The 1980s witnessed a new generation of intelligence agents at RFE/RL. On September 18, 1988, RFE’s Czechoslovak Service freelancer Premsyl Barak ( Code Name “Albort”) confessed to RFE/RL that he had been spying for the Czechoslovak Intelligence Service (StB) and that he was under threat from the CIS for refusing to continue doing so. For four years (1984–88), while employed as a freelancer, he reported on all RFE/RL's Czechoslovak Service activities and other émigrés living in Germany. He met at least twenty-three times with his handler, a diplomat out of Bonn's West German Czechoslovak Embassy. He received about DM 25,000 for his information.
In his later sworn testimony to German police, Barak said that he volunteered to work for the StB shortly after the return of former employee Pavel Minarik in 1976. Barak was looking for adventure and was intrigued by the Minarik story about how he had spied at RFE from 1968 to 1976. Barak stated that he was trained in "spycraft " from 1978 to 1982, with interruptions while traveling abroad as a musician for Czechoslovak musical groups. At one point, to establish his credentials in the West, under the StB supervision, he brought out supposed samizdat documents. He handed them over to an émigré writer living in West Germany, who wrote an article from the material he received.
The purpose of Barak's preparations and training in Czechoslovakia and traveling to meet with émigrés in the West was to get him ready to join RFE/RL in Munich. From here, he would supply the StB with internal documents, information about personnel, and various émigré groups:
Besides the previously mentioned documents, which I passed on to my contact officer, I also passed him personal notes and information about people who worked in the Czech. Dept. or belonged to Czech. émigré groups outside RFE. Besides the previously mentioned documents, which I passed on to my contact officer, I also passed him personal notes and information about people who worked in the Czech. It was part of my tasking to collect all data, personal and professional, about these people. Additionally, I received specific concrete tasking from either "Vladimir" or "Ludek” to gather additional information about particular people in whom they were interested.
On Friday, June 9, 1989, Barak's trial ended when he was found guilty and placed on probation for two years. The reason for the light sentence was that there was no evidence of any specific damage because of his activities, he had voluntarily gone to the police, and he fully cooperated with the authorities.
Barak was not encouraged to work full-time for RFE/RL but only work as a freelancer, and therefore he would not be under any supervisory control. As a freelancer, he would be free to come and go as he wanted, including Sundays—when he was most active. Barak admitted stealing RFE/RL stationery and envelopes, and he assisted in the distribution of anonymous letters against the former Czechoslovak Service director and other employees of that service in 1988.
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