A new book reveals the untold story of Czechoslovakia’s complex relations with terrorists and revolutionaries from the Middle East and elsewhere in the Cold War period. Watching the Jackals by historian Daniela Richterová draws on intelligence files to show how major figures such as Carlos the Jackal, Che Guevara and a mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre visited Prague, often repeatedly, in the latter decades of the communist era. It also explores Czechoslovakia’s own attitude to international terrorism. I discussed her groundbreaking findings with Richterová, who is based at King’s College London.
Ian Willoughby