenrad

After passing four or five road signs without seeing the name ‘Bratislava’ I pulled over in front of a small market and, in German, asked someone walking by, “Wo ist Bratislava?” (Where is Bratislava?) He gesturing for me to continue the way I was going. I repeated this twice more until I saw the bridge before me. It was only when I was back in Vienna that I learned that Austria still used the ancient name for Bratislava: Pressburg; the name ‘Bratislava,’ which was the name of the city since 1919, was not on any road signs in Austria.

There was only one car ahead of me at the Czechoslovakian passport control stop just before the Danube and I expected to see Jan in a few minutes.

Armed guards, carrying what looked like Israeli Uzi automatic weapons, gestured for the two young men––they looked to be in their late-twenties––to get out of their vehicle. The guards then literally took the car apart. They pulled out the seats. Removed the wheel covers. Searched the engine. Opened the trunk. I began to worry abut the contents of my car––I had gifts for Jan and his family, things they could not obtain locally that I was not sure would be acceptable to the Czech authorities: a large bottle of Jack Daniels for Jan, a large jar of decaf instant coffee (I wasn’t concerned about this) for Olga, and a rock-and-roll LP (long-playing) phonograph record for his boys; the album cover had some slightly suggestive photos of young women dancing which I feared might not be allowed.

Finally, one of the guards stood up from searching the floor of the now skeletonized automobile holding a small plastic envelope containing white powder. His weapon slipped from his shoulder to the crook of his arm and, with a broad, triumphant grin, he tore the envelope open, stuck his finger in his mouth, poked it into the powder and, finally and dramatically, back into his mouth. I gaped at this opera that seemed about to turn to tragedy and was delighted when the soldier’s grin turned to a grimace and he threw the envelope down on the ground, exclaiming, “Sucre” (sugar).

More than an hour and a half had passed since my arrival.

It took another half hour for the young men to return their car to its intact state. They then were directed to a small building to the right to present their passports.

I was next. One of the guards looked at me and my passport picture, looked in the car and in the trunk and, without any comment, directed me to follow the young men into the passport control office. I was greatly relieved but it was almost two hours since I arrived.

The young men were there but no one was behind the desk of the drab khaki and brown reception room. A cat was contentedly asleep in one shadowed corner. There were no signs or pictures on the wall. There was no warning about smoking and the two men lit up, making the cramped space even more uncomfortable. Soon two more men, older, looking like laborers, showed up and they also lit cigarettes. They all spoke among themselves but no one said anything to me. A middle-aged woman came in, already smoking, and stood at the back of the line. Finally, a man in a plain military uniform, no chevrons or stripes indicating rank and no medals, came from someplace behind a door, collected our passports and left behind the same door. After another fifteen minutes our properly stamped passports were returned and I could go on my way.

When I came out the line of cars and trucks now waiting behind my automobile––the two young men had already driven away––stretched for what seemed like miles. I hurriedly got into the car to resume my journey, rushing past what looked like a New York City food truck, its side window open; later learning this was for money exchange.

A second barrier was thirty yards further, just before the beginning of the bridge. A chain was across the road and I had to again stop.

This soldier, also bearing an automatic weapon, seemed to be about fourteen years old. He had the barest hint of a mustache and I wondered how impulsive and irrational he could be––a teenager with a lethal weapon––and, for the first and only time on this trip, I was fearful. There were no smiles to accompany the occasional grunt as he gestured for me to roll down my window, I handed him my passport which he slipped into a jacket pocket without looking at it. Just behind him, close to a pillar, was a very large, peacefully sleeping German Shepherd dog.

The soldier walked all around my car, tapped on the wheel covers with the muzzle of his weapon, peered into the back seat, looked at me for more than a few seconds, and then opened my passport. “Ah,” he said, a look of triumph on his face, “Americanische.” Immediately the dog woke and lunged at me, teeth bared and menacing, saliva dripping, snarling and barking with incisors slashing the air. Fortunately, however, it was chained to the pillar and could only come within five or six feet of me. I realized that this was all a staged act, that this dog was programmed to attack whenever it heard the dreaded word, “American,” and my fear was replaced by a sense of amusement and I forced myself to suppress a laugh and a smile.

