Václav Hrabý

"Practically the whole day, I sat with the management of Military Construction in České Budějovice. I knew what was being done on the Poledník. It would be revealed. We had to sign a paper agreeing not to talk about it anywhere. There was no photography. It was forbidden. We were not allowed to travel anywhere abroad for the next twenty years, only to the socialist sector. We had to sign everything. Then we kind of got used to it. It got under the skin that it wasn't talked about. In the evening, we stopped in Rejštejn at a pub for dinner, there were good accordion players, so we sang. But there was no talk of Poledník. We talked of sports, girls, and the like, but we didn't mention the building because we knew it could be a disaster."

"It was such a beautiful experience, and we weren't allowed to talk about it anywhere. But the Americans were aware of it. They knew more than we did. Their helicopters - the Cobras - were landing at the border. It was less than a kilometer from Poledník. They could fly to the border, watch what we were doing, and film everything. When I close my eyes, I totally recall the black guy who piloted the helicopter laughing at us. His white teeth were clearly visible on that face. He waved at us. They were just there sometimes twice a day, sometimes maybe every other day. There wasn't a week that someone didn't fly there for an inspection. At least two or three times a week, their helicopter flew in."