Which British Prime Minister was the target of an alleged blackmail plot by the KGB and the Czechoslovakian secret service (StB)?
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Heath Caper The Heath Caper was an alleged plot by the KGB and the Czechoslovakian secret service (StB) to gain blackmail leverage over British Conservative politician Edward Heath.
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Edward Heath Sir Edward Richard George Heath, (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005), better known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. He was a strong supporter of the European Communities (EC), and after winning the decisive vote in the House of Commons by 336 to 244, he led the negotiations that culminated in Britain's entry into the EC on 1 January 1973. It was, says biographer John Campbell, "Heath's finest hour". Although he planned to be an innovator as Prime Minister, his government foundered on economic difficulties, including high inflation and major strikes. He became an embittered opponent of Margaret Thatcher, who supplanted him as party leader in 1975.
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John Poulson John Garlick Llewellyn Poulson (14 April 1910 – 31 January 1993) was a British architect and businessman who caused a major political scandal when his use of bribery was disclosed in 1972. The highest-ranking figure to be forced out was Conservative Home Secretary Reginald Maudling. Poulson served a prison sentence, but continued to protest his innocence, claiming that he was "a man more sinned against than sinning".
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John Vassall William John Christopher Vassall (20 September 1924 – 18 November 1996) was a British civil servant who spied for the Soviet Union under pressure of blackmail from 1954 until his arrest in 1962. Although operating only at a junior level, he was able to provide details of naval technology which were crucial to the modernising of the Soviet Navy. He was sentenced to eighteen years' jail, and was released in 1972 after ten. The Vassall scandal greatly embarrassed the Macmillan government, but was soon eclipsed by the more dramatic Profumo affair.
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Alexander Shelepin Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Шеле́пин ; 18 August 1918 – 24 October 1994) was a Soviet state security officer and party statesman. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its Politburo and was the head of the KGB from 25 December 1958 to 13 November 1961.
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Woodrow Wyatt Woodrow Lyle Wyatt, Baron Wyatt of Weeford (4 July 1918 – 7 December 1997) was a British politician, published author, journalist and broadcaster, close to the Queen Mother, Margaret Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch. For the last 20 years of his life, he was chairman of the state betting organisation The Tote.
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Marconi scandal The Marconi scandal was a British political scandal that broke in the summer of 1912. It centred on allegations that highly placed members of the Liberal government under Prime Minister H. H. Asquith had profited by improper use of information about the Government's intentions with respect to the Marconi Company. They had known that the government was about to issue a lucrative contract to the British Marconi company for the Imperial Wireless Chain and had bought shares in an American subsidiary.
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Dmitri Shepilov Dmitri Trofimovich Shepilov (Russian: Дми́трий Трофи́мович Шепи́лов , "Dmitrij Trofimovič Šepilov"; 5 November [O.S. 23 October] 1905 – 8 August 1995) was a Soviet politician and Minister of Foreign Affairs who joined the abortive plot to oust Nikita Khrushchev from power in 1957.
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John Alexander Sinclair Sir John Alexander Sinclair, {'1': ", '2': ", '3': ", '4': "} (29 May 1897 – 22 March 1977) was a British Army general who was head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) from 1953 to 1956.
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Ottavio Quattrocchi Ottavio Quattrocchi (1938 – 13 July 2013) was an Italian businessman who was being sought until early 2009 in India for criminal charges for acting as a conduit for bribes in the Bofors scandal. Quattrocchi's role in this scandal, and his proximity to Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi through his Italian wife Sonia Gandhi (Antonia Maino), is thought to have contributed to the defeat of the Congress Party in the 1989 elections. In 1999, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named Quattrocchi in a chargesheet as the conduit for the Bofors bribe. The case against him was strengthened in June 2003, when Interpol revealed two bank accounts, 5A5151516M and 5A5151516L, held by Quattrocchi and his wife Maria with the BSI AG bank, London, containing Euros 3 million and $1 million, a "curiously large savings for a salaried executive". In January 2006, these frozen bank accounts were unexpectedly released by India's law ministry, apparently without the consent of the CBI which had asked for them to be frozen.
