It has been 30 years since then-Czechoslovak President Václav Havel went to Washington and New York, his most famous foreign trip. George H.W. Bush was US president at the time. This was Havel’s first trip to the United States, and he was the first politician from the newly liberated Eastern bloc to address a joint session of the US Congress. His February 21, 1990, speech was met with applause 23 times.
