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Reports of the terrorist attack on the American embassy in Nairobi last Friday were horrible to read. An enormous explosion dismembered passers-by, incinerated dozens of people in their seats in nearby buses, blew roofs off buildings, toppled trees, set cars on fire, and left offices as a honey-comb of burned-out rubble with bodies buried inside. Over 200 people were killed in the explosion, more than 5,000 injured, mainly by flying glass.

The bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were cowardly acts, intended to intimidate small nations who allow American interests to operate from their territories. But those bombings also could have been a signal to the politicians in Prague following the announcement that the United States is establishing a Radio Free Europe center here to broadcast to the people of Iran and Iraq.

Many eyes are on Prague today. Many countries do not want to see NATO expanded. Many do not want to see a Trojan Horse for the Americans in eastern Europe. What it all boils down to is former friendships and spheres of influence. They have not fallen as easily as the wall in Berlin.

Why the former Czech government agreed to a RFE/RL station directed at Iran and Iraq without a full-scale examination of their own past, befuddles the imagination. During the cold war era, many Iranian and Iraqi officers were educated at the Czechoslovakian military academy in Brno. Countless Palestinian terrorists were not only given safe havens in Czechoslovakia, but were treated in a Prague hospital with special accommodations. Thousands of Cubans, Iranians and Iraqis attended colleges and universities throughout the former Czechoslovakia. For many agents in the secret services centers today in Havana, Bagdad and Tehran, Czech is their second language.

I believe that the United States should not back down from terrorism anywhere in the world. But I also think it is not prudent to wave a red flag in the face of an angry, disorientated bull. If America needs to expand NATO to protect countries such as the Czech Republic who have an honorable history of striving for democratic institutions and a free market society, it should do so with more consideration for the local people. Sacrificing the good will and political stability of an ally for a dubious propaganda center, smacks of disloyalty to those who blindly, it seems, look to America for leadership and guidance.

Czech politicians should ask themselves two questions: Have Islamic Fundamentalists, speaking fluent Czech, organized cells throughout the Czech Republic? Are they recruiting former citizens of Czechoslovakia, made stateless by an unjust citizenship bill signed by President Havel?

Many observers feel the former Minister of the Interior, Cyril Svoboda, was derelict in his duties to say that he saw no reason why the Czech government should get involved in the internal affairs of Radio Free Europe if they wanted to establish a broadcasting center in Prague aimed at Iran and Iraq. The ex-Czech Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jaroslav Sedivy, should never have confirmed this view to the American ambassador.

How naive can the American and Czech governments be, to establish a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty center in the former Cuban embassy in Prague? I certainly wouldn't want to park my car within ten blocks of Juarezova Street in the near future. At the very least, the former tenants know the building and the area better than the CIA.

I hope the new Czech government and the new American ambassador to Prague will reassess the situation. There must be a better way to advance peace and democracy in the Middle East without endangering the residents of Prague 6. If a broadcasting station is needed, it could be built out in the countryside, away from an innocent population center.

Paul Polansky

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