“He was listening to you”: Alexandr Vondra remembers Václav Havel

Radio Prague International - latest articles · Oct 5, 2026 · 16m

Václav Havel would have turned 90 on October 5. Politician and diplomat Alexandr Vondra first encountered him as a young underground publisher in communist Czechoslovakia and later became one of his closest collaborators and his foreign-policy adviser. Speaking to Radio Prague International, he recalls Václav Havel’s unusual charisma, his painstaking approach to speeches and the price the presidency exacted from him.