A Secret Life (25 page)
Authors: Benjamin Weiser
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Germany, #World, #True Crime, #Espionage
He continued to maintain strong relationships with his superiors and colleagues, and when Jaruzelski had asked General Skalski about him recently, Skalski had commended his work. “In sum, everything goes very well, but at the same time, there is a serious tension and concern. I feel a bit trapped,” Kuklinski wrote. He needed to know what he should do.
I reserve the final decision for myself. I would like to express my profound desire to continue our cooperation. I realize that, in fact, it is only now that [our cooperation] can be fully effective for my homeland and the cause of freedom in general.I have a heavy heart and I realize that in the end I shall have to leave this post, accepted out of free choice. However, I would like to close the matter concerning wartime statutes of the Combined Armed Forces, which aims at the sacred cause of independence of millennial Poland. I would like to pass possibly full information on the perspectives of developments of the Warsaw Pact forces within the next five years, on the new system of combat readiness, and also the entire data (still not accessible) from manuals of the USSR forces.In light of the tasks I have laid down for myself, my [collaboration] should last to at least the beginning of the 1980s. I am still against my leaving the country. Sooner or later, due to specific traits of my character and also circumstances, this would probably mean self-annihilation.
He said he was about to leave for a General Staff cruise along the Baltic coast, followed by a vacation with Hanka in Varna, a Bulgarian town on the Black Sea. “I ask for an urgent reply,” he wrote.
In a second letter, Kuklinski said that his twenty-one new films included new materials “of a rather great importance” from the recent meetings in Sofia, including the Warsaw Pact’s comprehensive weapons development plans for 1981-1985, and additional documents pertaining to Kulikov’s new wartime statutes proposal.
That night as he waited at the exchange site, Kuklinski saw the CIA car being followed closely by another vehicle, whose headlights nearly blinded him. Kuklinski stepped back, and both cars passed without slowing. Kuklinski waited fifteen minutes, but the CIA car did not return. As he left the area, he realized a man was following him. It was several blocks before Kuklinski was able to lose him.
In an exchange on June 25, Kuklinski finally delivered his materials, including an account of the latest incident.
Warsaw Station officers, after reading the letters, cabled headquarters that Kuklinski was “very upset and needs our reply.” At Langley, Daniel expressed concern about the investigation into the lost film and asked whether Kuklinski should be exfiltrated immediately. But the Soviet Division concluded that Kuklinski could not be a suspect, given his continued access to high-level materials.
Daniel and his colleagues decided Kuklinski should temporarily halt his activity. On June 28, headquarters cabled Warsaw saying Kuklinski should be told to destroy his “spy equipment”―cameras, special paper, and “commo” (communications) instructions―and “cease all activity on our behalf until early next year.” Writing to Kuklinski, the agency said:
We want to tell you that we sincerely believe that you are, at present, under no specific or special observation or suspicion. We are convinced that you would not be allowed to retain your access to high-level documents and conferences if there was the slightest hint of active suspicion directed at you, nor would you enjoy the high confidence of your superiors.However, we should be very careful at the present time in order to keep any possible suspicion away from you. In the recent past, the WSW has conducted some successful investigations and made some arrests of persons working for the West. This has undoubtedly whetted their appetite to do even more and to be even more alert. Probably everyone who has had access to information on the defense ministers’ meetings is being looked at. We want to be sure that when they conduct their investigations, no suspicion is directed at you.
Kuklinski was given new procedures to “call out” Warsaw Station for emergency contact and was asked to provide a VRS, or visual recognition signal, at 4:00 P.M. on a Sunday every other month, to alert the CIA that he was all right. He was told to pretend to make a call from a phone booth across from a particular fish shop. A CIA officer would drive by at that time. Emergency exfiltration procedures were “always in effect,” the letter said.
His latest materials, the agency added, were invaluable. “The films in the last delivery are particularly excellent, perhaps the best and most significant material ever received.” Saying it looked forward to renewing its contact with him in January 1979, the agency encouraged Kuklinski to take a well-earned rest. “After destroying your materials, please completely forget about us for a while,” the CIA said.
The agency passed its letter to Kuklinski in a car pass on July 2. In the same exchange, Kuklinski delivered new films and a response to Daniel’s last communication.
Your letter―as always characterized by cordiality and consideration, reached me―I shall not hide it―at times rather difficult for me, about which you undoubtedly are already informed through my last correspondence.It was for me not only a boost (which I cannot enjoy, for obvious reasons, in my own milieu), but also strengthened my slightly wavering determination with new force. I thank you for all your thoughts, hopes, and words which you passed to me in this way.The Polish nation, martyred by a not-so-distant war, pays dearly for its doubtful sense of stability brought about by submission to the communist indoctrination and dependence on the USSR. Studying materials which I pass according to my modest possibilities, you certainly had many occasions to realize what a thousand-year-long independence of Poland means, and how far and how deep the hands of Moscow are reaching. A clear proof of this are the wartime statutes― now being prepared for the Combined Armed Forces―through which the USSR demands full political, administrative and military powers over all the Warsaw Pact countries. The silent (except for the Romanians) approval of these authentically Socialist-imperialistic plans should be, for those who understand them, not only a shock, but also an alarm signal for action.I do understand that the secrecy of negotiations does not permit telling the world public opinion about this. However, the preparation of grounds for rejection of these provocative demands is an indispensable necessity. I am proud of the fact that I find myself on the other side of this unnoticeable-for-the-average-citizen barricade, and that I am able to inform competent authorities of the power that was never indifferent to the cause of oppressed nations―the United States of America.The governing team in Poland does not represent the nation’s interests, and will have to go sooner or later, but this will mainly depend on the national consciousness of the Poles. I believe that I still have enough strength in order to act in this main, though deeply hidden, stream of events.Daniel! In my last correspondence, I shared with you my observations and concern about security, but in my subconscious I await one answer only―that everything is okay, and that there is no red light to further cooperation. Wish this to myself most of all....Yours,P.V.