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Bernard Ingham Sir Bernard Ingham (born 21 June 1932) is a British journalist and former civil servant, best known as Margaret Thatcher's long-serving chief press secretary while she was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. He was knighted in Mrs Thatcher's 1990 resignation honours list.
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David Mitchell (politician) Sir David Bower Mitchell (20 June 1928 – 30 August 2014) was a British Conservative politician who was a member of Parliament for over 30 years, and who served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's government.
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Anthony Courtney Commander Anthony Tosswill Courtney, OBE, RN (16 May 1908 – 24 January 1988) was a British Royal Navy officer and politician. While a Member of Parliament, he was a victim of a plot apparently instituted by the KGB to discredit him, which appeared to contribute to the loss of his seat. He was a leading member of the Conservative Monday Club.
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Guy Millard Sir Guy Millard {'1': ", '2': ", '3': ", '4': "} (22 January 1917 – 26 April 2013) was a British diplomat who was closely involved in the Suez crisis, and afterwards ambassador to Hungary, Sweden and Italy.
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Andrew Mitchell Andrew John Bower Mitchell (born 23 March 1956) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sutton Coldfield since 2001. He was the MP for Gedling from 1987 to 1997. He served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development from 2010 to 2012, and then briefly as Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons until he resigned after losing the confidence of many of his colleagues following an alleged altercation with a police officer; referred to as "Plebgate".
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Downing Street Chief of Staff The Downing Street Chief of Staff is the most senior political appointee in the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, acting as a senior aide to the Prime Minister and a powerful, non-ministerial position within Her Majesty's Government.
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Michael Portillo Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo PC (born 26 May 1953) is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister. He was first elected to the House of Commons in a by-election in 1984. A strong admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and a Eurosceptic, Portillo served as a junior minister under both Thatcher and John Major, before entering the cabinet in 1992. A "darling of the right", he was seen as a likely challenger to Major during the 1995 Conservative leadership election, but stayed loyal. As Defence Secretary, he pressed for a purist Thatcherite course of "clear blue water", separating the policies of the Conservatives from Labour.
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Martin Stropnický Martin Stropnický (born 19 December 1956, Prague) is a Czech politician, actor, songwriter, author, and director. Since 2014 he has been Minister of Defence of the Czech Republic in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. From 2 February 1998 to 22 July 1998 he also served as Minister of Culture.
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Labour government, 1964–1970 Harold Wilson was appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom by Queen Elizabeth II on 16 October 1964 and formed the first Wilson ministry, a Labour Party government, which held office with a thin majority between 1964 and 1966. In an attempt to gain a workable majority in the House of Commons, Wilson called a new election for 31 March 1966, after which he formed the second Wilson ministry, a government which held office for four years until 1970.
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Michael Alexander (diplomat) Sir Michael O'Donel Bjarne Alexander, GCMG (19 June 1936 – 1 June 2002), was a British diplomat. He was the foreign policy secretary to Margaret Thatcher and the UK ambassador to NATO.
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Igor Gouzenko Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko (Russian: Игорь Сергеевич Гузенко ] ; Ukrainian: Ігор Сергійович Гузенко ] ; January 13, 1919 – June 28, 1982) was a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He defected on September 5, 1945 – just three days after the end of World War II – with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West. This forced Prime Minister Mackenzie King to call a Royal Commission to investigate espionage in Canada.
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Operation Candid Operation Candid: Protection of the Royal Family in an Emergency was a Cold War contingency plan of the British Government to evacuate Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh and other members of the British royal family in the event of nuclear war.<ref name="WO 32/21796">WO 32/21796 Protection of the Royal Family in an emergency, The National Archives</ref> The plan was devised in late 1962 following the Cuban Missile Crisis and approved the following year.