THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 57 also traveled to southern Bohemia to mark the anniversary of American troops liberating that part of the country at the end of World War II. Bill would pre-record his speech and have it air on Radio Free Europe beforehand as a way of building a crowd. In each town and city that the Luerses visited, curious locals would come out in the hundreds and even thousands. At a time when “nothing was happening, but everything mattered”—every gesture and every symbol—it was a way of reminding the populace of the positive role that the United States had played in their history. The regime protested these trips, often flooded the town squares with water to make them inaccessible, and, in one instance, possibly tried to poison Bill—but the Luerses persevered. Even after they departed Czechoslovakia for New York in 1986, Bill and Wendy continued their relationship with Czechoslovakia’s artistic and intellectual community. They made a practice of traveling back to the country each Christmas for visits. Each New Year’s Eve, they hosted a dinner for their friends at the famous Prague restaurant U Sedmi Andelu (At the Seven Angels). When the Velvet Revolution swept these dissidents to power three years later, in late 1989, Bill and Wendy found themselves at the heart of the action. The night before Havel’s inauguration on Jan. 1, 1990, their annual At the Seven Angels dinner with friends became the de facto pre-inaugural celebration. Vaclav Havel wore to his inaugural a tie borrowed from Bill, and Olga, a blouse from Wendy. When Havel made his first official visit to the United States that January, his office turned to the Luerses to help organize Luers showed how, with a little finesse, it is possible to engage both with authoritarian governments and their citizens in ways that win friends to America’s side.
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