Eye Spy - May 2018

EYE SPY INTELLIGENCE MAGAZINE 115 2018 15

intelligence) collection. All highly important

projects essential to British security.

During his service from 1959 to 1961 Prager,

who used the agent codename MARCONI,

supplied photographs of wiring diagrams,

circuitry and fittings from a Blue Diver manual

to the StB. He possessed expert electronic

knowledge and was well qualified for his dark

dealings. For reasons only known to the RAF,

and despite being in a position of some trust,

he was subjected to only basic vetting; such

secret work usually requires personnel to

undergo a far deeper vetting process.

Although Prager passed the photographs to an

embassy official in Britain, he also visited

Czechoslovakia with his wife Jana - and

without notifying the RAF Provost (service

police). Some intelligence historians have

considered the possibility that Mrs Prager was

also a spy.

Prager was arrested in 1970 and convicted in

June 1971 of espionage. He received a 12-

year prison term and was stripped of his

citizenship.

BROADER STB TARGETS

The use of Czechoslovak expatriates as agents

for the StB was not their only skill. Using

contacts in British trade union movements and

elsewhere, StB officers met, courted and

‘V’ - the designation used to identify RAF

aircraft operating with Britain’s strategic

nuclear strike force, officially called the

V-Force or Bomber Command Main Force.

The strategic bombers, whose title began

with ‘V’, included the A.V. Roe Vulcan,

Vickers Valiant and the Handley Page

Victor.

BRITAIN’S V-BOMBERS

Vickers Valiant

Handley

Page Victor

A.V. Roe Vulcans

some say recruited British Members of

Parliament (MPs) who they stated had

“succumbed to StB pressure” likely to be

blackmail or financial reward.

Several politicians have been accused of

having threads or serving the StB: Tom Driberg

Tom Driberg

is listed in a KGB

file and

codenamed

LEPAGE.

Renowned spy

author Chapman

Pincher, said he

was a “Kremlin

agent of

sympathy and a

suppor ter of

Communist front

organisations.” Others say he was an MI

agent or even a double agent.

Raymond Fletcher, codename PETER, was

identified by former KGB defector and MI

contact man Vasili Mitrokhin as an agent for

the KGB and StB. Fletcher passed away in

1991, but his wife, Catherine, denied he was a

spy. She said he had actually performed work

for MI6. Mitrokhin was well placed to identify

Fletcher, however. He was the senior archivist

Vasili Mitrokhin

English Electric

Canberra