Ivan Chadima

“After arriving to Canada I and other emigrants from Czechoslovakia received accommodation in a monastery. We each had our own room, we were given food, they were teaching us English and French. I myself only spent a week there because I immediately found a job but some stayed for as long as a year and a half – they were getting fifty dollars per person per week as pocket money plus everything else was provided for them so they'd just save up for a Spartacus and go back. And that was not a rare case… I remember a story related to this attitude. The monks taking care of us asked us during a meeting if everything was alright. One doctor who had already been in the monastery since Sempember 1968, not from January 1969 like me, raised his hand, had an interpreter translate for him and asked in Slovak: ‘When we first got here, the oranges had less seeds compared to those we get now.’ I thought I'd get a heart attack! You can't imagine how ashamed I was.”

“Every year in June an evaluation of the previous year took place at the UN Plaza hotel. During one of those evaluations my boss Tom Appleby asked me: ‘Chadima, what actually motivates you in life?’ I told him it was partially recognition, partially money, and he just looked at me and said: ‘I didn't think you were that dumb. The only effort in life that's worth anything is to get your life under control. And you have absolutely none! You live in the hotel, your car is in the hotel, you eat here… If I die somebody else will come and they'll fire you, or if I fire you myself you'll end up on the street, you'll be looking for a job and you'll have a hard time finding a job like the one you have here.’ I got slightly scared and started thinking about what I was going to do about that and I ended up taking the opportunity of the beginning negotiations with Czechoslovakia after the revolution. One of my friends worked for Bankers Trust, another one for White and Case and with them I organised meetings with important partners for Václav Havel and his ministers.”