Western journalists on assignment to Eastern Europe often operate under a double handicap. Because they are inquisitive by trade, they are usually assumed to be agents working for the CIA. Or, equally bothersome, they are harassed by KGB agents who try to pump them for information. Two years ago, TIME Washington Correspondent William Mader came across an unusually inept operative while he was in Prague. As Mader recounts it:
I WAS approached in the sordid lounge of the famed Alcron Hotel by a portly, fortyish fellow who sported a handsome toothbrush mustache and a button-down Oxford-cloth shirt. He plumped himself down in...
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