REPORTS MILITARY PREPARATIONS; REVELAS SETUP OF SPY SYSTEM

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05702237
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 18, 2021
• Case Number: F-2021-01904
• Publication Date: March 22, 1950

Approved for Release: 2021/08/11 005702237
CLASSIFICATION --eNIPIV224ThnONFIBIRI
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY REPORT NC
INFORMATION FROM
fOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS CD NO.
COUNTRY Czechoslovakia
SUBJECT
HOW
PUBLISHED Weekly newspapers
WHERE
PUBLISHED Mannheim; Munich
DATE
PUBLISHED 30 Nov - 3 Dec 1949
LANGUAGE Polish
Military; Political
Twit tOCuAlIuT COMM WO/NATION AMC,. TN� II�TIONAL
OF elle 11�1110 STATES MINI% TNT �IIANINe 01 1.1,101�AGE ACT �O
V. B. C . el Abe WAS ISTION Oil tee I �
CI ITS TAI�ellITI. IN �111/ MMMMMM TO A� IIN�LITN0111Z110 VINSON If IRO
1111�1110 111 LA� 1111�110DOCTION OF Tele IONN If TIMMY.
SOURCE
Newspapers as indicated.
DATE OF
INFORMATION 1949
DATE DIST. iMar 1950
NO. OF PAGES 3
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
REPORTS MILITARY PREPARATIONS;
REVEALS SETUP OF SPY SYSTEM
UNDERGROUND DEPOT BEING BUILT -- Ostatnie Wiadomosc No 1a5. 30 Nov 49
The Information Service of Free Czechoslovakia has released the following in-
formation:
The military training camp in Milovice has been set acAe for the traning of
special combat units.
A gigantic subterranean military depot and factory for certain war materiel is
being constructed near Blansko. All construction is to be completed 195].
Not far from the border a subterranean passage is being widened to the size
of a railroad tunnel. Tunnels are also being built on the northwest border, and
tank barriers on the southeast border.
Two hundred and twenty-five higher-ranking Czech officers have left for Mos-
cow for. special training.
People in East Slovakia are openly alarmed because of regular explosions,
which probably are caused by tests from rocket weapons. Eye witnesses claim that
alwaYs before an explosion, some mysterious objects roar through the air.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs issued an order for the reorganization of
civilian antiaircraft defense. In many Czechoslovak cities air-raid sirens have
been tested.
The Communist officials are being armed. Leaders of local committees received
machine pistols. Members of industrial militia must carry arms not only while on
duty at the factories, but must take the guns home with them.
The Communist Party is building numerous ammunition and arms dumps under the
guise of Communist food stores. .
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The Czechoslovak Red Cross has begun syste,.idtic Preparations for war. Local
Red Cross chapters were merged with the Pl.blic Self-Help Society. Linhard, the for-
mer general director of the Red Cross, has been retired and Sulc, director of the
Health Department, has been discharged. His office was filled by Mme Koprivova, a .
we,l-known Communist and wife of the former chairman of the Czechoslovak National
Assembly.
r.
CZECH HIGHWAYS CLOSED TO TRAFFIC -- Slowo Katolickie, No 49, 3 Dec 49
An order forbidding traffic on the highways and railroads of Czechoslovakia be-
tween 1700 and 0600 hours has been issued, apparently to conceal the movements of
military transports which operate at night.
MINISTRY OF INTERIOR IN CONTROL -- Ostatnie Wiad- sci, No 136, 2 Dec 49
The primary purpose of the decision taken in December 1948 to reorganize Czech-
oslovakia's ministries was to bring all government departments under the full con-
trol of the Ministry of the Interior.
The reorganizatic was not carried out by an official interministerial commit-
tee, but by a special commission composed of delegates of tile Ministry of the Inter-
ior and of the personnel sect on of the Czechoslovak Communist Party.
The Communist Party planted a fully reliable member in every mir stry, with the
rank of Vice-Minister in Charge of Personnel Affairs. In addition to the vice-min-
ister, a highly trusted Party man was detailed to act anonymously within each minis-
try.
Only after all ministries and central government institutions had been placed
under close party surveillance. Soviet-Czech,ini,./a!,. no and contacts between
liussian and Czechoslovak security agencies cc'ild begin to function .moothily.
