Mr President, I wanted to start in the 1970s. I wondered why you didn't choose an easier life, why you found it necessary to resist?

Well, I was a so-called dissident but this does not mean that some time, at a particular moment, I decided to take on this "difficult profession" and prefer it to any other.

I would have personally preferred it if [Saddam Hussein's] regime had been abolished during the war in the Persian Gulf in 1991

There is a long chain of different steps and, actions, each of which forces the person to take the next one, that one the next one and the next one. And one day one realises one is a dissident without actually having striven to become one.

It's easy now to say it was inevitable, that there were certain historical forces in play, and the Soviet Union was bound to collapse. Were there ever times when you thought , we'll never win?

I was always counting on it, but it seems to me that some things cannot be done with the calculation that tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in five or 10 years time one will win. The risk that it is all futile, unnecessary, and will soon be forgotten, is there.

"Truth and love will prevail over lies and hatred" Vaclav Havel Click below to read more quotes In pictures

In 1967 I was travelling across the Soviet Union, through all its various republics. I felt I was in some kind of strange colonial empire full of downtrodden peoples and I felt that one day it would explode, that it could not simply stay like that forever... I did not know whether it would happen in 20 or 50 years' time. I rather thought it would be 50 years.

How big a disappointment for you was it when Slovakia seceded, the country couldn't stay together?

With time I think the separation [of Czechoslovakia] had many positive aspects

I kept on hoping that we would find a form of federation in which the two nations could peacefully deal with one another's matters and would not handicap each other. I called it authentic federation. Anyway, those negotiations were dragging on and it eventually led to the separation.

I then resigned as president because I took an oath to one state and I could not sign the creation of new states. But with time I think the separation had many positive aspects... Of course, the fact that it happened peacefully is extremely important and good.

Art and politics

You personally stood up to Soviet tyranny. You wanted other people to confront Milosevic in Serbia. Do you think there's a case for confronting Saddam Hussein?

There are several billion evil people in the world. The fact that one is evil would not be enough [to justify war]. The question is whether this person really threatens the whole region and mankind... [Saddam Hussein's regime] is a dangerous, criminal regime that actually tortures people.

We know how he obliterated thousands of Kurds with some kind of gas, like mosquitoes or animals. I would have personally preferred it if that regime had been abolished during the war in the Persian Gulf in 1991 - a war had wide support in the world.

Let me ask a bit about you as an artist and thinker, and you as a politician. Artists are meant to be distant, politicians are meant to be grubby, to be practical. How does that work for you?

Personally I do not think that I have somehow abandoned myself and my nature and principles and that I have somehow changed fundamentally. Many things had to change, but these are more superficial things.

I think it would perhaps be really good if politicians did not allow themselves be governed by the particular interests of their parties and the rhythm of elections

I have to speak in a diplomatic manner, carefully, I cannot always say, straight out, that I think someone is a fool. I have to wear a tie. The office ties me down in a thousand ways and the specific nature of the Czech presidency no less.

I think it would perhaps be really good if politicians did not allow themselves be governed by the particular interests of their parties and the rhythm of elections - the need to devote themselves to the technology of power and maintenance of power.

They should take a broader, longer-term outlook. These are perhaps characteristics of intellectual or spiritual people... it would be good if more so-called intellectuals entered politics.

Writing plans

One of the reasons I became president is that I was being told: "You have been criticising all the time, so show us how to do better."

A big criticism of you is that you have not groomed a successor, and it might turn out to be someone you don't like at all.

I have perhaps taken democracy too seriously, but imagine that President Clinton would groom President Bush or the old President Bush would groom President Clinton. This is not how it works. In democracy one does not groom one's successor.

What are you going to do now, because you must have missed writing, you must have sat through boring committee meetings, and wanted to get back to writing?

I am not saying that I will completely withdraw and nobody will ever hear from me again.

My intention is, at least at the beginning, to maximally withdraw from public view so that I can read - catch up with everything that I did not manage to read in recent years - think or, alternatively, write something, whether it is drama or, perhaps, some kind of essay-style book. I do not have any commitments, or intentions. I did not promise anything to anybody.

I want to be free and I will write something in perhaps half a year's time, in five years' time, or maybe never. And I look forward to this freedom and to the fact that I will not have anything planned for every weekend that would involve writing speeches, because a week later I will have to present them somewhere. And I look forward to this very much.

By this, I am not saying that I will completely withdraw and nobody will ever hear from me again. I can imagine a situation when I will want to be heard.

Mr President, thank you very much.

These are excerpts from the interview to be broadcast at 2230 GMT on BBC1