Incoming European Union President under influence of Russian intelligence, claims former FBI agent

Vaclav Klaus

Robert Eringer, the former FBI counterintelligence agent who now works for Prince Albert II of Monaco, has written a column for The Santa Barbara News Press, alleging that the incoming European Union (EU) president was a “long-term communist collaborator who may still be under the influence of Russian Intelligence”. The accused is no other than Vaclav Klaus, the former Prime Minster and current President of the Czech Republic, who in 1991 co-founded the country’s conservative Civic Democratic Party. Eringer cites “knowledgeable sources within the intelligence community” in alleging that Klaus was recruited by “Czech counterintelligence” (sic, probably refers to Czechoslovakia’s Státní bezpečnost –State Security, or StB) in 1962 to “spy against democratic reformers”. According to Eringer, Klaus operated as a deep-cover mole under the codename Vodichka, penetrating Czechoslovak dissident groupings and even informing the StB “on the activities of Czech opposition groups within the United States during the aftermath of the Prague Spring rebellion”. Eringer further alleges that Klaus destroyed in the early 1990s his operational file kept on him by the StB, but failed to detect “a duplicate [file that] had been dispatched to Moscow in October 1989 for safekeeping”. This duplicate file, Eringer claims, is today in possession of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Russia’s foremost external intelligence organization and successor to the Soviet KGB’s First Chief Directorate (FCD). Eringer also points out that Klaus has “established an unusually close relationship with Russian supremo Vladimir Putin, who one year ago this month rewarded Mr. Klaus –a fluent Russian speaker– with the Pushkin Medal, ostensibly for promoting Russian culture”. The assumption of the EU Presidency by Vaclav Klaus, on January 1, 2009, will mark the first instance of a leader of a former Eastern Bloc nation heading the Union. [IA]