Lubor J. Zink

Lubor J. Zink (1920-2004) was a Czech-Canadian writer and columnist known for his anti-Communism.

Zink was born in Klapy, Czechoslovakia. He was a student at Prague University in March 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the country. A member of the Czech underground movement, Zink fled to Britain and joined the exiled Czech army. He earned three commendations for bravery during World War II.

Following the war, Zink returned to his homeland and joined the Czech language service of Radio Prague, the international broadcasting station operated by the Foreign Ministry. Zink's reports were heard by Czechs living abroad and, after the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia took power in a 1948 coup, his broadcasts became anti-government. He subsequently lost his job and went into hiding until he, his wife and two-year old son could flee to England.

He moved to Canada in 1958 and became editor of the "Brandon Sun" in Manitoba. His editorials won him a National Newspaper Award in 1961 and he was offered a job with the "Toronto Telegram" as an Ottawa-based columnist. When the "Telegram" folded in 1971 he moved to the "Toronto Sun", becoming one of the paper's original staffers.

Although he was a member of the Ottawa press gallery and his column was ostensibly on national affairs, it was generally a forum for his ardent anti-Communist views. It often attacked Soviet foreign policy, Western liberals who favoured negotiations with the Soviet Union, Cuba, as well as then-Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau whom Zink viewed as a "crypto-Communist". Zink also ridiculed social programs being introduced by the federal government in the 1960s and 1970s, writing in 1965, "After medicare, what is next on the womb-to-tomb welfare list? Well, there are legalcare, morticare, carcare, housecare, leisurecare, and endless other possibilities." [ [http://canadawiki.org/index.php/Quotations_Z Toronto Telegram, July 26, 1965] ]

Zink's columns on federal politics were published in three collections, "Trudeaucracy" (1972), "Viva Chairman Pierre" (1977) and "What Price Freedom?" (1981).

Zink ran for a federal seat in the riding of Parkdale twice as the Progressive Conservative candidate. On both occasions he was not successful but managed to poll second in the 1972 and 1974 federal elections.

His anti-Communist themes continued through the era of détente and glasnost resulting in many of his critics ridiculing him as a relic of the Cold War era or a "one-trick pony who never got over the communist era". ["Pugnacious expatriate Czech outlived the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - Journalist fought first the Nazis and then the Red Menace, denouncing Soviet-style communism till its fall" By Randy Ray, "The Globe and Mail", Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - Page R5]

Having outlived the fall of the Soviet Union and in declining health, Zink discontinued his column in 1993.

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*"Pugnacious expatriate Czech outlived the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - Journalist fought first the Nazis and then the Red Menace, denouncing Soviet-style communism till its fall" By Randy Ray, "The Globe and Mail", Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - Page R5

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