Volume 36, Number 21 · January 18, 1990
The Revolution of the Magic Lantern
By Timothy Garton Ash
My modest contribution to the revolution was a quip. Arriving in Prague on Day Seven (November 23), when the pace of change was already breathtaking, I met Václav Havel in the back room of his favored basement pub. I said: 'In Poland it took ten years, in Hungary ten months, in East Germany ten weeks: perhaps in Czechoslovakia it will take ten days!' Grasping my hands, and fixing me with his winning smile, he immediately summoned over a video-camera team from the samizdat Video-journál, who just happened to be waiting in the corner. I was politely compelled to repeat my quip to camera, over a glass of beer, and then Havel gave his reaction: 'It would be fabulous if it could be so….' Revolution, he said, is too exhausting.
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