Cyprus Mail 22 December 2024 -by Kyriacos Iacovides
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| The Czechoslovak interior ministry sought to monitor military activities within the British bases at Dhekelia and Akrotiri |
Secret service recruited Greek Cypriots working on the bases
The Secret Service of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (CSSR) used its Greek Cypriot collaborators at the height of the Cold War, in the 1970s and 80s, to try and infiltrate the British bases in Cyprus, according to a report in the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, published earlier in the year.
The report in the peer-reviewed journal, by Jan Koura, is based on classified documents of the former Czechoslovak interior ministry which are accessible at the Archives of Security Services in Prague (ABS). The Czech Republic declassified highly classified documents as part of its effort to unveil the history of communist Czechoslovakia.
Koura’s report, which names Greek Cypriots that were providing the CSSR’s secret service with information on Cyprus during the Cold War, featured in the Sunday Mail report on November 25, said the Czechoslovak embassy in Nicosia also aimed “to monitor military activities within the [British] bases at Dhekelia and Akrotiri but also to prevent their expansion for Nato purposes, or ideally, to entirely close them”.
In parallel to gathering information about the bases, the embassy also executed ‘active measures’ – widely used by the KGB during the Cold War – which involved the use of “a range of disinformation and influence tactics to harm adversaries and enhance its own influence”. It was, according to Koura, “a form of psychological or information warfare”.
The embassy tried to infiltrate the bases through the recruitment of Cypriots employed there, by the agents collaborating with it. Among the agents used were Dr Euripides Georgiades (code name FIDAS), Constantinos Katatsiolis (KARAT), a journalist at the CyBC and Pavlos Stokkos (BELIS), who had been deputy chief of police and “had an informant in the Cypriot police in the Dhekelia base”.
FIDAS “succeeded in securing the cooperation of his childhood friend Efthymios Christou who managed the officers’ club at the Dhekelia base”. Christou was indebted to FIDAS, a doctor who had helped in the treatment of his seriously ill daughter. A socialist sympathiser, “with negative feelings towards the British”, Christou, before his recruitment, had provided FIDAS with a map of the base, marked with various buildings that he found while cleaning the officer’s club. He also gave a list of names of bases’ military personnel and their phone numbers as well as the base’s defence protocols.
Christou was recruited by FIDAS in 1981 and given the code name ERSU. In Czechoslovak intelligence jargon he was called a “foreign flag recruitment” which meant ERSU was unaware that he was indirectly working with the secret service. “The cover used was that his gathered information would be used to support one of the peace organisations that had long been advocating the closure of the British bases on the island,” said the report.
While he was told that his activities would focus on acquiring insights about British officers at the club he worked at, “the primary objective of the Czechoslovak intelligence was to utilise ERSU to place a listening device in the officers’ club. The exact location of the facility and other technical specifics consulted in Moscow.” Although ERSU agreed to do the job, it did not go ahead because the First Directorate did not have the “suitable technical equipment”. In 1984 ERSU was sacked by the club although it was never confirmed that this was because of his links with the embassy. Headquarters terminated the collaboration in 1988.
A chance encounter on a cruise from Piraeus to Limassol in October 1978, between Czechoslovak ambassador in Nicosia, Miroslav Chytry (code name CHLADEK) and a technician who worked at Akrotiri base named Solon Kypridemos led to another collaboration. Learning that Kypridemos was employed on the bases, the ambassador tried to establish ties with him during the two-day cruise, and continued to cultivate the friendship subsequently with gifts of cigarettes and alcohol.
The report said: “CHLADEK evaluated Kypridemos. A member of Diko, as left-leaning and harbouring anti-British sentiment, while maintaining a positive stance towards socialist countries.” Their contact deepened relatively quickly, leading Kypridemos to share insights about British bases secured not only from his personal experiences but also from discussions with fellow workers.
“As early as December 1978, he had already provided telephone directories of the bases, revealing their general organisational structure. Furthermore, he conveyed details about the positioning of U-2 spy aircraft in Cyprus and shared observations regarding the security protocols, combat readiness arrangements and nuclear attack contingency plans within the bases.”
In 1980 he was officially recruited as an agent and given the code name ARION. Given his freedom of movement in Akrotiri base, intelligence officials wanted him to glean insights regarding troop movements and combat readiness preparations. His tasks also included “securing documents that could unveil Nato’s military-strategic intention in Cyprus and the Middle East”. By 1986, the Czechoslovak secret service “noted a substantial decline in the quality of information shared”, and in 1988 the collaboration was ended.
‘Active measures’ were also executed by the Czechoslovak embassy and its collaborators, and although the report said that most specific documentation on misinformation campaigns did not survive, “fragments can sometimes be found within secret collaborator files or residency files”. A few examples of the ‘active measures’ in Nicosia survived.
A series of ‘active measures’ were directed by the embassy in Nicosia under the code name ASTRA, using the network of collaborators to implement them. “The objective was to counter the US military presence on British bases in Cyprus, hindering their utilisation by the Americans for operations in the Middle East.”
ASTRA I used the termination of the employment of Cypriot workers at the bases to build a misinformation campaign. The embassy supplemented this event with “disinformation suggesting that these Cypriots were dismissed because of US pressure”. It was also claimed that the Cypriots would be “replaced by US personnel, while others would have been substituted by individuals associated with the former Iranian intelligence service SAVAK, which was said to include Afghans and Pakistanis, who had received special training in the US, preparing them for deployment as special forces in US-led operations in Iran or other Middle East countries.”
This disinformation campaign was propagated through various channels of the collaborators’ network. AKRIS (journalist Stavros Angelides) “aimed to secure coverage in the press, while the reaction of the unions regarding the sacked employees was to be coordinated by CANDA (Akel deputy Dinos Constantinou) and FAHRI (Akel member Christoforos Ioannides). Meanwhile DOPAL (the president’s secretary Haris Vovides) would persuade President Spyros Kyprianou that the information was authentic. The campaign was successful with multiple Cypriot and Greek newspapers publishing the information and warning that the British bases would be turned into American bases.
ASTRA II centred on CANDA posing a question in the House of Representatives about the misuse of the British bases. ASTRA III, in 1981, used the newspaper published by former education minister, Chrysostomos Sophianos (collaborator codenamed SUKRAN), to report that American special forces were stationed in the bases, “in preparation for diversionary action in Poland”.
The report estimated that more than two dozen ‘active measures’ were undertaken by the Czechoslovak embassy in Nicosia between 1976 and 1989. Some were conducted in collaboration with the Soviet Union.
