Intelligence: Let's Take Over an Intelligence Service

Archives

December19, 2006: Intelligence agencies usually face some danger from their competitors in other countries. But in Eastern Europe, you sometimes have internal threats as well. Such was the case recently in the Czech Republic, where a former senior civil servant (Zdenek Dolezel) is accused of trying to blackmail the leadership of the Czech military intelligence service, into becoming Dolezel's own intelligence service. Dolezel is also accused of stealing European Union funds, as well as a bribery case surrounding the privatization of a state owned energy company. The intelligence agency became aware of the plot, and foiled it by alerting key members of parliament and their superiors in the Defense Ministry.

Corruption was pretty extensive during the Cold War, when most East European nations were run by communist dictatorships. The new democratic nations of East Europe tried to eliminate the corruption, but the bad habits were too well established. Politicians still campaign on promises to "clean out the crooks," but there are so many corrupt officials out there, the cleansing process is going to take a while.

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close