The new ministerial setup gives to the Communist Party and the Ministry of the
Interior absolute control over Czechoslovakia's reprpsPptat:vpa abroad, diplomatic
personnel, military and commercial attaches, and businessmen. Representatives of
the Ceteka press agency are completely under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of In-
formation.
The Ministry of the Interlor has two ways of controlling the activities of
foreign diplomatic and consular posts; (1) by deciding on appointments and recalls,
and (2) by placing its own man in each embassy and legation. The latter have their
own code and communicate directly with the Ministry of the Interior. In case a
foreign Czechoslovak Embassy has its own radio transmission facilities with Prague,
the radio operator usually is the ministry's trusted employee. The embassy chief
may not even know that a radiogram has been transmitted to the ministry.
Most of the information received by the Minister of the Interior from its men
abroad is of little value to the ministry itself. It is easy to assume that the
collected facts and data are turned over by the ministry to the Kremlin.
It is very P4snificant that practically no cooperation exists among the spying
agencies of the various "people's democracies." It is evidently Moscow's intentions
that the spy network of each satellite nation operate independently. The cost of
maintaining such a network is very high, and is paid by the satellite nation. For
Instance, in April 1949, the representatives of the Czechoslovak Ministry of the In-
terior in Rome spent five times the amount of the entire budget of the Czech lega-
tion.
Because of the shortage of foreign currency, Czechoslovakia is hardly in a po-
sition to cover the expenses of her Ministry of the Interior. Moreover, these ex-
penses do not even figure in her official state budget. The Czechoslovak
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Ministry of the Interior covers the cost of its intelligence net-
work with revenues from its foreign businens enterprises. Already in 1945, the min-
istry started to buy and organize various business enterer; see in Germany, Italy.
and Hungary. The profits from such enterprises remain abroad.
When the Western countries had refused to sell certain raw materials to Czech-
oslovakia, which she badly needed, the Ministry of the Interior sought to procure
them illegally by using devious and shady procciures. The transactions were made
either by agents of the Ministry of the Interl3r, or by middlemen yho were required
to pay a commission to the ministry. Since these transactions are usually made in
neutral countries, the Ministry of the Interior has the additional advantage of im-
proving its position in those countries. The result is that in almost all European
and Latin American countries a clandestine Czechoslovak network operates at the
present time.
Control and intelligence activities of the Ministry of the Interior are direct-
ed by a special department in Prague located in an unp:etentious private hous.2. The
men who ail'ect the department are known by one name in their official life and under
another name in their private life. Those sent abroad use aliases in most cases.
The Ministry of the Interior could never have become what it now is -- the true
secret government of Czechoslovakia -- without its acquired strong economic posi-
tion. Its watchful eyes reach everywhere, from the office of the President of the
republic to the Jffice of each single Czechoslovak :rade 'gent ,broad.
The man who created this economic power was Zdenek Toman, a friend and a card-
playing companion of Nosek, the Minister of the Interior.
Toman had all the reasons to feel cocksure in his position, until he got Into
a quarrel with his chief assistant. The latter was well aware of Toman's machina-
tions, denounced him and asked for his arrest. In fact. Toman was arrested in Feb-
ruary 1948, but managed 2 months later to escape to South America.
Apart from the Ministry of the Interior. the Czechoslovak Communist Party has
its own emissaries abroad. They are directly under Slansky (Saltzman), the secre-
tary general of the Party, and his two vice-secretaries, Frank and Geminder.
The most important Czechoslovak Communist Party agencies abroad are in the
Soviet Union: France, Italy, Great Britain, in the eastern zone of Germany, where
they are attached to the socialist Unity Party (LED); and in Western Germany, where
they operate leth the German Communist Party (KPD). They keep a close watch over
the activities of the Czechoslovak diplomatic representatives. It is therefore more
valuable for the Czechoslovak ambassElor in London to be on good terms with Harry
Pollitt than with Ernest Bevin, and for his colleague in Paris with Thorez rather
than with Schuman.
The objective of an intelllgence network is to serve the country. TL- oppo-
site is true in the people's democracies, where intelligence is meant in the first
place to spy on the country's own representatives. As a result, there is every-
where an atmosphere of suspicion and corruption. It is in this atmosphere that the
new secret diplomacy of a secret police operates.
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