The first being the establishment of Czechoslovakia after its declaration of independence in 1918 from Austria-Hungary initiated by President Woodrow Wilson as part of his Fourteen Points following World War I.

The second period being the communist era from 1948 when relations were strained, until 1992 when Czechoslovakia split forming the independent nations of the Czech Republic and Slovakia as a result of the 1989 Velvet Revolution.

"[1] One month prior to the declaration of Czechoslovakian independence, on September 3, 1918, Secretary of State Robert Lansing announced that the United States recognized the Czechoslovak National Council, which resided in Paris as a de facto government at war with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires and that it was prepared to enter into formal relations with it.

Loans given by the U.S included American Relief Administration supplies, repatriation of the Legionaries from Russia, purchases of military materials, and accrued interest.

As a result, Czechoslovakia was forced to sign the debt agreement which provided a 62-year term of payment and a total of three hundred and twelve million.

The U.S. Congress proposed to shift Czechoslovakia's debts to Germany but never materialized due to the high probability of the Nazi regime's unwillingness to pay it.

The reason was not to give direct and public support for an anti-German struggle in America, believing such a decision of non-recognition of Munich and saving Czechoslovak Legation was enough.

But the official de jure recognition of Beneš as a president of Czechoslovakia followed only in October 1942 after the U.S. entered the war after the Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Beneš wanted to use the United States as a counterweight to Soviet influence in accordance with his post-war foreign policy program – reliance on new allies against Germany (instead of France and the UK, responsible for the Munich borders) and equal orientation to the West and the East.

[1] Beneš visited the U.S. again from May 8 to June 9, 1943, addressing Congress and holding meetings with the Secretary of State, politicians, public figures, and Czech and Slovak community leaders.

Beneš would get larger military support from the Soviets as the USSR was the only country in the Allied membership to liberate Czechoslovakia from Nazi control.

In Košice, the Czechoslovak government announced its program of post-war development on 5 April 1945, which presupposed socialist reforms and closer relations with the USSR.

It was closed in 1950 after the Communist Government alleged that U.S. diplomatic personnel were engaged in espionage and other improper activities, and demanded a reduction in their numbers.

[2] On November 13, 1963, Karel Duda, the ambassador to the U.S. met with President John F. Kennedy to discuss efforts to improve trade between the two countries.

[4] Karel Duda and Jiří Hájek, Czechoslovakia's ambassador to the United Nations, attended the state funeral of John F. Kennedy on November 25, 1963.

President Lyndon B. Johnson had already involved the United States in the Vietnam War and was unlikely to be able to drum up support for a conflict in Czechoslovakia.

[11] In 1989 the Velvet Revolution broke out on November 17 which were demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia included students and older dissidents.

[12] She also took the unusual step of personally accompanying Václav Havel, the last president of Czechoslovakia and one of the leaders of the revolution, on his first official visit to Washington, traveling on the same plane with him.

[18] A treaty concerning the reciprocal encouragement and protection of investment between the transitional state of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic and the U.S. was signed on October 22, 1991.

[19] The result of the revolution was the end of 41 years of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia and the subsequent dismantling of the command economy and conversion to a parliamentary republic.

This article incorporates public domain material from "A Guide to the United States' History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations, by Country, since 1776: Czechoslovakia".