This time, when asked to cease his activities temporarily, Kuklinski dutifully tried to erase all traces of his collaboration. He destroyed the CIA’s letter, the microfilm that contained the communications plans and communications sites, and his pad of water-soluble stationery. He placed his Olympus camera and rolls of unexposed film inside a box along with a sealed envelope. It contained his last will and testament. In it, he wrote a short account of his secret life and what had motivated him. He wrapped the box in plastic and paper and sealed the package with tape. He then affixed his military seal to the outside in wax and signed his name on it.
Kuklinski drove to the home of an old friend, Leon Barszcz, who lived in Bialobrzegi, a town about seventy miles south of Warsaw. Barszcz, whose younger brother Roman was Kuklinski’s childhood friend from Niedabyl, was about eight years older than Kuklinski. Leon had served in the Polish underground and had managed to survive even after being arrested by the Gestapo and later the SB. After World War II, Leon Barszcz managed his family’s fifty-five-acre farm in Niedabyl and later moved to a smaller farm in Bialobrzegi.
Kuklinski knew Leon still despised the Polish Communist regime and asked him if he would hold a sealed package for him. Kuklinski said nothing about what was inside the box, except that it contained no money or personal items. But he stressed that the contents meant everything to him and to Poland, and that it had to remain secret. He implored Leon to protect it with all his means. Leon said he was proud to help.
Kuklinski told Leon that if he ever heard a report that something untoward had happened to him, he should deliver the box to the American Embassy in Warsaw. Barszcz placed the box in a hiding place beneath a concrete terrace where he had also stowed some guns.
At headquarters, Daniel raised Kuklinski’s latest security concerns with Soviet Division chief George Kalaris. A CIA counterintelligence officer was asked to investigate whether there had been leaks of Gull’s material and to assess “the nature and severity of the security threat.”
The task was a formidable one, given the large amount of intelligence Kuklinski had provided and the number of disseminations of his material by the Soviet Division’s Reports and Requirements Staff. Sally Boggs,
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the veteran officer who conducted the review, studied files and debriefed officers. On July 14, 1978, Boggs filed a seventeen-page single-spaced memorandum stamped “Eyes Only.” She wrote that Gull “is by a wide margin the most valuable agent we are currently running against the Soviet/East European target, and possibly the most productive single human source against the Soviet/East European military the Agency has ever had.” Over six years, Gull had provided more than 25,000 pages of classified Soviet and Polish documents concerning Warsaw Pact forces, plans, and equipment, resulting in roughly 1,300 disseminations. And there was still “a considerable quantity of documentary material yet to be processed.”
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the veteran officer who conducted the review, studied files and debriefed officers. On July 14, 1978, Boggs filed a seventeen-page single-spaced memorandum stamped “Eyes Only.” She wrote that Gull “is by a wide margin the most valuable agent we are currently running against the Soviet/East European target, and possibly the most productive single human source against the Soviet/East European military the Agency has ever had.” Over six years, Gull had provided more than 25,000 pages of classified Soviet and Polish documents concerning Warsaw Pact forces, plans, and equipment, resulting in roughly 1,300 disseminations. And there was still “a considerable quantity of documentary material yet to be processed.”
Much of this reporting has been of the highest intelligence value and has been sufficiently damaging to Warsaw Pact interests to eliminate any suspicion that it has been fed to us deliberately. Gull’s production has established his bona fides beyond any reasonable doubt, and there is nothing in the operational record of the case or from collateral sources tending to refute this.The cause for concern in this case is recent reporting from Gull which indicates that the Poles and Soviets are aware that there has been leakage of important Warsaw Pact military information to the West, and that intensive counterintelligence efforts are underway to identify the source of such leaks. Although there is no indication that Gull is, as yet at least, under specific suspicion, the fact that he is one of those with access to material which is thought to have been leaked puts him within the circle of persons who are or could become targets of investigation.
The memo said a vital element in the assessment was whether Gull’s intelligence had come to the attention of the opposition through leaks from “customers” in the intelligence community or through misuse. But to answer that would require extensive investigation within several U.S. government agencies to determine the actual― as opposed to the intended―dissemination of Gull’s reporting, and a determination of how Gull’s information had been used in negotiations with the Soviets, as in the Vienna arms control talks.
After an extensive analysis, Boggs laid out her conclusions. The best news concerned Gull’s continued superior production. “As of 25 June 1978,” she wrote, “when we received our last major delivery from Gull, his access and excellent standing within the Polish General Staff seemed undiminished. . . .”
Boggs noted that “a preliminary assessment of the 21 rolls of film he passed on 25 June indicates it is some of the most valuable material he has ever provided. It seems unlikely that his extraordinary access would have been allowed to continue if he were under active suspicion at the time.”
But Boggs cited the series of troubling incidents, from the evening in 1974 when Kuklinski was chased after being caught in surveillance to the most recent occasion involving the two cars. Although it was unlikely the SB had witnessed a handoff or identified Kuklinski as the man on the street, she wrote, the incidents suggested that he had been followed and was a marked man.
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