He was often embroiled in controversy concerning Communist infiltration. In 1977 he alleged that five prominent trades union officials were agents for communist countries, based on tape recordings made by the Czech defector Josef Frolík. The following year, before Margaret Thatcher came into office, Hastings and Brian Crozier wrote her a paper setting out "the diabolical nature of the Communist conspiracy" against Britain. At Hastings's suggestion she appointed a committee comprising Willie Whitelaw, Lord Carrington, Sir Keith Joseph and Hastings himself. This proposed forming a counter-subversion executive but the scheme was quietly dropped after the Tories came to power in 1979.