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Mr. [Ladislav Adamec]'s clever political maneuvering and clean background helped build an image that made the 63-year-old Communist acceptable to the opposition as a negotiating partner. He was not involved in the 1968 Soviet-led invasion that crushed the reforms of the period known as Prague Spring. At an early stage, Mr. Adamec came out cautiously against repressing dissent. ''Those who are blind and deaf to criticism have no right to hold a leading position,'' he said shortly before taking office. ''There is no doubt that this could turn into a dangerous conflict,'' Mr. Adamec warned the committee in a speech released today by the official press agency. ''I am against any one-sidedness in political evaluation of forces which have started to move ahead.''

''What he didn't have until now was the guts to do something without being sure it would work,'' said one Western diplomat. ''He is no [Mikhail S. Gorbachev].'' Factory Worker in Moravia Mr. [Ladislav Adamec] was elected to the Politburo in March 1987 and became the head of the government in the Czech part of the country that same month. In October 1988 he replaced Mr. [Lubomir Strougal] as Prime Minister. ''He is a pragmatic man who is not afraid to rely on his staff,'' said one acquaintance. ''Applying extraordinary measures could bring peace to the streets for a while,'' he said. ''But it can result in the further aggravation of the situation and bring most unpredictable consequences.'' His argument prevailed and the rigid Prague regime, instead of stepping up repression, bent for the first time in 20 years - and it has not stopped bending since.

To be sure, much remained to be resolved and prepared. Mr. [Ladislav Adamec]'s pledge to delete the ''leading role'' of the Communist Party from the Constitution still left the Communist apparatus very much in place, running the factories, schools, courts and Government bureaus. There were still free elections to secure, ministries to fill, economic plans to forge. ''Democracy is fine,'' said 21-year-old Pavel Strida as he looked at the word ''democracy'' sprayed onto a stucco wall, ''but it's the people who will have to clean and repaint the walls.'' ''Before this, I was afraid of what would come next, afraid that we would become poor like the Poles,'' Mr. Strida said. ''Our professor told us recently that our country was turning into a memorial display of Communism. But now we have taken our own way.'' A First Step

Instead of helping to usher in free elections in 1990 - a task that fell to a broad-based coalition government under a younger, more pragmatic Communist, Marin Calfa - [Ladislav Adamec] was consigned to the margins of Czechoslovak politics with his election, at the end of 1989, as leader of the CPCz. It was a bitterly ironic \"promotion\" for Adamec because only a few weeks earlier, before the Velvet Revolution, that would have been the top job in the country. However, with the emergence of political pluralism, and following the exclusion of the CPCz from government after the June1990 elections, the post rapidly dwindled in significance. Adamec avoided any overt involvement with the \"Prague Spring\", the reform movement of the CPCz leader Alexander Dubcek whose attempt to introduce \"socialism with a human face\" was crushed by Soviet tanks in August 1968. One of the few enduring achievements of the Prague Spring was the creation of a federal system of administration from 1969, which included separate governments for the Czech and Slovak republics. Adamec was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in the newly constituted Czech government. Adamec was the only prominent CPCz officialwith whom [Havel] and the rest of the newly formed pro-democracy umbrella group, Civic Forum, were prepared to negotiate and he tried to adapt to the changing situation as quickly as an old-fashioned CPCz functionary possibly could. At a crucial meeting of the Central Committee he was among those who successfully resisted the hardliners' demand for a last-ditch attempt to crush the Velvet Revolution by force.

LEAD: Following are excerpts from addresses by the caretaker Prime Minister, Ladislav Adamec, and the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel at an opposition rally here today, as translated by The Associated Press: Remarks by Adamec Following are excerpts from addresses by the caretaker Prime Minister, Ladislav Adamec, and the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel at an opposition rally here today, as translated by The Associated Press: Remarks by Adamec Civic Forum is ready to create a bridge for a peaceful path from totalitarianism to civil freedom, which will later be guaranteed by free elections. The Civic Forum is prepared to negotiate all stages of the peaceful journey across this bridge. . . .

