Ladislav Mňačko was a Slovak writer and journalist. He took part in the partisan movement in Slovakia during World War II. After the war, he was at first a staunch supporter of the Czechoslovak Communist regime and one of its most prominent journalists. However, being disillusioned, he became the regime's vocal critic, for which he was persecuted and censored. In the autumn of 1967, he went to Israel as a protest against the Czechoslovak stance during the Six-Day War, but returned to Czechoslovakia soon afterwards.