The leaders of seven Warsaw Pact countries, who arrived in Prague on Monday (January 24) for a two-day summit to discuss the calling of an East-West European Security Conference, were met at the airport by Czechoslovak Communist Party chief Gustav Husak and Czechoslovak President Ludvik Svoboda. Among the leaders shown in this film are Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev and Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin, and Supreme Commander of the Warsaw pact Military High Command, Soviet Marshall Ivan Yakubovsky.

SYNOPSIS: Prague, Monday....and Warsaw Pact leaders arrive for their two-day summit to be greeted by Czech Party boss Gustav Husak and President Ludvik Svoboda. First delegation to arrive was from the Soviet Union, led by Soviet Party chief Leonid Brezhnev. The delegation included Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin and Deputy Foreign Minister Vasili Kuznetsov. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who would normally have taken part in such a high-level meeting, was on an official visit to Japan. Also absent was East German Premier Willi Stoph, said to be ill. The conference, which began the following day, was held to consider new moves to promote an East-West European Security Conference.

Another Soviet presence was Marshall Ivan Yakubovsky, in his position as Supreme Commander of the Warsaw Pact Military High Command. He was greeted by a leading member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, Antonin Kapek, and other military and civil leaders.

The leaders met as the Warsaw Pact's political Consultative Counsel -- its first meeting for over a year. Reuters reports that the meeting came in a "new phase" of East-West relations which followed the signing last year of the four-power Berlin agreement, aimed at improving travel conditions for East-German surrounded West Berliners. The Western powers had insisted on this treaty as a pre-condition for the convening of any European Security Conference....a conference long sought after by the Soviet Union.