Czechoslovaks will no longer need formal exit permits to visit Yugoslavia and the West, Government officials said, and most will be able to leave on a few days' notice instead of waiting three weeks, as is now the case. But special cards, needed for ''statistical purposes only,'' as one official put it, will still be required, as will entry visas for the nations to be visited. Hard Currency Speaks Loudest Yet a member of Mr. [Edgar M. Bronfman]'s party, which spent two days here, said the attitude of the leadership to political change reminded him of that he had found in Moscow in the era of Leonid I. Brezhnev - ''rigidly negative.'' Mr. [Milos Jakes] has yielded little to dissidents or to fledgling opposition parties, and their adherents continue to call for his ouster. In the back streets of Prague, the Government's opponents have boldly chalked on walls the slogan ''Jakes Jervul'' - loosely translated, ''Jakes, the dumb ox.'' Suspended Sentence Given

An already complex political landscape was thrown into further confusion today after Mr. [Vaclav Havel]'s encounter with Mr. [Karel Urbanek], the first meeting between the Czechoslovak Communist chief and the pre-eminent opposition leader. Josef Hora, the party spokesman, announced that Civic Forum had agreed to ''round-table'' talks of the representatives of all parties and other civic groups. But Josef Vavrousek, a senior Forum official, denied this. Havel's News Conference ''In a 25-minute informal introductory speech, he informed our delegation about his view of the present situation,'' Mr. Havel said, continuing with a deadpan characterization of Mr. Urbanek's small talk. ''First of all, he spoke about his personal life.'' Concessions Stressed The opposition leader said Mr. Urbanek said the leadership realized ''the deep-rooted public distrust of the party,'' which could be removed only through a ''radical transformation'' in which the party would become one among many, each with equal rights. ''We don't want unemployment in our country,'' he quoted Mr. Urbanek as having said.

''An old wise man said, 'If there once was light, why should there be darkness again?' '' Mr. [Alexander Dubcek] had told the crowd. ''Let us act in such a way to bring the light back again.'' New Premier Not Named ''The hard-line Communists will be able to live with him,'' the official said. ''To me, he is someone the party people won't be too uncomfortable with. I don't think he will satisfy the demand for change, but much will depend on the other new members of the Politburo.'' ] ''I am standing before a people who have again raised their heads,'' the 67-year-old Mr. Dubcek said. The crowd, packed into 14th-century Wenceslas Square, greeted the former leader with a minute of applause and repeatedly interrupted his 11-minute speech, crying, ''Long live Dubcek!'' and ''Dubcek for President!'' Dubcek and [Vaclav Havel] Together

Prace, the trade-union newspaper, quoted a passage from Mr. [Ladislav Adamec]'s speech that Rude Pravo did not. In it, the Prime Minister went even farther, asserting that ''nothing can be ordered'' by the Government, which, he said, ''can only create favorable conditions.'' He added: ''In the very complicated present conditions, it is possible to govern only provided that people have the necessary confidence in our central political organs.'' One experienced politician who heard them said that the Prime Minister's words angered Vasil Bilak, the former ideological chief in Gustav Husak's regime, who is widely believed to have asked the Soviet Union to suppress the Government of Alexander Dubcek in the ''Prague Spring'' of 1968. The politician reported that Mr. Bilak said it sounded as if Mr. Adamec ''thinks nothing good happened in this building in the last 40 years.'' ''I think of him in terms of Jan Hus,'' said a Czechoslovak journalist, referring to the 15th-century church reformer who remains a national hero. ''But maybe he has capacities we don't know about. Maybe he can someday become what he isn't yet - the leader of a mass movement, like [Lech Walesa], or like Tomas Masaryk, come to that.''

The opposition group, Civic Forum, reassured the Soviets that its leaders favor Czechoslovakia's remaining in the Warsaw Pact, at least for the present. [Miroslav Vacek] meanwhile assured Civic Forum leader Vaclav Havel that the Czechoslovak army would not use force to prop up the toppling Communist regime. Armed with those assurances, Civic Forum for the first time yesterday publicly disclosed its position in negotiations over a new government. It presented a sweeping set of demands that would relegate the Communists to minority status and elevate to the rank of deputy prime minister two men who until recently were in jail for opposition activities.