Případ „Rino“: náš člověk v CIA Řízení čs. špičkové agentury sovětskou rozvědkou, 1973–1976
Case “Rino”: our man in the CIA. Control of the Czechoslovak top agency by the Soviet Intelligence Service, 1973–1976

Summary/Abstract: The mid-1970s saw the culmination of the collaboration of the Main Intelligence Service Directorate (Directorate I) of the Federal Ministry of the Interior with Karel Köcher (code names “Pedro”, “Petr”, “Rino”) and his wife Hana (“Hanka”, “Adrid”), agents sent by the Czechoslovak State Security Service abroad in September 1965 with a mission to infiltrate into the US intelligence apparatus. In July 1973, nearly two years after the suspension of the collaboration, Directorate I renewed contacts with him. After finding that he was working in the CIA office specializing in wiretapping the foreign offices of the Communist bloc, case “Rino” was joined by the headquarters of the 1st Main Directorate of the KGB at the Council of Ministers of the USSR. During his two‑year contract with the Transcriber’s Unit, Köcher handed over information on dozens of his colleagues to the Czechoslovak and Soviet Intelligence Services in meetings held in Zurich, Geneva, Vienna, on two occasions when he was taken behind the Iron Curtain to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and through his wife, based on which the Main Directorate of the KGB attempted to recruit several CIA employees. He also provided information on the eavesdropping operations of the CIA in Latin America, Middle East, Africa and Asia, especially in Bogota, Beirut, Kabul, Tunisia and elsewhere. His information was valued at USD 20,000 by KGB Chairman J. V. Andropov. The analysis of the documentation of case “Rino” and case “Adrid” made it possible to reconstruct the collaboration of the Czechoslovak and Soviet Intelligence Services, both at the central level, through the Deputy of Chief Representative of the KGB at the Federal Ministry of the Interior of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Col. P. J. Nyedosekin, and in the US territory, at the level of the residencies in New York. What was also confirmed was the inequality of the relationship between the two intelligence bodies, Soviet control and tasking of the management of Directorate I, its headquarters, residencies in the country of the main enemy, and even individual agents. The collaboration of the controversial couple did not end in September 1976, but continued at a lower level in the 1980s, until they were arrested by the FBI in late November 1984.

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