Researcher: Soviet, Czechoslovak secret police fought against RFE together

Prague, Nov 21 (CTK) - The Czechoslovak secret service StB and the Soviet
KGB closely collaborated when infiltrating the structures of the
U.S.-sponsored broadcaster Radio Free Europe (RFE), historian Jan Kalous
said at a conference on NKVD/KGB on Friday.

Through the Russian emigre organisation Narodno-Trudovoy soyuz (NTS, the
National Alliance of Russian Solidarists), the secret services were gaining
information about Pavel Tigrid, Jiri Hajek and other prominent Czechoslovak
emigres, Kalous said.

The cooperation can be confirmed on the basis of the studied documents,
Kalous added.

"In the 1980s, nine StB agents dealt with the NTS," said Kalous.

Kalous found 17 StB operations from the preserved StB documents which were
launched upon agreement with the KGB.

The joint operations of the StB and the KGB were code-named Aristotle,
Ataman and Belgium, Kalous said, adding that the KGB wanted to lure out
some NTS member from its headquarters in Frankfurt am Main to
Czechoslovakia and monitor his activities.

"The link of the NTS with Czechoslovak emigres and RFE broadcasts was
interesting for the StB," Kalous said, adding that along with classical
infiltration of the NTS, the KGB tried to assassinate its representatives.

The first illegal NTS cells in the former Soviet Union were established in
the 1930s with the goal of installing Western democracy after the expected
collapse of the Communist regime.

During World War Two, the NTS coined the slogan "Russia without Germans and
Communists" and many of its members joined the anti-Nazi resistance. Every
fifth of its members was executed for this.

After the war, the NTS continued with its effort in former West Germany.

The RFE, established in 1949, was based in Munich.

In 1975, it merged with Radio Liberty (RL) that broadcast to the former
Soviet Union.