SLOVAK EARNED HIS FREEDOM AND KNOWS HOW TO ENJOY IT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400290020-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 14, 2000
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: September 25, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

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success.
Young Mira Slovak had thought about this for a
long time and he knew what he was doing, and why.
He feared there might -be reprisals against his
parents and other relatives. But he had to go, and his
father agreed.
"I couldn't stay in a country where you are not ?,
jud:;ed by ability, but by how strongly you believe in
communism," says Mira. "Where you cannot say,
what you want to say; where you are not free to do 4
the things you like to do; where you cannot trust;
friends because you are afraid they will betray you
- I don't know how anybody can live in o n
liko
Freedom is more than a slogan to Mira Slovak.
Today, at 36, he is a co-pilot for Continental Airlines,
flying 707s, and his idea of relaxation is competing
in air shows and driving a hydroplane at terrifying
speeds. Freedom includes the right to live dangerous-
ly, and Slovak exercises his perogative as a citizen
at every opportunity.
lie is a citizen by act of Congress and he went to
the White House to receive the cherished papers
from President Eisenhower. Not merely because he
had swiped a Czech airliner and fled to Frankfurt;
this was a reward for his sevvige with the CIA. Slovak
was a CIA agent for a year and one=liaiTT, and his pay
was hoard and room and a promise of getting to
America.
He became a.citizen in 1959 when Ike signed the
special bill, and he still regards that 30-minute
ceremony at the White House with wonder.
"In a free country and a free world you can get to
see the No. I man," he says, "if you try hard, you r
get it."
Citizenship was important to Slovak for both prac-
tical and patriotic reasons. Without those precious
papers,' he couldn't find work as an airline pilot.
"Twenty four applicattions, I made," he remembers,
"24 nos. I wasn't a citizen - and I couldn't speak
English."
CPYRGHT r ' F d
this airliner to bust out of Czechslov