# Ivana Trump **Ivana Trump** (née Zelníčková; 1949–2022) was a Czech-born businesswoman, [[Donald Trump]]'s first wife (1977–1992), and the mother of his three eldest children: [[Donald Trump Jr.]], [[Ivanka Trump]] and [[Eric Trump]]. Those three now run the family business and its political offshoots. She matters to this KB in two ways: as the founder of the generation that became the [[Trump Family Corruption Ecosystem]], and as the reason Soviet-bloc intelligence opened a file on Donald Trump in the 1970s. ## Life and business She grew up in Zlín, Czechoslovakia, and was a competitive skier. She left for the West by way of a brief first marriage to an Austrian and settled in Canada, where she worked as a model. She married Trump in April 1977. During the 1980s she held real executive jobs at the [[Trump Organization]]: vice president for interior design at Trump Tower, head of the Trump Castle casino in Atlantic City, and president of the Plaza Hotel. She was the public face of the brand in the decade that created it. The divorce, set off by Trump's affair with [[Marla Maples]], was front-page tabloid news in 1990 and was finalized in 1992. Afterward she built her own brand in books, jewelry and QVC products. She died at her Manhattan home on **July 14, 2022**, at 73, and was buried at Trump's Bedminster golf club. ## The Czech file Her marriage put Trump on Soviet-bloc radar. Declassified files from the Czechoslovak secret police (StB) show it opened a surveillance operation on the couple, codenamed "Ivana." The StB routinely shared intelligence with the [[KGB]]. The Trumps' **July 1987** trip to Moscow followed an approach by Soviet ambassador [[Yuri Dubinin]]. They stayed in the National Hotel's Lenin suite, known to be under KGB surveillance, and toured possible hotel sites. See [[Russian Influence]]. None of this shows she was an agent. It shows that from the late 1970s, Trump's marriage made him a target of interest to intelligence services. ## Why she matters Ivana is the origin point of the dynasty the vault tracks. Her three children are the executive vice presidents, crypto founders and political operators of the second Trump term, and her own 1980s role set the model of family members as brand executives. ## See also - [[Trump Family]] · [[Trump Family Corruption Ecosystem]] · [[Trump Organization]] - [[Donald Trump Jr.]] · [[Ivanka Trump]] · [[Eric Trump]] · [[Marla Maples]] - [[Russian Influence]] · [[Yuri Dubinin]] · [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] · [[E. Jean Carroll Defamation Verdicts]]