Red Wolves & White Knights

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Red Wolves & White Knights Page 1

by Peter Kysel




  RED WOLVES

  and

  WHITE KNIGHTS

  Peter Kysel

  Dedicated to Florisse Corina Kysel van Hoorn Alkema

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PART 1 – The World Changed

  Chapter 1: Eventful Day

  Chapter 2: Johnsons

  PART 2 – The First Half of the Nineties – Opening up Europe

  Chapter 3: Know the Place for the First Time

  Chapter 4: President Havel in London

  Chapter 5: Decaying Swamps

  PART 3 – Wild East

  Chapter 6: KGB

  Chapter 7: Seminars

  Chapter 8: Free Advice to Oligarchs

  Chapter 9: Influential People

  Chapter 10: St Petersburg

  Chapter 11: Privatisation Goes Ahead, but I Drift

  PART 4 – The Most Exciting Job

  Chapter 12: Back in Action

  Chapter 13: Changing Work Ethics

  Chapter 14: Intimidation

  PART 5 – The Second Half of Nineties – Integrating Europe

  Chapter 15: Harvard Funds

  Chapter 16: Takeover

  Chapter 17: Michael’s Company

  Chapter 18: Vojta

  PART 6 – New Millennium – Consolidation Decade

  Chapter 19: Riviera

  Chapter 20: New Toy

  Chapter 21: Red Wolves Eased Out

  Chapter 22: Stability and Tragedy

  Chapter 23: Adventures and Redemption

  Chapter 24: Anniversary and Sliding Towards Decision

  PART 7 – Crises and Celebration

  Chapter 25: London Bus

  Chapter 26: Terrible Year 2006

  Chapter 27: Financial Crisis

  Chapter 28: Stock Market Crash and the Wedding

  PART 8 – Morals

  Chapter 29: Civil Society, in 2010

  Chapter 30: Return to Tatranská Lomnica

  Chapter 31: Revenge for Nina

  Chapter 32: Michael Leaves the White Knights

  PART 9 – Return to Russia

  Chapter 33: Johnsons’ Ethics

  Chapter 34: Open Conflicts

  PART 10 – Blaník

  Copyright

  PART 1

  The World Changed

  ‘We and the Americans abandoned Eastern Europe need­lessly in 1945,” pronounced Jack Straw in the Saulire cable car cabin. Admiring the snow-covered peaks of the Savoie Alps, I paid no attention. Jack was a friend and a keen mil­itary historian. It was March 1985 and we were on a skiing holiday in Méribel with friends. Jack returned to his com­ment in the evening over an après-ski drink at the Aspen Park hotel bar and this time he had our full attention.

  “During a meeting in Moscow, in October 1944, Winston Churchill proposed a secret deal to Stalin, to divide spheres of influence in Europe after the war. Stalin was surprised but accepted. The sell-out of Eastern Europe was finalised by Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt in Yalta four months later. As in Munich, the affected nations were excluded from the discussions.” Jack’s opinion challenged everything I had previously understood about the post-war order in Europe.

  “After the war the Soviet Union annexed large territo­ries of other European countries and turned eleven of them into colonies,” said David, gazing at the glowing logs in the fireplace.

  “At Yalta Britain and America became the godfathers to a new colonial empire,” agreed Jack “Democratic politicians shook hands with dictators in Munich and in Yalta over the heads of the people involved. The saying ‘about us, without us’ could not have been more apt. The injus­tice inflicted by the three great powers on Eastern Europe lasted for forty-five years,” added our companion Jay.

  My perplexity turned to exasperation.

  “My homeland didn’t need to be colonised after the war?” I exclaimed. “Our family could have stayed together. My exile wasn’t inevitable,” and I continued with the rejoinder,

  “Then why? For what motives?” Jay shrugged his shoulders.

  “Roosevelt was too ill to understand. Churchill wanted to save the British Empire with the acquiescence of the Soviets. Stalin was exporting revolution. But who knows?”

  For the next few years, I lived with the suppressed pain of injustice. It felt pointless to rail against decisions that could not be changed. Sovietologists persuaded Western public opinion that the communist empire was strong. I was con­vinced that it would outlive me.

  Then, in 1989, rebellions erupted throughout the Soviet bloc. Political and economic forces coalesced, forcing its regimes into existential crises. Jack was ecstatic.

  “Western powers have been relegated to the side-lines. The subjugated people are driving events. It’s no longer ‘about us, without us’. When the people demolish the infamous Yalta Doctrine, they will be liberated.” I was keeping my fingers crossed, not sure that the rebellions would succeed.

  But Jack was right. The Soviet Empire began to crumble. The world was about to change, and a new history was to emerge. Transformation to the new order was going to be messy and its outcome was uncertain.

  My own, ordered and calm family life in London was challenged on 7th December 1989 at 8pm.

  Chapter 1

  Eventful Day

  There was a knock on my glass office door, and I turned around. The cleaning lady wanted to come in. I nodded to her and looked at my watch. It was 7.15pm. The open plan office outside was empty. I sighed; I was the last person left at Lloyds Merchant Bank in Gresham Street that evening.

