Main Intelligence Service Directorate (Directorate I)
Immediately in the year 1945 in the re-established Czechoslovak Republic, an organizational scheme of the Ministry of the Interior containing a Foreign Intelligence Service was drawn up. In May 1947, pursuant to Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (ÚV KSČ) guidelines, the foreign political intelligence group of the Ministry of the Interior was reorganized, which until then had been a leftover from the London government apparatus. After the February 1948 coup, the Communist foreign intelligence, as of 1953 labeled (following the Soviet model) Directorate I of the Ministry of the Interior (later Directorate I of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, and after that SNB Directorate I) carried out mainly foreign intelligence activity abroad in favor of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Bloc. At the head of the directorate stood a chief who was directed by the Minister of the Interior.
The main tasks of the Czechoslovak foreign intelligence service were the acquisition of intelligence information (from open sources, agent networks, or operative technology), the fight against foreign intelligence services working against the “socialist camp,” measures against Czechoslovak emigration and its organization. Its activity, defined in organization regulations, likewise consisted of the obstruction of plans and designs of capitalist countries aimed against the then countries of the Soviet Bloc, the creation and diffusion of disinformation and compromising material, the protection of state secrets at foreign residenturas, etc. All operative activity of the communist foreign intelligence service ceased at the beginning of February 1990, when it was renamed the Intelligence Service of the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
The document collection of the former SNB Directorate I (Main Intelligence Service Directorate), which was handed over to the Security Services Archive by the Office for Foreign Relations and Information, includes plans and evaluations of activities, orders, guidelines, minutes from negotiations, negotiation protocols and much additional material of a documentary, informative and administrative nature.
Section 15 of Act No. 181/2007 Coll. applies to a certain small set of units within the collection. In these cases, researcher access is subject to an affirmative decision of administrative management.
| Title | Record Group | Time Range | Inventory | Location | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main Intelligence Service Directorate (Directorate I) (Hlavní správa rozvědky (I. správa)) | 1945-1990 | Department of Intelligence and Military Counterintelligence Operative Dossiers | 105.5 running meters |