Jiri Horak - Czech Politician

Jiri Horak, 79, the first leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party after the fall of communism, died July 25 at his home in Florida. He had brain cancer. He headed the Social Democrats from 1990 to 1992 after the Velvet Revolution, led by playwright and democracy activist Vaclav Havel, peacefully toppled communist rule. In 1993, Mr. Horak moved back to the United States, where he had immigrated in 1951, three years after the Communist Party took power in what was then Czechoslovakia.

From 1961 to 1971, Mr. Horak was chairman of the Council of Free Czechoslovakia, an umbrella organization of Czechoslovaks in exile. He was a 2000 recipient of one of the Czech Republic´s highest state honors, the Tomas Garrigue Masaryk Order, for outstanding contributions to democracy.