Rak, který zmizel beze stopy
A lobster that disappeared without any trace

Summary/Abstract: The fate of defectors in the world of intelligence services is very varied. If they are detained in the territory of their home country, they usually face high penalties, and if they succeed in fleeing abroad in time, they face court trials waged against them in their absence. It is always important for an intelligence service to map the defector’s activity, to establish the degree of danger it poses to the security interests of the given country, and to collect as much evidence as possible about the enemy service for which the defector has worked and the length of his/her service. The case presented in the study called A Lobster that Disappeared without any Trace is a little diff erent: Lieutenant-Colonel Jan Fila, member of the Czechoslovak State Security service, literally disappeared without any trace. He prepared his defection from Czechoslovakia in 1986 so perfectly that Czechoslovak state bodies failed to learn anything about his whereabouts in spite of considerable eff ort exerted until November 1989. Consequently, it was not possible to launch any criminal proceedings against him. The presented study traces Fila‘s career during which he appeared to be a typical representative of the communist establishment. He joined the Communist Party at the close of the 1960s, and aft er the Soviet occupation he used his chance and joined the State Security service amid purges directed against employees loyal to the reform leadership. He attended the Moscow school for intelligence agents and soon was sent to the United States as a spy. There he got in the focus of American secret services whose off er apparently started the end of Fila‘s career as an StB agent. His subsequent departure or actual disappearance was only the consequence.

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