Singer Gott alleged to have begged Husák for clemency in 1971 after return from exile

The popular Czech singer Karel Gott is alleged to have written a letter in 1971to the then general secretary of the Communist Party Gustáv Husák, asking for clemency on his return to Czechoslovakia after he emigrated for a short period. The news website aktualne.cz published a letter in which Mr Gott appears to assure the Communist leader that though he had refused to return after a tour of West Germany, he had wished for the “normalisation” of social and cultural life in Czechoslovakia. Normalisation is usually used to refer to the restoration of conditions prior to the reform movement that culminated in the Soviet invasion of 1968. Karel Gott told aktualne.cz that he may have signed the letter, though in any case it would have made no sense for him to write to Husák.