Czech spies used Snowdon in bid to infiltrate royals
CoMMUniST spies targeted Lord Snowdon in the 1970s in a bid to infiltrate the monarchy, new documents reveal.
A Czech secret agent detailed having two meetings with the Queen’s brother-in-law at the height of the Cold War.
Captain Bohumil Karkan – codename Krupsky – is even said to have visited Kensington Palace, where Snowdon lived with his wife Princess Margaret, the Queen’s younger sister.
The spy, who posed as an embassy official, wrote about the meetings in recently released files from the StB, the Czech secret police in the communist era. He described meeting Lord Snowdon, a photographer, at a ‘social occasion’ on March 21, 1973.
Detailing the encounter, Krupsky wrote: ‘The opportunity arose for me to become acquainted with Lord Snowdon near the Czechoslovak Embassy.
‘Following the initial social conversation, Lord Snowdon invited me to view his photography exhibit entitled Assignments and asked for my opinion regarding the contents of the exhibit and how it had been arranged...
‘i promised Lord Snowdon that i would visit his exhibition and then i would invite him for a friendly meeting at which we could enjoy coffee and exchange opinions regarding the contents of the exhibit. He accepted my invitation in advance and gave me his personal telephone number.’
Krupsky later described how he had visited Lord Snowdon’s exhibition, where the pair discussed an upcoming royal tour of the Soviet Union by Prince Philip and Princess Anne, the Sun reported.
He detailed their conversations in a filing to his Czech handler on April 2, 1973, writing: ‘As agreed in advance and arranged by telephone, i accepted Lord Snowdon’s invitation to visit his exhibit at the Kensington Palace Gardens.’
He told how Lord Snowdon, who was born Antony ArmstrongJones and had visited Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and 1970s as a photographer, asked for advice on getting his exhibition into the then communist country.
The pair ended their encounter by agreeing to meet again at Lord Snowdon’s home, he wrote, adding: ‘The meeting was held in a friendly atmosphere, which created conditions for further social contact.’
There is no suggestion that Lord Snowdon did anything wrong or knowingly colluded with communist spies. Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret divorced in 1978. They were each rumoured to have had numerous affairs during their 18year marriage.
Margaret died in 2002 aged 71. Snowdon died in 2017 aged 86.
‘Gave me private phone number’