Newly-declassified documents reveal that Czech agents targeted the British broadcaster to manipulate its output and fish for information on defectors.
They say Prague’s StB network met their unwitting dupes at a Foreign Office cocktail party, and at restaurants and a private club in central London.
One spy described the BBC woman’s editor as “about 50-years-old, good looking, lively, likes to have a drink and then she’ll talk.”
The new files show that Sir Hugh met an agent in Prague and criticised the Labour government as being “in the tow of American foreign policy”.
He also agreed to consider giving a top communist figure the chance to deliver one of the prestigious Reith lectures named after BBC founder Lord Reith.
In one 1959 cable, StB captain Jaroslav Kazbal described how he had entertained George Mosley, the head of the broadcasters’ overseas output at a private club.
“We have a reason to stay in touch and the possibility to work on him both here and at home,” it added.
Kazbal was then taken by Mr Mosley to meet with Gregory Macdonald, the head of Czechoslovak broadcasts, branding him “old and extremely sharp-tongued reactionary”.
But he added: “I might be able to provoke him to supply uncontrolled information.”
Mr Macdonald’s contact with the Czechs continued until at least 1964 when a file records him meeting another agent at the country’s London embassy.
Sir Hugh promised to help an agent he had contact with and two years later, while in Prague, he asked to meet another StB officer.
The meeting was to be at a cocktail party arranged by British Ambassador Sir Cecil Parrott, during which he expressed support for stronger links with socialist states.
Other executives were earmarked for “active measures” – code for secret political operations – and listed as “very obliging”.
The Czechs also targeted journalists in other organisations, paying the People’s diplomatic correspondent for information which had already been published.
They also met the foreign editor of the Daily Mirror, but described him simply as “a drunk”.
