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Netherlands: CP infiltrated

01 September 1995

On 5 September, the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD, the Netherlands internal security agency), in-house historian Dick Engelen published his dissertation on the history of the Dutch security service between 1949 and 1968. In the book, the author discloses how the BVD broke into communist party (CPN) headquarters buildings hundreds of times in so-called "black bag" jobs and over the years managed to photocopy nearly the entire CPN archives. The BVD in the early 1960s ran well over a hundred agents in the various CPN councils. The homes of prominent communists were bugged for decades and the BVD even set up a fake "Socialist Workers Party" (SWP) of several hundred members to stir up factional conflicts and cause a split in communist ranks, which came about in 1958. The scenario was thought out by the CIA, which in the 1950s paid nearly ten percent of all BVD personnel and had a profound influence on the organization. In the mid-1960s, the BVD was increasingly interested in New Left circles and adapted its "arrest lists" of people to be detained in times of crisis accordingly.