Pre-Mission Briefing
A SELECTION OF RECOMMENDED READING TO PREPARE FOR YOUR MISSION
Watching the Jackals - Daniela Richterova
This is a ‘must read’ before your mission. An eminent Cold War scholar, Dr.Richterova’s decade of work in the Czech Security Services Archive produced the first in-depth account of the StB’s covert relationships with Carlos, Abu Daoud, the Abu Nidal Organisation and various PLO factions. Richterova establishes that Prague feared rather than welcomed these men, developed sophisticated methods to monitor and eventually eject them. The Spectator’s Thomas Ricks called it “the most enlightening” of recent books on covert operations; foreword by renowned intelligence historian Christopher Andrew.
The Revolutionists - Jason Burke
The definitive account of transnational terrorism in the 1970s and early 80s, drawing on declassified files and original interviews with hijackers, double agents and victims. Burke frames the secular leftist revolutionaries of the era, Carlos, Abu Daoud, Leila Khaled, as a self-defeating tendency whose recklessness gave way to the far more lethal religious fanaticism that followed. Great preparation for the Fairmont stop.
Havel: A Life - Michael Zantovsky
Written by Havel’s press secretary, speech writer and close friend from the dissident years through the presidency, this is the indispensable biography for the Bartolomějská strand. It covers his repeated imprisonments, his leadership of the Charter 77 civic movement, and his improbable ascent from the StB’s interrogation cells to the presidency. Essential pre-trip reading.
Estébáckou Prahou - Prokop Tomek
Czech language only, but the single most valuable field reference for the tour, a systematic guide to all approximately one hundred buildings used by the StB in Prague before 1989, with addresses, historical context, original floor plans and surveillance photographs. Grew from Tomek’s work at the Office for the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism.
Once safely lodged in the medieval back streets, keep yourself hidden, entertained and informed with these books, films and documentaries.
Safe House Suggestions
Prague Spring - Simon Mawer
A novel set in the summer of the Soviet invasion, it follows Sam Wareham, First Secretary at the British Embassy, as he observes the collapse of Dubček’s liberalisation through a diplomat’s cynicism and a young man’s passion. Sharp on the operational constraints that prevent embassies from acting on the intelligence they hold, and on the texture of a city under continuous StB surveillance. The fictional counterpart to the archive material underlying the tour.
Carlos - Olivier Assayas
Assayas’s five-and-a-half hour epic, ranked by the BBC among the 100 greatest films of the 21st century, follows Carlos across two decades of operations, with Edgar Ramírez widely regarded as giving one of the finest screen portrayals of a real-life terrorist. The Prague and Eastern Bloc period is covered in Part Three. Essential viewing before the Fairmont stop; Carlos attempted to block its distribution and failed.
Munich - Steven Spielberg
Spielberg’s account of the Black September massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the subsequent Mossad operation to hunt down those responsible across Europe, among them Abu Daoud, who turns up in the Intercontinental Hotel’s snack bar a few years later. Scripted by Tony Kushner and Eric Bana, it is a morally serious rather than triumphalist film; Abu Daoud himself complained he had not been consulted during its development. Great background for understanding who was sitting across the table from Carlos in Prague.
Che: Memorias de un Año Secreto - Margarita Hernández
Cuban-Brazilian documentary in which three former Cuban intelligence officers who accompanied Che Guevara during his clandestine stay in Prague in 1965–66 speak on camera for the first time. Fascinating insights on his stay: the disguise, the aide’s conspicuousness, the walks, the asthma, the Beatles. Spanish with subtitles.
For those seeking further inspiration, we recommend checking out Spybrary
Key Locations
join us and our guide Dr Daniela RicHterova as we look behind prague's picturesque facade
Café Slavia, Smetanovo nábřeží 2, Prague 1
The most famous café in Prague, open since 1884, on the banks of the Vltava river opposite the National Theatre. During a clandestine stay in 1966, when he entered the country under a false name and heavily disguised, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara sat here undetected; in 1969 an officer of the StB (Státní bezpečnost - the State Security Service) recruited a young Czech PhD student on the steps outside; and Václav Havel was a regular throughout his dissident years, his circle continuously infiltrated by informants.
Fairmont Golden Prague (former InterContinental), Náměstí Curieových 43/5, Prague 1
The Brutalist riverside block originally opened in 1974 as the first international five-star hotel in communist Czechoslovakia. It reopened as the Fairmont after a 2025 renovation. The arrival here in 1977 of Abu Daoud, notorious for his role in planning the Munich Olympics massacre, during an International Olympic Committee stay terrified the StB, who feared they were about to witness another attack. Between 1978 and 1986 this was Carlos the Jackal’s Prague operational base, the snack bar served as his group’s meeting room. Souhaila Andrawes was escorted here by Carlos after her Prague surgery.
Hotel Jalta, Václavské náměstí 45, Prague 1
A listed socialist-era hotel built 1954–58 at the heart of Wenceslas Square, its first-floor statues and characteristic facade unchanged since construction. Between 1958 and 1989 the StB ran a continuous eavesdropping operation from a nuclear fallout shelter directly beneath it, bugging all 94 rooms with devices concealed in lampshades, shoe-shine brushes and bedside tables, targeting Western diplomats, businessmen and journalists who could not easily be accessed elsewhere in Prague.
Hotel Jalta Cold War Museum Bunker Tour (entrance through hotel reception), Václavské náměstí 45
The most physically intact surviving intelligence infrastructure in Prague, tours can be booked in advance. The original StB switchboard connected to all 94 rooms above, the tape recording equipment and the colour-coded floor plan marking guests by target priority are all in situ; the eavesdropping room at the end of the tour is still accessed by entering the original door code.
Unitas Hotel, Bartolomějská 9 and Bartolomějská 14, Prague 1
A narrow Old Town street where the entire block was commandeered by the StB in 1950. The Grey Sisters were evicted, their convent cells converted into interrogation chambers, the adjacent church of St Bartholomew turned into a shooting range. No. 9, the former convent, is now the Unitas Hotel, where guests sleep in the original iron-doored cells and Cell P6 carries a plaque marking it as the room where Václav Havel was held. No. 14, the Kachlíkárna, served as StB administrative headquarters until 1989 and is now the Prague 1 police directorate.