Lonely Are the Brave
Weiser, Benjamin
Secret Life is really two books in one. The li first is a biography of Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, a heroic Polish officer who became one of the CIA's most valuable agents during the final phase of...
...As he later explained, Moscow's war plans were "unambiguously offensive...
...As a letter from the CIA to Kuklinski subsequently acknowledged, "Your information was of extraordinary value and timeliness...
...Recognizing that it was only a matter of time before the leak would be traced back to him, Kuklinski asked the CIA to evacuate his family and himself from Poland...
...In part, Kuklinski took this "treasonous" step to avenge himself on the Soviets, who he (rightly) believed had made a shambles of his country...
...And in yet another exchange with Daniel, Kuklinski tells him that "Your country does not represent strength only, but also serves as an example, and all the changes for the better in my country are generated by this example of yours, from your country and the entire West...
...By 1972 he was one of the "golden boys" of the Polish General Staff, where he helped prepare plans for a possible war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact...
...The li first is a biography of Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, a heroic Polish officer who became one of the CIA's most valuable agents during the final phase of the Cold War...
...Ryszard Kuklinski was born in Warsaw in 1930...
...Both stories are very well told by Benjamin Weiser, a veteran investigative journalist who interviewed Kuklinski many times and gained access to CIA files, cables, and personnel...
...He served as speechwriter to President George W. Bush, and to Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Dan Quayle...
...The second is a case-study of how the CIA operates—how it recruits agents, communicates with them under the most dangerous circumstances, and when the need arises, "exfiltrates" them and their families and helps thing with did nothing to disabuse him of that impression...
...It was to forestall this terrible prospect that Kuklinski sought out the Americans...
...Kuklinski, his wife and two sons lived well, and his career prospects were excellent...
...Perhaps his most dramatic contribution came on December 4, 1980, when he informed the CIA that, under the pretext of a military exercise, Soviet troops were scheduled to invade Poland on December 8. A translated version of Kuklinski's report was hand-carried to the White House, and played a major role in persuading President Carter to warn the Soviets publicly that such a move would have "very adverse consequences" for Soviet-American relations...
...Of course, Kuklinski could not carry on his high-wire act forever...
...But then this exemplary Polish officer did an extraordinary thing: In the summer of 1972, he contacted the U.S...
...Forden spoke Polish, and had come to know and admire Kuklinski during the colonel's annual trips to Europe...
...The CIA agreed, and on November 11 the Kuklinski family found itself in a safe-house in suburban Virginia...
...Kuklinski was extremely bright, competent, and hard-working...
...The Soviets were calculating that any nuclear counterattack by the West...would occur on Polish soil...
...Yet before he passed away earlier this year in Tampa, Kuklinski could take immense satisfaction from the fact that many of his countrymen (among them the great poet, Zbigniew Herbert) revered him as a hero...
...Kuklinski told them that he represented a group of Polish officers who wanted to cooperate with their American counterparts to prevent Poland's participation in a general European war...
...Kuklinski, his wife and two sons lived well, and his career prospects were excellent...
...Unfortunately, in one of those ironic twists that are all-too-common in Polish history, a bizarre alliance of former Communist officials, on the one hand, and left-wing Solidarity activists, on the other, continued to insist that he had betrayed Poland...
...Under pressure, he also joined the Communist Party...
...The CIA was also deeply grateful...
...The officers who manned it all served under United States diplomatic cover, but their main task was to get information to and from Kuklinski (and whatever other "assets" the CIA had in Poland) without alerting the secret police...
...The CIA officers assured him that such a "conspiracy" was bound to fail, and proposed instead that Kuklinski alone provide the United States with intelligence on Soviet war plans...
...In part, too, Kuklinski acted out of admiration for the United States—a nation he (rightly) identified with the worldwide struggle for freedom...
...Shortly after he arrived in the United States, CIA Director William Casey bestowed the Agency's highest award, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, on Kuklinski...
...It was the touchstone...
...Both stories are very well told by Benjamin Weiser, a veteran investigative journalist who interviewed Kuklinski many times and gained access to CIA files, cables, and personnel...
...The Soviets were calculating that any nuclear counterattack by the West...would occur on Polish soil...
...Using special cameras, invisible ink, and other equipment supplied by the CIA, over the next nine years, Kuklinski provided the United States with more than 40,000 pages of highly classifled documents about the armed forces, operational plans, and intentions of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact members...
...But then this exemplary Polish officer did an extraordinary thing: In the summer of 1972, he contacted the U.S...
...Joseph Shattan is the author ofArchitects of Victory: Six Heroes of the Cold War...
...He was nine years old when the Germans invaded his country, 13 when he became a forced laborer in Germany's wartime factories, and 15 when he managed to escape...
...It was to forestall this terrible prospect that Kuklinski sought out the Americans...
...In one letter, for example, Kuklinski confesses that in contacting the Americans, "I was fully aware that I was actively committing myself on the side of the constantly shrinking forces defending the free world against communism...
...But Kuklinski's principal motive was to save Poland from the very real threat of nuclear annihilation...
...As one CIA analyst told Weiser, Kuklinski's material "virtually defined our knowledge...
...In the event, the Soviets did not invade Poland, but whether they failed to do so because of Carter's warning, or as a result of other factors, remains unclear...
...But Kuklinski's principal motive was to save Poland from the very real threat of nuclear annihilation...
