A Secret Life (39 page)
Authors: Benjamin Weiser
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Germany, #World, #True Crime, #Espionage
As the July party congress neared, pressure from Moscow intensified. Kulikov announced that Soviet troops would continue to carry out maneuvers in Poland, and Siwicki received regular calls from Russian officers alerting him to the latest developments. “You see, sometimes I have to listen to this for hours,” Siwicki told Kuklinski after one such call.
A day or so before the congress was to begin, Kuklinski wrote a sixteen-page letter to the CIA, saying he had detected a hardening of Jaruzelski’s position toward Solidarity and a growing readiness to impose martial law. Kuklinski said a Polish colonel had reported to him that Moscow had tripled the number of T-55, T-64, and T-72 tanks at the largest Soviet base in Poland, at Borne-Sulinowo, to about 1,000.
There was “understandable anxiety” about the Soviet presence, Kuklinski wrote, adding that Kulikov “believes that the best medicine for all Polish problems is military pressure.”
Kuklinski had photographed a secret speech Jaruzelski had made to defense officials in late June, in which the general said that if Poland could not resolve its crisis, “this would be the signal for starting intervention by U.S.S.R. forces. In this scenario, civil war on a broad scale would be inevitable.” Thousands would probably be killed. Polish leaders “think that the wave of fascination with Solidarity has largely ebbed.” Jaruzelski was “exhausted physically and mentally.”
Kuklinski noted that Jaruzelski remained steadfast, however. “He now smokes up to 40 cigarettes daily (he did not smoke before). He uses energy pills. Despite this pressure, he appears presently to have decided to retain his government post even after the Congress.”
On July 14, the day the congress began, Kuklinski drafted another note. He said Skalski had recently offered him a short vacation. He would return on August 1 and would pass along any new information with the Iskra, “if there is one,” he added.
As a postscript, Kuklinski said he was considering switching to a typewriter for his letters. “What do you gentlemen think? . . . Is that necessary? I have certain reservations that my handwriting is not very legible.”
In the exchange at 10:33 P.M., Kuklinski handed over the letters and two rolls of film.
The party congress was held July 14-18 in the Palace of Culture and Science, a huge Stalinist-era structure that dominates the Warsaw skyline. The delegates chose themselves in secret and cast secret ballots for their leaders. Kania became the first party leader of a Soviet bloc country elected by secret ballot. Jaruzelski also received strong backing.
On August 11, Kuklinski left a chalk signal for the CIA. As he was returning to his car along Plac Jednosci, an orange Fiat 125 slowed as it passed him, then stopped. The two occupants appeared to be trying to see his face. Kuklinski got into his car, pulled away, and drove a random route until he was certain he was not being followed.
The next night at 10:32, Kuklinski turned over films that included the minutes of the recent KOK meeting on martial law and a five-page Russian document entitled “Announcement About the Introduction of Martial Law.” (This document, which Kuklinski’s staff had translated into Russian for the Soviets, was the text of posters that would be placed around Poland on the night martial law was imposed.) On August 14, Langley sent a cable to Warsaw that included a message for Kuklinski thanking him for his latest intelligence and replying to his question about switching to a typewriter. “Absolutely not. It is too great a security risk. Your handwriting and printing are both very legible and we have no problems reading your messages.”
The CIA had another reason it did not disclose: Kuklinski’s style was distinctive; he printed in small Polish letters. If he were ever arrested and ordered to communicate with the CIA under the control of Polish authorities, the CIA believed it could detect his situation by changes in his handwriting.
On September 4, Moscow began maneuvers in the Baltic and in the western Soviet republics with more than 100,000 troops, clearly intending to intimidate Solidarity, which was holding its first national convention in Gdansk. The next day, Lech Walesa welcomed 900 delegates to the Solidarity convention, which went on to call for more control of industry by workers, open elections, and access to the mass media. Perhaps most provocative, the convention also sent a message of support to “working people of Eastern Europe.”
On September 6, Kuklinski prepared an eleven-page letter to accompany his latest eight films, which included a near-final version of the martial-law plans and highly sensitive correspondence between Jaruzelski and Kulikov on the introduction of Soviet “advisers” into the Polish military. “As you gentlemen know, since 1957 there have been no Soviet Army military advisers in the Polish Armed Forces.” Marshal Kulikov wanted to insert them down to the lowest levels and had gotten into a heated disagreement with Jaruzelski. “Allegedly Kulikov got up from the table, and without saying good-bye, left the Prime Minister’s office, slamming the door,” Kuklinski wrote.
Kuklinski described the unsettling incident involving the Fiat and said he often saw cars with antennas on their trunk lid parked on his street; the cars occasionally remained there all night.
Kania’s election at the party congress was seen by Moscow as a disaster, and more rumors were circulating that Moscow wanted Jaruzelski replaced, although as Kuklinski noted: “It finally got through to the Soviet comrades that in order to declare martial law in Poland, it is necessary first to prepare the ‘house front,’ that is, it is necessary to have the support of at least part of the population. However, Brezhnev recommended holding a hard, uncompromising course.”
Kuklinski said that in his view, the Kania-Jaruzelski leadership seemed resigned to a crackdown. “While rattling the saber, they realize that using force will be the beginning of the end.”
He then made a prophetic statement: “It is a pity, because the success of the Polish experiment could have a chance of a chain reaction, not only in the weak satellite countries of the U.S.S.R., but indeed, in the U.S.S.R.”
