Revealed: Labour MP was utilized by Communist spies to ‘give a KGB propaganda speech’ to ‘discredit’ Margaret Thatcher’s battle towards the Soviet’s nuclear menace

A Labour MP was used by Communist spies to give a KGB propaganda speech to ‘discredit’ Margaret Thatcher‘s government and damage its defence policies.

Frank Cook, a shadow minister and later member of the Defence Select Committee, spoke at a Scottish CND event in 1987 to spread Russian disinformation branding Britain as a secret warmonger at a crucial time in nuclear disarmament talks, according to declassified Cold War archive files unearthed by the Mail.

Delighted Red spymasters hailed the operation a success after the MP later boasted he had given a ‘very sharp speech’ based on the lines fed to him by their agents and shared the falsehoods with delegates from major Western powers who he said happily accepted them.

The Mail can reveal that Cook was one many leading figures involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament who helped or provided information to spies from the feared Czechoslovak StB agency who were using diplomatic cover to operate in the UK during the height of the Cold War.

Four serving and future CND General Secretaries – including one of its most recent leaders – were targeted in operations during the 1980s that helped the communist agents glean information about missile movements, arms exports and ‘confidential’ reports about chemical weapons, according to files in the Czech state Security Service archives.

Communist spies even plotted to use ‘peace activists’ as part of a propaganda campaign to provoke nationwide anti-Thatcher protests by comparing her to Hitler.

It came at a time when CND had over 100,000 members and was a powerful left-wing force in British politics, exerting influence on the Labour party and regularly holding huge marches to demand unilateral nuclear disarmament and call for the UK to leave Nato.

Its activists also played a key role in the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp that protested against US cruise missiles being held at the Berkshire RAF base.

Frank Cook (pictured), a shadow minister and later member of the Defence Select Committee, spoke at a Scottish CND event in 1987 to spread Russian disinformation branding Britain as a secret warmonger at a crucial time in nuclear disarmament talks, according to declassified Cold War archive files unearthed by the Mail

It came at a time when CND had over 100,000 members and was a powerful left-wing force in British politics, exerting influence on the Labour party and regularly holding huge marches to demand unilateral nuclear disarmament and call for the UK to leave Nato. Pictured: A CND march

Communist spies also plotted a propaganda campaign to provoke nationwide anti-Thatcher protests by comparing her military spending policies to Hitler’s

The Czech spies had wooed MP Cook for two years and listed him as an official ‘contact’ who had provided ‘good results’ when in June 1987 they proposed using him in an ‘active measure’ as part of a long-term propaganda operation to undermine Nato.

The MP’s handler, agent Lt. Vlastimil Hnizdil, wrote to his spymasters back in Prague: ‘The aim is to discredit and damage the Conservative Party and British government in respect of their disarmament and defence policies.’

Cook would be used to promote a line ‘requested by the USSR intelligence agency’ that Mrs Thatcher was cynically publicly claiming to support the ongoing nuclear disarmament talks between the US and Soviet Union while actually planning a major upgrading of the UK’s nuclear capability and US military basis in Britain.

The MP would be asked to cite alleged evidence of this secret plan and argue they amounted ‘clear proof that that Britain is not interested in disarmament, which was a mere pre-election ploy, but rather in gaining military supremacy (with the USA) over the USSR and the Warsaw Pact.’

At a meeting the following month to ‘activate’ the operation, Cook was said to be ‘spontaneously positive’ when asked to push the Communist backed propaganda to ‘discredit the Conservative government’s two-faced politics.’

‘[Cook] interrupted me saying he would do that for sure and it is altogether in line with his inner beliefs.’

He said he would be attending the CND’s Scottish branch’s Congress as one of the ‘main speakers’ and ‘would use our ideas in his speech.’

He also promised to promote the lines to representatives from delegates attending a conference running in the Shetland Islands to discuss nuclear energy which was supported by many CND members, the files say.

Lt Hnizdil later reported that Cook had told him: ‘He delivered “a very sharp speech” (in his own words) at the Scottish CND’s Congress in which he used all of the arguments we had discussed at our meeting in June.’

He had also put forward arguments ‘supporting the USSR’s and other socialist countries’ peace policies and to discredit of the British government’s intentions regarding nuclear weapons’ when talking to the other attendees and received ‘positive reactions.’

Delighted Red spymasters hailed the operation a success after the MP later boasted he had given a ‘very sharp speech’ based on the lines fed to him by their agents and shared the falsehoods with delegates from major Western powers who he said happily accepted them 

The following year the spies sent back articles published in ‘British peace periodicals in the second half of 1987’ showing ‘reaction’ to Cook’s propaganda. Spymasters in Prague officially rated the operation’s outcome as ‘effective.’

Cook, who died in 2012, remained a valuable contact of the spies and in 1988 introduced his handler to future Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam and later, in hushed tones during a lunch at a House of Commons, briefed him about plans by then Labour leader Neil Kinnock to abandon the party’s policy unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Professor Anthony Glees, a security and intelligence expert at the University of Buckingham, said: ‘These files are very important finds, providing hard evidence of the extent to which the KGB and its surrogates in the Czech secret service tried to manipulate the British political system.

‘We have long suspected that CND was the handmaiden of Soviet foreign policy and these documents indicate this.

‘The useful idiots of CND who jumped about saying they wanted peace were actually helping the Soviet’s interests.

‘It also shows the continuity between Soviet foreign policy and Putin’s foreign policy – hatred of Nato is in the Russian DNA because it stops its Western expansion.’

CND did not respond to requests for comment.