...In 1947 he enlisted in the Polish army...
...The second is a case-study of how the CIA operates—how it recruits agents, communicates with them under the most dangerous circumstances, and when the need arises, "exfiltrates" them and their families and helps them start new lives in the United States...
...Maintaining secure communications between Kuklinski and CIA headquarters in Langley was thejob of the CIA station in Warsaw...
...Instead, it had other officers imitate Forden's style and continue sending letters to Kuklinski signed "Daniel...
...The second is a case-study of how the CIA operates—how it recruits agents, communicates with them under the most dangerous circumstances, and when the need arises, "exfiltrates" them and their families and helps them start new lives in the United States...
...W ITH THE RISE of the Solidarity resistance movement in Poland in 1980, Kuklinski's role became, if anything, even more critical...
...Polish forces were to be used not to defend the homeland, but as part of a Warsaw Pact onslaught designed to conquer all of Western Europe...
...In their initial meetings, Kuklinski believed he was talking to fellow-officers, and the CIA operatives he was actually dealSecret Life is really two books in one...
...In their initial meetings, Kuklinski believed he was talking to fellow-officers, and the CIA operatives he was actually dealSecret Life is really two books in one...
...And when Kuklinski was given a more advanced device with which to contact the Americans, more often than not it failed to work properly...
...Perhaps because Kuklinski had no one in whom to confide apart from Forden, the two men grew very close—so close, in fact, that when the CIA took Forden off the Kuklinski case in 1978, and sent him to Vienna, it never informed Kuklinski of the change...
...Two years later, the CIA even exfiltrated the girlfriend of Kuklinski's younger son to the United States...
...In another, written during the height of the anti-CIA frenzy in Congress and the media, Kuklinski expressed amazement that such activities were being undertaken "in a situation where the forces of violence are extending even farther in the world...
...On November 2,1981, he learned that "Rome sources" had informed Polish intelligence that someone on the General Staff had leaked top secret martial law plans to the CIA...
...Kuklinski agreed, and the CIA acquired a remarkably well-placed source of information about the Soviet Union's most closely held military secrets...
...In 1947 he enlisted in the Polish army...
...Joseph Shattan is the author ofArchitects of Victory: Six Heroes of the Cold War...
...He served as speechwriter to President George W. Bush, and to Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Dan Quayle...
...With the publication of A Secret Life, those legions will surely grow even larger...
...This medal," Casey said, "reflects the appreciation—which he greatly deserves—of legions of people worldwide who share his ideals...
...military attache in Bonn and asked to meet secretly with American military officers in The Hague...
...It was the basic standard...
...As he later explained, Moscow's war plans were "unambiguously offensive...
...By 1972 he was one of the "golden boys" of the Polish General Staff, where he helped prepare plans for a possible war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact...
...Polish forces were to be used not to defend the homeland, but as part of a Warsaw Pact onslaught designed to conquer all of Western Europe...
...As for Kuklinski himself, his final years darkened by the deaths of both his sons within six months of each other...
...Thus, "Poland would perish" on the altar of Soviet imperial ambitions...
...Surprisingly, Kuklinski and his handlers often relied on such primitive means of communication as chalk signals to set up their meetings...
...Under pressure, he also joined the Communist Party...
...In Poland, meanwhile, a military court tried Kuklinski in absentia, convicted him of "treason to the fatherland," and sentenced him to death...
...In part, Kuklinski took this "treasonous" step to avenge himself on the Soviets, who he (rightly) believed had made a shambles of his country...
...military attache in Bonn and asked to meet secretly with American military officers in The Hague...
...Weiser's description of the elaborate catand-mouse games they played with Polish counterintelligence officials is a vivid introduction to the world of clandestine tradecraft—with its "dead drops," "brush contacts," "car passes," and "surveillance detection runs...
...The li first is a biography of Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, a heroic Polish officer who became one of the CIA's most valuable agents during the final phase of the Cold War...
...Kuklinski's letters to Daniel are a poignant reminder of how dangerous the world was in the 1970s, and how puzzling America's behavior often appeared to our best friends abroad...
...He was intimately familiar with Soviet and Polish plans to crush Solidarity—indeed, he had helped craft some of those plans himself and what he knew, he made sure the United States also knew...
...Kuklinski was extremely bright, competent, and hard-working...
...In the course of his work for the Americans, Kuklinski frequently exchanged letters with his Langley-based case officer—whose code-name was "Daniel" and real name was David Forden...
...Ryszard Kuklinski was born in Warsaw in 1930...
...In part, too, Kuklinski acted out of admiration for the United States—a nation he (rightly) identified with the worldwide struggle for freedom...
...The li first is a biography of Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, a heroic Polish officer who became one of the CIA's most valuable agents during the final phase of the Cold War...
...Thus, "Poland would perish" on the altar of Soviet imperial ambitions...
...T- T WOULD BE NICE to be able to report that with the end of Polish Communism in 1989, and At the establishment of a democratic, Solidarity-based government, Kuklinski was quickly and fully exonerated...
...He was nine years old when the Germans invaded his country, 13 when he became a forced laborer in Germany's wartime factories, and 15 when he managed to escape...
...It was not until 1997, after an intense lobbying effort led by President Carter's former National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, that Kuklinski was officially exonerated—and even today, Poles remain sharply divided in their assessments of Kuklinski's role...
Vol. 37 • April 2004 • No. 3