Passport returned, I was sent on my way and happily began the journey across the Danube on a completely open bridge with excellent visibility. There were scattered places to stop and wait at the sides and many places where you could make a u-turn. At the other side of the bridge Bratislava presented itself as a not-too-attractive and not-too-welcoming industrial city.

But there was no Jan. There was no yellow Fiat.

Sooner than I expected I was at the fork at the other end of the bridge. I could not decipher the words directing me to the left (I later learned this was the direction to Jan’s neighborhood) but I understood “Zentrum” and turned right, hoping to find a place where I could call him––I had Jan’s phone number, without his name, on a slip of paper which I was prepared to swallow if stopped for any reason. Quite familiar with Alex Leamas and James Bond, I was prepared to protect Jan’s identity!

I soon found myself in the center of Bratislava. Turning away from the main street with its large buildings, drab and mostly empty stores (I later learned that goods were preferentially sent to the Soviet Union’s cities and that shortages were all too common) and the electric trolley, I parked a block away and walked back to the main road.

At the corner was a large, gray, grim, official-looking building. At the top of the stairs, hanging above the main entrance, was a brightly colored banner with some words I read but did not think about. People, almost all women, many with children, were streaming in and out and I guessed I could exchange some money in there and then call Jan.

Inside, to the right, was a large, poorly lit space, reminding me of a 1930’s marble and stone bank, empty except for two men in boxy brown suits who fully fit my image of KGB or Stasi or some similar nefarious organization. To the left was a charming, crowded store selling cloth dolls, children’s knit sweaters, tablecloths and many other craft items. I was about to go in but instantly––in one of the few acutely paranoid and completely irrational moments of my life––I realized that the banner said “Polska Kultural” (Polish Cultural) and I told myself this was no place for a Brooklyn-born Jew––I overheard many family conversations during and immediately after World War II about how Poles were as bad for Jews as Germans, maybe worse––and I briskly walked out of the building and down the stairs.

I next decided to look for a middle-aged or older woman to ask for help, telling myself she would not likely be a danger. I walked along the street and stopped before a shop selling milk, eggs and other dairy products. The first gray-haired lady I approached was very friendly and spoke halting, but passable, English. A young man overheard us struggling to communicate and, in perfect Etonian English (learned in school in Bratislava––he had never been out of the country) offered to assist. I told him what I needed and he pointed to a large hotel two blocks ahead of us and said, “Come, let us go there. I will help.”

Two men were behind the registration desk of the Hotel Lenin. Behind them, affixed to the wall, were stickers for American Express, Visa, Mastercard and Diners Club, but they informed us they were not allowed to exchange money and, instead, directed us to a currency exchange office some six or eight blocks away.

As we walked away from the desk my young Samaritan asked, “What do you need money for?”

I explained the situation and said I wanted to call my friend (still not disclosing Jan’s name).

“Is that all? Phone calls are almost free in Czechoslovakia,” he informed me. He gave me a few coins, the equivalent of a few pennies, directed me to a pay phone hanging on the wall and apologized because he had to leave and bring home the milk he had purchased for his new baby.

After profusely thanking him I called Jan’s home. His son, who also spoke English very well, advised me that Jan had come home in case I called but just left to return to the bridge. “You should go back there,” he said.

I returned to my car and headed back to the main street. As I was driving up the completely empty side street passersby were staring at me and I suddenly realized I was on a one-way thoroughfare heading the wrong way in a quintessentially capitalist automobile––a white Ford––with an American passport and without any money to bribe––the thought of bribing anyone was completely foreign to me but the thought of sitting in a Czech prison was even more foreign––if and when I got stopped.

Fortunately I was not stopped and I did find Jan and his yellow car; he was on the other side of the bridge looking towards Vienna; Keystone Kops came to mind. He took me home to be with his family and then we went sightseeing. We had a lovely day and I returned to Vienna later that evening.

Bratislava Castle

In the late 1990’s, Iron Curtain a memory, I again visited Jan, this time accompanied by my wife, Kate. Bratislava was now a bustling, prosperous European city. New buildings had changed the skyline. Houses along the streets had “to rent” signs––in English! Instead of empty stores Jan took us to the recently opened Carrefour, a part of a huge multinational chain of supermarkets, reminiscent of a Costco, but even larger. The Bratislava store sold everything: food delicacies from all around the word, clothes, refrigerators, automobiles, and much, much more. Once a poor cousin of the Soviet Union, Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, was now thriving and, in 2017, was ranked as the third richest region of the European Union by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, following Hamburg and Luxembourg City.

