Major Jaromír Ulč

“[Q: But there were people who were locked up for their convictions, their opinions; initiatives that were free, independent, or didn’t want the Communist party were persecuted. How did you approach such efforts, which we could describe as free expressions?] Well that’s exactly like when I directed the agency. If you’ve got a different opinion, go earn a living with it, use it, talk about it with your friends, but for goodness’ sake don’t drag it out into the public. There’s no need for you to influence normal citizens of the country in this way. You can keep your blabber to yourself, go ahead and spend your time on that, record it by microphone and then play it back to yourself to show yourself how good you are, that you’ve got a different opinion, that you’re fighting against something and you don’t even know what it’s about - go ahead and do that. But don’t spread it among the people. And if you do spread it, then perhaps you’ll go to the cooler for a while, if it’s really harsh and there’s the political will for it.”

“I liked doing what I did. I didn’t have any reason why I should quit such an interesting job, because I enjoyed it and it also satisfied me in regards to the mental aspect and the such. Communicating with people and persuading people to tell me what I need to know, at times discarding some disinformation and then waiting what would turn up on my desk next, how it’s all connected. It’s a nice, a nice job. Admittedly, it’s got pretty long hours, and sometimes it’s physically strenuous, but they chose people with that in mind and sent them on regular physical check-ups to see if I could run a distance, climb up somewhere, and so on.”

“The way I saw the regime was that I had decent money, I had enough to provide for my family, I had a place to live, and I pretty much wasn’t limited by anything, I could do - not whatever - but what I wanted to, I had a certain degree of freedom. I saw it and assessed it like this: this is how it is, this is probably how it has to be, I’m no rebel, no one in the family was a rebel.”

“Three months before the end of military service some profilers came, HR you’d say nowadays, from the Interior, asking if I wouldn’t want to do the same job I’d done in the army, as a radio operator, if I wouldn’t want to do that for the Ministry of Interior. I talked it through with my mum at home, and she said, why not.”

“Always nice and polite, but tough, verbally. In all my twenty years doing that work I never felt the need to hit anyone, as they say. What’s a conflict? Verbal at most. When he said: ‘I won’t tell you that, that’s none of your business.’ I retorted: ‘Oh yeah?! You won’t?! But watch out because then I’ll have to do so and so.’ Those were educated people in certain positions. They didn’t even dare, because they’d lose their job, right. They realised that - some things they could say, some things they couldn’t, because it was a secret of the confessional or I don’t know what. It was a normal, standard administrative job, visiting people, talking with people, when you came back from a meeting, you’d write a report that you’d met so and so. There were matters of ideology, tangible benefits, or then compromising material. When a person frequented some places we needed and he wasn’t quite clean so to say, maybe he was cheating his wife, visiting the men’s room on purpose, then we’d put the surveillance team on him. If we had a big interest [in him], we’d say: ‘We won’t bother you much, but we need to find out this and this from that place. If you tell us, fine, if you don’t, well... right. (laughing) Then we’ll pass it on somewhere, pretty much.”