In a short letter to Daniel, Kuklinski touched on his personal life. The grueling pace had allowed him little time for his family, he said, “which constitutes for me the highest goal in life and ultimate value.”
I am indeed fortunate and rewarded by the Providence that when frequently I leave them alone, they maintain with each other cordial relations and share with me their mutual love and family ties.I give much thought as to how to protect my dearest ones from calamity in the most difficult moment. Also I desire that the image of the husband and father never be disgraced, so they will never be ashamed of it. I believe that they never even suspect that when I leave on my risky short meetings, I bid them a discreet farewell every time. I find it difficult to conceal my happiness when all goes well and I return safely.Despite all of this, I have boundless faith in the rightness of what I am doing. Nobody and nothing could possibly change my mind or lead me off the chosen path. After August [1980, the creation of Solidarity], I was additionally convinced that I am not alone traveling the road, that the nation desires freedom from the shackles of communism imposed from the outside. After all, today I am able to do more for this country, for the cause of freedom, than nine years ago; from the effort of individuals the strength of a nation is formed against which even the greatest power is powerless.
Kuklinski admitted that his years of constant vigilance and tension had affected his psychological state. Sometimes, he wrote, he had “dreams of a quiet harbor” and of seeing Daniel again. “Is it possible for this dream to ever assume a real form? How many more years will it take?” At 10:33 P.M., Kuklinski handed over eight rolls of film and his letters. He did not know that for the first time in three years, Daniel would be in a fifth-floor office at Langley, once again reading the letters himself.
Daniel had served three years in Vienna with mixed emotions. Professionally, the assignment had been satisfying. But as close as he was to Warsaw―about an hour’s flight―he had felt very far from Kuklinski. It had been almost five years since they had last seen each other and shared a toast of aquavit. Daniel had been briefed only occasionally on details of Gull’s progress.
Daniel also missed his family. Sally and their three children had not come with him to Austria. They had visited him for the 1978 Christmas holidays, and Daniel had hoped they might consider staying permanently. His apartment on the top floor of a converted palace in the historic center of the downtown was large enough for all of them. But Sally had no desire to move, and the visit turned out to be their last as a family. Their marriage could not sustain the prolonged separation, and eventually they divorced.
In his years in Vienna, Daniel had focused on a broad array of operations, covering such areas as terrorism, the Middle East, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the arms talks. On January 20, 1981, he was alone in his apartment watching Ronald Reagan’s inaugural address on television. The new president spoke about America’s economic problems and declared, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”
Daniel was outraged, feeling a kind of unity with government workers everywhere. He also thought of the embassy hostages in Iran; his old friend Richard Welch, Chief of Athens Station, who had been assassinated by terrorists in 1975; and the Warsaw-based officers working to keep Kuklinski alive. To Daniel, Reagan’s remarks were insulting.
Daniel had kept abreast of events in Poland through the intelligence summaries that crossed his desk and perhaps even more vividly through Austrian radio and television, which had sent teams of journalists into Poland. Daniel felt exhilarated as he walked through the historic Stefansplatz in the central district of Vienna and saw Poles and Austrians selling “Solidarnosc” buttons and T-shirts to raise money.
In spring 1981, Daniel had received word that he was in line for a promotion: He would return to headquarters and become chief of the Soviet Division.
He was briefed on the status of the CIA’s Soviet operations worldwide. He also read the files, including an updated case history of the Gull operation. It stated that in the event of Gull’s death or arrest, the agency was committed to establishing contact with his wife and assisting her and her two sons “to the extent that it can do so securely.” The CIA was prepared to exfiltrate and resettle Gull and his family in the United States, if necessary. But it added, “Gull has never expressed any wish for resettlement; this would only be in an emergency situation.” The document said that as of July 1981, there had been fifty-four scheduled exchanges and nine others initiated by Gull or Warsaw Station.
“Gull has regularly produced highly classified Soviet documentary intelligence at a prodigious rate (approximately 40,265 pages),” the report said. The writer of the case history reiterated an observation made first in the earliest stages of the operation, describing Gull as “the best-placed source now available to the U.S. Government in the Soviet Bloc in terms of collection of priority information.” His intelligence offered “the best existing potential for early warning of Pact hostile actions and priority information on the U.S.S.R., Soviet air defense systems, and other military equipment capabilities.”
On September 7, Jaruzelski interrupted a visit to the Soviet Union and returned to Poland. Three days later, after meeting with Jaruzelski, Siwicki told a select group in the General Staff that martial law was imminent. That same day, Kuklinski signaled the agency that he would fill a dead drop that night. He had concluded he needed to communicate more frequently with Warsaw Station. He wrote a letter describing Siwicki’s comments. “This can happen as early as next week,” he noted. “If the radicals decide on confrontation, we will declare the state of martial law. If this is unsuccessful, will we receive help? (the Russians),” Kuklinski added.
In a few days, he said, there would be an extraordinary session of the KOK to evaluate Poland’s state of national preparedness. All military personnel on leave were being recalled, and specific units envisioned for operations in Warsaw, such as the Fifty-fifth Mechanized Regiment of the Sixteenth Armored Division and the First Mechanized Regiment of the First Mechanized Division, would be brought up to full strength. At Rynia and Bialobrzegi, receiving centers had been set up for families of higher-ranking officers to preclude their use as hostages. Kuklinski added: “Iskra is not working. The symptoms are the same as previously occurred.”
He included film of ninety documents pertaining to martial law, including legal papers that Polish officials had demanded to justify the impending action, and left his package for the CIA that night, September 10.
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