Blair minister Geoffrey Robinson ‘was Cold War spy for the Czechs’
Blair minister Geoffrey Robinson ‘was Cold War spy for the Czechs’
Richard Assheton
May 19 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
Robinson in 1998, the year he resigned from the Blair government
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A minister in Tony Blair’s government who resigned over an undeclared home loan to Peter Mandelson has condemned as “a lie” claims that he was a communist spy during the Cold War.
Geoffrey Robinson, a Labour MP since 1976, said the allegations that he had passed secrets to Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s were a “complete fabrication”.
The Mail on Sunday said it had seen documents in an archive in Prague that detailed Robinson holding 51 meetings with a communist agent and passing on 87 pieces of evidence from 1966 to 1969.
Robinson said the documents were factually wrong, stating incorrectly that his date of birth was 1940/1939 instead of 1938, and dismissed them as “highly defamatory”. It is understood that his position is that at no time did he pass confidential government documents or information to any foreign agent and he did not have access to such material.
In the 390 pages of Cold War files the Mail on Sunday said it had seen it is alleged that agents from the Soviet KGB and Czechoslovakia’s StB security service vied for Robinson’s services, with the StB winning.
Given the codename Karko, Robinson allegedly shared details about Britain’s secret nuclear deterrent programme, Polaris, and Nato research notes as he was wined and dined at London restaurants and nightclubs by his communist handler Karel Pravec.
One document says the favourite drink of Robinson, then a junior Labour Party researcher, was whisky and ginger ale and that in the summer of 1969 he accepted a gallon of whisky and a briefcase and requested a case of wine worth £50, about £800 in today’s money. However, it was reported he turned down an offer of £100 in Harrods vouchers, saying it should be returned as “[Czech] labourers worked really hard” for their money.
The alleged relationship between Robinson and Pravec began to deteriorate in 1969 when Pravec was removed from the Czech embassy and Robinson was transferred from Labour’s Transport House during Harold Wilson’s government.
Robinson went on to be a Labour stalwart, serving on the opposition front bench and being appointed paymaster- general by Blair in 1997.
He was forced to step down the next year after it emerged he had lent Mandelson £373,000 to buy a house in Notting Hill, west London.
Before entering politics, Robinson was a successful businessman. Between 1996 and 2008, he owned the left-leaning New Statesman magazine. He was treated for a stroke late last year.
The former Labour leader Michael Foot was accused of acting as an “agent of influence” for Russia’s KGB, and last year it was revealed that Jeremy Corbyn had met a Czech spy four times in the 1980s.
@88m3 @ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214
@DonKnock @dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @re'up @Blackfyre @Cali_livin @NY's #1 Draft Pick
Blair minister Geoffrey Robinson ‘was Cold War spy for the Czechs’
Richard Assheton
May 19 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
Robinson in 1998, the year he resigned from the Blair government
Share
A minister in Tony Blair’s government who resigned over an undeclared home loan to Peter Mandelson has condemned as “a lie” claims that he was a communist spy during the Cold War.
Geoffrey Robinson, a Labour MP since 1976, said the allegations that he had passed secrets to Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s were a “complete fabrication”.
The Mail on Sunday said it had seen documents in an archive in Prague that detailed Robinson holding 51 meetings with a communist agent and passing on 87 pieces of evidence from 1966 to 1969.
Robinson said the documents were factually wrong, stating incorrectly that his date of birth was 1940/1939 instead of 1938, and dismissed them as “highly defamatory”. It is understood that his position is that at no time did he pass confidential government documents or information to any foreign agent and he did not have access to such material.
In the 390 pages of Cold War files the Mail on Sunday said it had seen it is alleged that agents from the Soviet KGB and Czechoslovakia’s StB security service vied for Robinson’s services, with the StB winning.
Given the codename Karko, Robinson allegedly shared details about Britain’s secret nuclear deterrent programme, Polaris, and Nato research notes as he was wined and dined at London restaurants and nightclubs by his communist handler Karel Pravec.
One document says the favourite drink of Robinson, then a junior Labour Party researcher, was whisky and ginger ale and that in the summer of 1969 he accepted a gallon of whisky and a briefcase and requested a case of wine worth £50, about £800 in today’s money. However, it was reported he turned down an offer of £100 in Harrods vouchers, saying it should be returned as “[Czech] labourers worked really hard” for their money.
The alleged relationship between Robinson and Pravec began to deteriorate in 1969 when Pravec was removed from the Czech embassy and Robinson was transferred from Labour’s Transport House during Harold Wilson’s government.
Robinson went on to be a Labour stalwart, serving on the opposition front bench and being appointed paymaster- general by Blair in 1997.
He was forced to step down the next year after it emerged he had lent Mandelson £373,000 to buy a house in Notting Hill, west London.
Before entering politics, Robinson was a successful businessman. Between 1996 and 2008, he owned the left-leaning New Statesman magazine. He was treated for a stroke late last year.
The former Labour leader Michael Foot was accused of acting as an “agent of influence” for Russia’s KGB, and last year it was revealed that Jeremy Corbyn had met a Czech spy four times in the 1980s.
@88m3 @ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214
@DonKnock @dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @re'up @Blackfyre @Cali_livin @NY's #1 Draft Pick
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