Communist spies targeted BBC chiefs in secret Cold War plot, files reveal

On Dec 28, 2022

The secret Cold War spy plot to exploit BBC chiefs: Communist spooks targeted corporation bosses in propaganda push, files reveal

Spies met with BBC bosses to influence programmes and harvest information
Agents in London murdered BBC Bulgarian Service’s Georgi Markov in 1978
George Mosley, head of Beeb’s overseas broadcasting, was wined and dined

By Tom Kelly In Prague for the Daily Mail

Published: 22:00, 27 December 2022 | Updated: 22:11, 27 December 2022

Communist spies targeted BBC bosses in a Cold War propaganda push, secret files revealed to the Daily Mail show.

Agents repeatedly met with senior managers – including the director-general Sir Hugh Greene – to influence programmes and harvest information about defectors.

Using diplomatic cover, they schmoozed the unknowing executives at cocktail parties and private dinners in exclusive Soho restaurants in an attempt to sabotage what communist security service files described as the ‘hateful and offensive’ BBC broadcasts transmitted behind the Iron Curtain.

A top spy listed Sir Hugh as a ‘contact’ who had ‘assured me of his help with my work’.

Communist spies targeted BBC bosses in a Cold War propaganda push, secret files revealed to the Daily Mail show. Pictured: Georgi Markov, murdered Bulgarian writer with his daughter Sasha aged one

In 1959, Kazbal, a captain in the Czech StB spy network, wined and dined George Mosley (pictured), head of the BBC’s overseas broadcasting section, at a private members’ club

The BBC boss, who like all his colleagues apparently had no idea he was speaking to spies, later met with another senior agent in Prague.

‘Likes a drink, then she’ll talk’ … agent’s view of Beeb editor

Agents targeted a wide range of senior British journalists during the sixties – but with mixed results.

The drive was led by the same officer in the Czech StB spy agency who was the handler for notorious traitor and convicted fraudster John Stonehouse, a Labour Cabinet minister who later faked his own death.

The files suggest the agent quickly worked out the best way to extract information from journalists, reporting to his spymasters that the editor of the BBC Women’s Programmes was: ‘About 50 years old, good looking, lively, likes to have a drink and then she’ll talk.’

Not all meetings proved fruitful, however, with the BBC european liaison officer branded a ‘demagogue’, and BBC TV’s main engineer described as a ‘dull, elderly gentleman who is only interested in technical things’. ‘Political illiterate who does not know the difference between Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia… Of no use to us,’ the spy added.

The diplomatic correspondent of the People newspaper agreed to hand over information for cash – but provided little more than he had already included in his articles. The foreign editor of the Daily Mirror is simply referred to as ‘a drunk’.

During this visit, he criticised Labour’s then foreign secretary for being ‘in the tow of American foreign policy’ and agreed to consider offering a leading communist figure the chance to deliver a prestigious Reith lecture, according to the newly declassified records.

Other BBC executives were earmarked for ‘active measures’ – a communist term for secret political operations – and were listed as being ‘very obliging’.

Communist paranoia peaked in 1978 when agents in London murdered Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov with a poison-tipped umbrella to silence his BBC Bulgarian Service broadcasts.

Now top secret files unearthed by the Mail show the obsession began two decades earlier.

In classified cables back to spy chiefs, Jaroslav Kazbal, a captain in the Czech StB spy network, described attending a Foreign Office cocktail party where he met BBC staff including the Nato correspondent.

In 1959, Kazbal wined and dined George Mosley, head of the BBC’s overseas broadcasting section, at a private members’ club.

The file added: ‘We have a reason to stay in touch and the possibility to work on him both here and at home.’

Mr Mosley then arranged a dinner with Gregory Macdonald, who ran the BBC’s Czechoslovak broadcasts, whom Kazbal branded an ‘old and extremely sharp-tongued reactionary’.

But he added: ‘I might be able to provoke him to supply uncontrolled information.’

Mr Macdonald’s contact with StB agents continued until at least 1964, when a file records him meeting another agent at a party at the Czechoslovakian embassy.

A file from the same year also says Sir Hugh promised to help an agent he had contact with.

Two years later, in Prague, he requested to meet a senior StB officer at a cocktail party arranged by then-British Ambassador Sir Cecil Parrott, during which he expressed support for stronger links with socialist countries, according to the files.