The first thing I noticed was how pleasant and light the hotel lobby seemed, compared with 26 years ago. And the second thing was that they had taken away all the showcases with models of Czech engineering marvels in them. That, I felt, was a bit of a pity: in 1983, I spent a lot of time examining the engineering marvels. I was waiting for the secret policemen guarding the door to wander off, so I could slip out and interview more enemies of the state.
Nowadays, the Park Hotel is pleasant and unremarkable. In 1983, it was where foreigners were sent to, so that a proper watch could be kept on them. Most of the staff were on the secret police payroll. There were hidden cameras in some of the rooms, and microphones in all of them. Before my TV crew and I checked in, I gave them a little lecture: don’t forget that everyone here will be watching you, I said, and the prettiest girls will all be spooks. Well, I always was better at giving advice than taking it.
Behind the counter stood Vlasta: Junoesque, stately and utterly gorgeous. We made eye contact as I handed her my passport and signed all the necessary forms. I’ve rarely been to a city with more beautiful women, and Vlasta was up there with the best of them. During the next ten remarkable days at the Park Hotel, before my colleagues and I were slung out of the country for anti-communist activities, I scarcely exchanged a single word with her — but it took a lot of willpower.
Prague is such a vibrant, beautiful city, it’s hard to remember, how gloomy and sad it was under the hardline communists, who ran it until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. In those days, the streets were dark and the shops were empty. We had been reluctantly allowed in to cover an anti-Western peace conference, but my real aim was to report on the brave, heavily threatened dissident movement, Charter 77. Hence the need to slip out of the hotel regularly, especially at night, to make contact with the leading figures from it. If we could leave without attracting attention, we could get a brief headstart over the two cars which were assigned to follow us around. In a city like Prague, with its narrow streets, mostly dark, it was usually possible to shake them off.
The dissidents we met were superb: clever, funny, and remarkably relaxed. They seemed to me to be the only happy people we met, because they knew how important it was to have a good time. Tomorrow they could be back in prison. It had its comic side: we filmed the playwright Vaclav Havel, who six years later became president, meeting some Western visitors in a park. There were around 60 secret cops hiding in the bushes or sitting on the benches.
The government hated what we were doing, but they had given a formal promise to the European Broadcasting Union that they would not deport us or censor our reports while the peace conference was on. Sometimes we were beaten, but we were never arrested. And night after night we sent our reports to London from the studios of Czechoslovak Television: interviews with Havel and other leading dissidents, close-ups of the secret police who tried to stop us.
When the conference was over, though, we were thrown out so fast our feet scarcely touched the ground. And then, back home, I started getting letters from Vlasta.
It seemed that she had loved me from the moment she set eyes on me. Well, I was 40 and my marriage was breaking up — so I wrote back. Cautiously but not too off-putting, just in case. And then one morning, someone rang me and said he had photographs from Vlasta which he wanted to send me. There was a kind of you-naughty-dog-you note in his voice.
The photos were glamorous, but perfectly genteel. I could see they were taken by a professional, and that worried me. I told the BBC, who told MI5 and a man came round to ask me questions and look at the photos. ‘I say,’ he said, ‘she’s rather a stunner.’ Well, she was.
Then he explained what would happen. She would suggest meeting in some other communist country. Her husband would burst in, there would be a scuffle, and he would hit his head. I would be arrested for attempted murder — and then someone would suggest that if I was prepared to spy for the Czechs, the whole thing could be hushed up. In fact, Vlasta had already offered to meet me in Hungary. ‘It all seems so elaborate. Does all this ever really happen?’ I asked. ‘Absolutely. It once happened to someone from the BBC,’ he said, and laughed.
As a result of all this, two Czech diplomats were expelled from Britain, and the man with the foreign accent was thrown out too. I forgot about it, until six years later, when the old communist regime fell and I could go back to Prague. And to the Park Hotel. Vlasta was still at the reception desk. ‘Remember me?’ I said. She didn’t — and then she did. She went pink, and ran into the back office and locked the door. So that was that. It seemed unkind to pursue her.
Now there are no spooks, no cameras, and no microphones at the Park Hotel. And, though the receptionists are pretty, I’m not expecting to get letters from them.
John Simpson is the BBC’s world affairs editor and can be seen around the globe on BBC World News, available in 200 countries and territories worldwide, and on selected British Airways flights.
