Enoch Powell and the Red plot to spy on Boy Scouts
COMMUNIST spies targeted Tory MP Enoch Powell in an attempt to infiltrate the Scout movement, newly discovered intelligence files have revealed.
Powell, known for his controversial 1968 Rivers of Blood speech, was targeted by Czech agents in the late 1950s, documents show.
The foreign spies identified him as a useful informant during the time of the ColdWar.
Czech spy bosses even acknowledged: “He does appear to have certain sympathy for the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.”
Agent
The files reveal Powell met a Czech companion several times in London, and promised to introduce his new friend to senior members of the Scouts.
Communist bosses had tasked an agent, known as Ptacek, which means “little bird”, with finding out as much as he could about the operations of the Scouts.
Ptacek wrote: “Upon learning that he knew certain scouting functionaries, I took advantage of the opportunity and asked him for help being introduced to these people and to find out more about international scouting events.
“I began being interested in Scouts after being instructed to focus on them by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the Union for Czech Youth had asked for information about options for establishing contact with British Scouts.
“Powell agreed to help handle this and has already spoken with some scouting leaders.”
The agent and Powell met in Parliament and at embassy receptions in 1956 and 1958 before they set up a lunch, the files claim.
The duo swapped gifts, with Powell sharing his poetry and the agent offering a “souvenir from Prague”. Ptacek hoped that Powell would help create connections between the Scout movement and the Union of Czech Youth, a feeder organisation for the regime’s communist party.
When the agent handed his mission over to a colleague, he wrote: “I recommend assigning Powell based on the continued effort to resolve the question of cooperation with scouting representatives.
“The comrade who takes over this agenda from me will call Mr Powell’s parliamentary office on my behalf. This is a solution that Powell himself has described as a good opportunity.”
Ptacek knew the MP had become friendly with Czech ambassador Jiri Hajek, it is claimed.
The agent added: “The comrade who will engage in the contact will give Mr Powell an item of appreciation from me (preferably crystal) and will relay greetings from me and Comrade Hajek.”
The final notes stated that the goal was to “deepen” contact because Powell’s “willingness to discuss scouting is very beneficial”.
Powell was minister of health and shadow defence secretary with the Conservative Party.
He was famously kicked out of Edward Heath’s shadow cabinet after his hugely controversial Rivers of Blood speech in 1968.
The speech strongly criticised mass immigration, especially Commonwealth immigration to the UK.
He died in 1998, aged 85.