Prof. Eduard Goldstuecker Named to New 150-member Czech National Council

Prof. Eduard Goldstuecker, a prominent Czechsolovakian Jewish writer and academician, was one of the 150 members elected to the new Czech National Council, an interim body that will serve until a new Parliament is chosen in a general election sometime next year, it was reported here from Prague today. Prof. Goldstuecker, chairman of the Czech Writers Union and vice-rector of Charles University, was the victim of an anonymous anti-Semitic letter-writing campaign in recent months. The campaign was exposed In the Czech Communist Party newspaper Rudo Pravo, and drew a flood of letters of support for Dr. Goldstuecker from a wide segment of the Czechoslovak population.

The membership of the new National Council includes “a very strong body of prominent intellectuals” who had earlier rallied to defend Dr. Goldstuecker against the anti-Semitic letters, the reports said. The Council’s powers will be limited. But according to reports reaching here, its selection “demonstrates the determination of the Czech nation to create, with the Slovak, on the basis of full equality, a new policy for Czechoslovakia as a whole.”