I do not expect any complications this summer when I again visit Jan.

Background:

It was November 1984, when I first came to the ancient city of Bratislava. Czechoslovakia was a Soviet state under the domination of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The Cold War was quite hot. It was not an optimal time to be on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Three weeks before Ronald Reagan was re-elected President of the United States. Reagan’s landslide victory––with Walter Mondale winning only his home state, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia––was helped by his assuming a more statesman-like, and less bellicose, stance toward the Soviet Union in the months before election-day.

Eighteen months before, in March 1983, Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as the “evil empire,” while overseeing the biggest peacetime military buildup in American history, accompanied by “a slew” of new covert-warfare efforts by the CIA. Soviet leader Yuri Andropov was convinced that the United States was preparing a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Andropov pleaded with the United States government to step back from provocative actions but abandoned his efforts because of ultimately fatal kidney failure.

In September 1983, the Soviets shot down KAL 007, a Korean passenger plane, when it blundered into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 passengers, including Larry McDonald, a conservative Democratic congressman from Georgia who was vehemently anti-communistic. Later reports indicated that the U.S. Department of Defense could have warned KAL 007 it was off course but chose not to do so.

A few weeks later a software error at a Soviet early-warning station reported five separate American ICBM launches. Fortunately the Soviet officer on duty did not initiate a retaliatory attack, instead choosing to try to confirm the launches, thereby discovering the mistake. However, the malfunction renewed Soviet fears that they could be attacked without adequate warning.

On October 23, 1983, a massive truck bomb exploded at the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 Americans. In response, American installations throughout the world were placed on high alert and, two days later, the United States invaded the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada, ostensibly in defense of the Monroe Doctrine although the Cuban and Russian presence was no longer on the island when American troops arrived.

Meanwhile NATO began its annual war games from Norway to Turkey, involving 100,000 NATO personnel, including 19,000 American servicemen. Included in the operation were exercises employing procedures to launch nuclear weapons at the Warsaw Pact countries. The Russians were “spooked” and began counter-offensive preparations. The Soviet response was “extraordinary” as KGB officers were told to use every effort to search for signs an upcoming war.

The United States and the Soviet Union came closer to a nuclear war than at anytime since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Then, nothing happened. The exercise ended. The Warsaw Pact and Soviet forces stood down.

These events were mostly hidden from the public, only becoming revealed after a trove of documents were declassified at the end of the Clinton administration (1,2). When Reagan learned of the Soviet reaction he was “horrified” and, in a January 1984 speech, began to soften his rhetoric almost immediately.

References:

1. Downing, Taylor: 1983: Reagan, Andropov and the World on the Brink. New York, Da Capo Press, 2018.
2. Kastner, Jill. Standing on the Brink: The Secret War Scare of 1983. The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/standing-on-the-brink-the-secret-war-scare-of-1983/)
3. Slezak J, Geller SA. Cytochemical demonstration of adenylate cyclase in heart muscle; effect of dimethyl sulfoxide. J Histochem Cytochem 1979, 27:774-781.
4. Slezak J, Geller SA, Litwak RS. [Relationship between the ultrastructure of the myocardium and survival time in patients with heart valve replacement. Evaluation of biopsies and clinical picture of patients who survived up to 10 years following operations (author’s transl)] [Article in Slovak] Bratisl Lek Listy. May 1982; 77(5):583-95.
5. Slezak J, Geller SA, Litwak RS, Smith H. Long-term study of the ultrastructural changes of myocardium in patients undergoing cardiac surgery, with more than 10 years follow-up. Int J Cardiol 1983; 4:153-168.
6. Slezak J, Geller SA. Cytochemical studies of myocardial adenylate cyclase after its activation and inhibition. J Histochem Cytochem 1984; 32:105-113.
7. http://www.heartacademy.org/phpwcms/index.php?jan-slezak-honoured-by-bratislava-slovakia