  My boss had resigned that morning. At midday, Geoff Morgan, the personnel director, startled me by saying, “Peter, we want you to apply for the vacancy. You’re the bank’s preferred candidate and we won’t consider external applicants.”

  “Why me?”

  “You brought in disciplined investment processes and improved the bank’s performance. We now have a good product.”

  “Would I have the authority to develop it?”

  “Yes. As managing director of the investment division, you would also be the bank’s chief executive.” I nodded. Geoff went on, “Your ideas could transform this bank. You’ll have every opportunity to implement them,” he added with emphasis.

  I was the director of international investments, happy in my job. I also assumed, that as an outsider, I had hit the glass ceiling in the bank.

  “Think about it,” he added, “but decide quickly.”

  “When are the interviews?”

  “I’ll be interviewing next week. Two internal candidates have already applied. The appointment will be made in early January.”

  Geoff was offering me an unexpected promotion and it was exciting. Listening to him, I thought Just two decades ago I arrived in England as a political refugee from Eastern Europe and today I am being asked to join the high levels of clubtocracy in the City of London. Can this be true?

  As a result of Geoff’s intervention, I found myself drafting my application and strategy, proposing to turn the mer­chant bank from a service organisation within the Lloyds group, into an autonomous profit centre. This restructur­ing would increase our profits tenfold and Lloyds Merchant Bank would become fit to compete with the foreign banks that had crowded into the City of London after the Big Bang in 1986. The strategy was to create a staff co-owner­ship and aim for stock-market listing, or a sale to a global bank. Either outcome would turn our merchant bank into a valuable asset.

  I switched off the computer. It was dark outside. For a while I watched cars bringing people to a concert at the Barbican Centre. I picked up my briefcase and took the lift down to the basement garage. I climbed into the bank’s Jaguar, switched on the engine and li
stened to its purr. How I loved cars. When the automatic garage gate opened, I drove out and joined the stream of traffic outside.

  Although I felt tired from spending the day in front of flick­ering screens, watching stock markets, I was elated by the news. I was thinking through Geoff’s invitation to apply for the vacant job. He was adamant that it was mine for the asking, but at the same time I felt disturbed by the prospect of such a sudden and unplanned change. My past promotions had emerged when my employer faced problems and needed radical change; that’s how I got the present job. What was the reason this time?

  I drove home to Hampstead. Normally I listened to relax­ing pop on the car radio, but that night I was annoyed by the stream of commercials, which disturbed my thoughts. Reaching out, to retune the radio, I looked at the clock. It was nearly 8 pm.

  As I turned right, up Haverstock Hill, I caught a few words in Czech on the radio’s long waves.

  #

  Radio Vltava

  I shook my head in disbelief. For reassurance I stopped the car, to fine-tune the station. It returned.

  “This is Radio Vltava,” announced a male presenter in a slow, funereal voice. I immediately recognised the diction adopted on communist radio stations. I knew it well from having listened to them when I was young. This one was broadcasting from Prague and by some miracle of the long waves, it had travelled eight hundred miles, to become audible in London. The announcer continued: “The prime minister and the government of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic have resigned.” Then the rustle of static drowned him out and the station faded away. My heart missed a beat. I was stunned by what I had just heard. This was the first Czech radio broadcast I had ever heard in Britain and by incredible coincidence, it was announcing the end of the communist era in my homeland. What will happen next?

  I sat in my car in shock. I should have laughed, been over­joyed, but I wasn’t. For several minutes I sat immobile, digesting the announcement. I was forty-five years old and had spent half of my life in exile in Britain. The commu­nist party had wrought turmoil in my life. Its regime had forced me to emigrate. It had sentenced me to five years in prison. It had reached out to disrupt my family life in Britain. It had denied me the chance to say goodbye to my dying mother. Instead of feeling happy at its misfortune, I was overwhelmingly sad. I remembered the trauma of being torn from my family, my fears and loneliness in exile and my terrifying nightmares. I thought the perpetrators of my misery have resigned. The demons have flown.

  My random thoughts ran further. I remembered the regime’s propaganda of hate. They trained for war with the West. We were indoctrinated to lay down our lives for the socialist ideal. I grinned through gritted teeth and shook my head.

  Tonight, they have deserted socialism. Without firing a shot? Because of a few demonstrations in Prague? What is the real reason? Indoctrinated by western experts to believe in the robustness of the communist regimes, I was puzzled.

  #

  Shock of Change

  I restarted the engine and drove home. As I walked in, my wife looked at me inquisitively.

  “`Have you seen a ghost?” I followed her into the sitting room, to pour drinks.

  “Florisse, I’ve had a strange day.” We sank into the sofa and raised our glasses. Comforted by my familiar surround­ings and with my wife as an attentive listener, I told her about the office resignation and the announcement I’d heard on the Vltava radio station.

  “How can a regime, so entrenched for four decades, crumble, without a fight?” I asked. Florisse looked at me pensively.

  “You looked shattered when you came home,” she said, sipping her lager.

  “It’s all so confusing.” We sat in silence. Being a trained psychologist came in useful. Florisse said

  “All despots are often cowards, that’ll be the link.” She developed her thoughts further.

