Kaplan was born in
Horní Jelení in 1928. During the
Prague Spring in 1968, he worked for the Committee of Rehabilitation where he was able to access classified documents of the
Czechoslovak Communist Party. After the end of
Prague Spring, Kaplan fell into disfavor. He worked in a factory from 1972 to 1976, and in 1976 asked for political asylum in Munich. After his exile he published documents on secret Soviet activities, which were serialised in the Italian magazine
Panorama. Kaplan claimed he had discovered files that described a secret meeting in the
Kremlin in January 1951, where
Joseph Stalin announced his plan for a war with the United States within three or four years, with the aim of driving the Americans out of Europe. ==Awards==