Vampire II

The former Czech foreign intelligence service (codenamed Department I until 1989) also used methods of terror in its work. To achieve its goals, or the objectives of the country’s political leadership, it organised kidnappings and assassinations.

It did not keep the records of such missions longer than necessary, and continuously shredded it. Despite that, some fragments can be found among the preserved materials. Such is also the case of a failed, or demonstrative, bomb attack on Jiri Pelikan.

Jiri Pelikan, who died 25 years ago, was an important figure among post-August 1968 emigration, and as a publisher of an expatriate periodical, Listy, was seen by the Czechoslovak “normalisation-period” regime as one of the major ideological enemies. Department I carried out several so-called “active plans” (usually misinformation campaigns, sabotages, hijacks, or murders) aimed against him, the most well-known being probably a mission codenamed “Vampire II” which consisted of despatching a parcel with a book and an explosive.

The documentation on Vampire II was probably included in the subject file 12613, codenamed Slovan, on the Listy periodical. The subordinate files on the active plans were shredded in the past. Partial information on Vampire II is, however, available in the personal files of the officials who contributed to the mission, and in the personal file of their direct senior commander in Rome, Frantisek Postulka.

Another, and even more interesting, document can be found in file 45124, this month’s Archival of the Month. It is an informer file of the priest Jaroslav Kuncik, codenamed Sud (“Barrel”). Kuncik worked in the ‘Velehrad’ Czech Centre for Religion in Rome, and from the late 1960s was also an informer of Department I. He was apparently a credited informer passing highly valuable intelligence from the priests-expatriates echelons. Through collaborating with Department I, he earned the possibility of returning to Czechoslovakia, where he later got married and had a family. The collaboration continued even after his return, when the service used him as a translator and consultant.

Kuncik’s wife Carla da Roldo was instructed in December 1974 to write an address using “Italian handwriting” on a parcel for Jiri Pelikan. The parcel for Vampire II was delivered to the Department’s residency in Rome, and the officials there sent it from a post office in Milan. It was therefore necessary that the parcel should look authentic, as if the address was written by a native Italian.

The parcel was delivered in February 1975. Pelikan was cautious when opening it, as the parcel seemed suspicious to him. After opening, it set itself alight, Pelikan quickly tossed it off, and the parcel exploded. Jiri Pelikan suffered no injuries. The objective of the mission was probably only to frighten him off, not to liquidate him.