Rino: The Spy Story

Karel Köcher (transcribed as Karl Koecher), codename RINO, stands until today as the only known East Bloc spy in history who ever penetrated the CIA. In the year 1965 the Czechoslovak Intelligence Service sent then 30 years old physicist and his blonde 20 years old wife Hana to the U.S.A. with a couple of tasks. The first on the list was "to become an employee or collaborator of the U.S. intelligence agency". Perhaps no-one among his bosses really believed that this brilliant scholar but quite erratic man can really finish this Mission Impossible. But the illegal agent Köcher established himself in the American society perfectly, gained the PhD at the Columbia University, as well as the U.S. citizenship and worked in the prestigious institute of Zbigniew Brzezinski. In 1973 he finally got the job in the CIA and his incredible story begun to unfold. After his arrest in 1984 the FBI pronounced him one of the biggest pests in the CIA since its founding. Later, the U.S. government agreed with the exchange of Köcher for the prominent Soviet Jewish dissident Nathan Sharansky. It was the last big spy-swap on the famous Glienicke Bridge in Berlin in 1986. Through the documentary film RINO, you are about to enter the world of spies, world of secrets and lies. Life of Karel Köcher is fueled by paradoxes, moral mishaps, and strange coincidences more than any other.