Communist secret police spied on Klaus

Václav Klaus, the second president of the Czech Republic, used to think that he was a member of the gray zone - a person who doesn't support the communist regime in any way and who never joins their structures but who nevertheless peacefully co-exists with the regime, unlike Václav Havel, his predecessor.



But can you really peacefully co-exist with the communist regime if you're organizing enthusiastic seminars about Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Adam Smith? Are they happy if you're planning to create a "Czechoslovak model of economy" using these ideas? It turns out that the answer is "not quite". :-)

Newly found documents of StB, the Czechoslovak communist secret police, show that Klaus and his wife have been carefully watched for 2 years. All of his correspondence and telephone calls were monitored and his office was checked during a night of September 1984: the Orwellian year is not quite a coincidence. ;-)

These events were called "Akce Kluk" which means something like "Operation Boy". StB has figured out that Klaus spreads non-Marxist, right-wing ideas. One of the informers has made the following entertaining testimony for the secret police:

• Concerning the person Klaus, our Source said that his behavior makes it clear that he feels like an unrecognized genius. He doesn't hide that whoever disagrees with his visions and ideas is simply an "unable moron".

Well, it took a couple of years for Klaus to be recognized, after all. And people similar to the informer above - unable morons who are always looking for ways to hurt others - are still living almost everywhere around us. They no longer have a fully official place for their games - StB - but the left-wing blogosphere is unfortunately even more effective in some respects.

And that's the memo.