Newly declassified intelligence files have exposed how a Labour MP was actively used by Communist spies to deliver KGB propaganda aimed at discrediting Margaret Thatcher's government and sabotaging its defence policies during the Cold War.
The MP and the Propaganda Speech
According to archives from the Czech state Security Service obtained by the Mail, Frank Cook, then a shadow minister and later a member of the Defence Select Committee, became a key asset. In 1987, he was enlisted by Czechoslovak StB agents operating under diplomatic cover in the UK.
The spies' goal was an 'active measure' to damage NATO and the Conservative government's disarmament stance. Cook was asked to promote a Soviet intelligence line that Thatcher was secretly planning a major nuclear upgrade while publicly supporting US-USSR disarmament talks.
Files show Cook was "spontaneously positive". He later boasted of giving a "very sharp speech" at a Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) congress, using all the arguments fed to him. He also spread the falsehoods to delegates from major Western powers, who he claimed "happily accepted them". Spymasters in Prague later rated the operation's outcome as 'effective'.
Wide-Ranging Infiltration of the Peace Movement
The revelations show Cook was just one part of a broader espionage campaign targeting CND, which at its peak had over 100,000 members and was a powerful left-wing force. The archives detail how four serving and future CND General Secretaries were targeted by Czech spies during the 1980s.
The spies, believing CND's anti-nuclear stance made members sympathetic, gleaned sensitive information on missile movements, arms exports, and confidential reports on chemical weapons. Among those named in the files are former General Secretary Bruce Kent, who met a senior Czech spy in 1983, and current vice-president Kate Hudson, who met an agent in 1988 while a member of the British Communist Party.
Another senior activist, who later became CND General Secretary, even offered to spy on the organisation itself for the Communists, requesting a codename.
Plots to Provoke Anti-Thatcher Protests
The files also expose more audacious propaganda plots. In 1981, Czech agents proposed a campaign to capitalise on public discontent with Thatcher's budget, which raised military spending while cutting social funds.
The plan involved circulating pamphlets comparing the Tory government's policies to Nazi Germany's rearmament slogan, "guns instead of butter". The objective was to "draw parallels between the Tory government and that of Hitler" and provoke nationwide protests. This scheme, ultimately abandoned, aimed to show that accepting Soviet peace proposals would raise British living standards.
Professor Anthony Glees, a security expert at the University of Buckingham, stated: "These files provide hard evidence of the extent to which the KGB and its surrogates tried to manipulate the British political system. We have long suspected CND was the handmaiden of Soviet foreign policy."
Lasting Contacts and Legacy
Frank Cook, who died in 2012, remained a valued contact. In 1988, he introduced his handler to future Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam. He also secretly briefed the spy on plans by then Labour leader Neil Kinnock to abandon the party's unilateral nuclear disarmament policy.
The revelations underscore the intense clandestine warfare waged on British soil during the Cold War. They highlight how a mainstream political figure and a mass protest movement were systematically targeted and exploited by a hostile foreign intelligence service to undermine national defence and democratic policy.
CND did not respond to requests for comment on the archival findings.
