The peaceful revolution that swept away Communist rule in Czechoslovakia six months ago was engineered jointly by leaders of the secret police in Moscow and Prague, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.
A television documentary contends that secret police leaders in both countries conspired to bring down the hard-line Communist leadership in Prague because it would not accept Mikhail S. Gorbachev's reforms in the Soviet Union.The plotters planned for more reform-minded Communists to replace the hard-liners but miscalculated the depth of public desire for change, said John Simpson, the BBC foreign affairs editor.
The BBC was told that it was not yet known if the revolution was instigated by the Czechoslovak secret police or the Soviet KGB.