At the height of the Cold War, Czech secret agent Captain Bohumil Karkan – who used the code-name Krupsky – tried to use Princess Margaret’s husband as a way into the Royal Family, the papers said. Previously unseen documents reveal the communist spy met with Lord Snowdon twice in the 1970s.
The documents from the StB secret police, which were recently released in the Czech Republic, said the agent posed as a Czech embassy official to get a meeting with Lord Snowdon.
The Queen’s brother-in-law is said to have agreed to meet the agent at his home in Kensington Palace and gave him his phone number.
During the meeting, the pair are believed to have discussed an upcoming royal tour of the Soviet Union by Prince Philip and Princess Anne in 1973.
The documents reveal Krupsky described one meeting as a “friendly atmosphere, which created conditions for further social contact”.
Lord Snowdon, a keen photographer who had previously visited the Soviet bloc, is said to have asked the agent about getting his photography exhibition into Czechoslovakia.
It is not suggested Lord Snowdon realised the man was a spy or that he colluded with communist spies.
There is also no indication the relationship developed further or that the plot to further infiltrate the royals succeeded.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
Lord Snowdon died in 2017, aged 86.
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