  “It’s simple. Russian bosses gave the orders and Czech communists carried them out. When the orders stopped, the game ended.” I nodded.

  “The government fell when Gorbachev cut the Soviet imperial chains. That’s also why the Berlin wall came down.

  Had the Czech regime been independent, it would have survived by shooting its dissidents. The Chinese did that in Tiananmen Square last June and the West acquiesced.”

  “What about the West?”

  “It’s on the side-lines.”

  “What will happen next?”

  “The West will send in consumer goods and communists will join popular revolutions,” smiled Florisse and added, “You’ve always said that most of them are opportunists.”

  “But, will they turn into capitalists!?” I blurted out, star­tled. I was impressed by her cool analysis. I had married the right girl two decades ago.

  “They won’t change their slogan from ‘proletarians’ to ‘opportunists of the world unite’, but that’s what they’ll do,” she laughed. I was savouring this moment of happiness. I’m alive to witness how the communists are abandoning Marx and Lenin.

  “Popular democracy is winning. Opportunists always join the winning side,” Florisse said and added, “When it’s safe, you should go back to Prague. You have to see for yourself.” Her comments resonated with my own feelings.

  #

  Exile

  My life flashed through my mind, as I tried to digest the news that night. I had arrived in England twenty-one years earlier, as a student. Within a few weeks, the Warsaw Pact armies had occupied my homeland. I volunteered to fight them, but when the Czech politicians collaborated with the Soviets, I became a political refugee.

  In August 1968 I had a holiday job and was washing up dishes in the St. George’s hotel in Llandudno. I was alone and didn’t speak the language. Overnight, I had to create a new life.

  The British welcomed me. While the Czech authorities persecuted my family, Britain enabled me to complete my studies, granted me its citizenship and allowed me to create a family. As these thoughts were flashing through my head, Florisse came into my bedroom where I was lying in bed with my eyes wide open.

  “Peter you need to get some sleep. Have a good night,” she said firmly, kissed me on the cheek and switched the lights off.

  My thoughts turned to our relationship. I had met Florisse at Oxford University. Our first date was on Mayday 1970. It had begun with a champagne breakfast and continued with punting and a picnic on the River Cherwell. She was a pretty blonde with a first-class degree in psychology and mathematics from Cape Town university. We fell in love and after a joint summer holiday in the USA, we moved in together, first in Oxford and later in London.

  Florisse was employed in the public service sector, special­ising in education. I gravitated towards the private sector, with a job in a mining company, followed by working in the City. We married and our daughter, Tamara, was born in 1979. Thinking of our family, calmed me down and I finally fell asleep.

  #

  Secret Agent

  The next morning, my friend Pavel phoned.

  “Let’s have a game of tennis tonight. I’ll bring the rest of the gang. We need to chat about the changes in Prague.” We played at the Hampstead Cricket Club. It was close to the Czechoslovak National House in West End Lane, which served traditional food and Pilsner Urquell outside licensing hours.

  Pavel and I had become friends as students in Prague in the mid-1960s and coincidentally both ended up as exiles in London. He became a commercial banker, while I drifted into merchant banking. Our tennis partners were, another Czech, Jan, a computer programmer, and a Scottish girl, Carol, a head-hunter.

  The restaurant was almost empty, only the front corner table was occupied. This table was traditionally reserved for the embassy staff. Agents of the state security, the StB, came to this restaurant regularly to monitor the emigrant com­munity. For decades there was strict segregation between agents and exiles. We never crossed the invisible line. Agents with their notebooks recorded us and we ignored them. The dissident Jan Kavan, who dropped in occasion­a
lly, was their favourite target. Just a decade later, Kavan became the Czech minister of Foreign Affairs. This evening Carol became bored with our political discussions.

  “Your communist government has gone, so you should be celebrating. I think I’ll go over and talk to that attractive guy at the embassy table.” She left us and crossed the line. We were amazed when Carol broke the convention yet again and brought the man over to us.

  “I am Jiri Hronek, the Czechoslovak chargé d’affairs,” he said and shook our hands. Jan, Pavel and I looked at Hronek and nodded to each other. Hronek was definitely an agent. Having accepted that the communist regime was expiring, Hronek was trying to figure out how to exploit the changes. Speaking for the StB he said openly,

  “The regime is on the way out. We sense new opportu­nities. I don’t know how your system works, but we could exchange information.” Hronek was fascinated by our banking expertise. We talked and he listened.

  “I don’t understand why the invisible hand of the free market is so superior to Lenin’s teachings of socialism.” He laughed, puzzled.

  We relaxed and gossiped about former rulers in Prague. Eventually, in exchange for our advice, Hronek promised us access to StB reports. They illustrated how the regime had begun to unravel. They were gripping.

  #

  General Secretary

  The general secretary of the Party, Milouš Jakeš was the key figure. On the evening of 17th November Jakeš watched the televised demonstration on Národní Avenue in Prague. He went into the study in his official villa at 5 Kozlovská Street, in a smart part of Prague, Na Hanspaulce, and called the Soviet Embassy for assistance.

  “We will not use the Soviet army against your demon­strators,” declared his advisor emphatically.

 

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