A Secret Life (40 page)
Authors: Benjamin Weiser
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Germany, #World, #True Crime, #Espionage
Kuklinski’s recent messages intensified concerns within the CIA and led to a series of cables between Daniel and the Soviet Division and Warsaw Station. “Gull’s concern for his security is justified,” the Soviet Division wrote in one in early September. “Gull’s report of probable surveillance vehicles in the area of his home is also worrisome.”
Daniel had considered and rejected asking Gull to suspend contact temporarily until matters were less cloudy. As for the Iskra, the Soviet Division wrote on September 11, “Frustration, disappointment―we are beyond words at this point as far as the Iskra is concerned.”
•
One day in early September, General Skalski took Kuklinski aside. The people involved in the preparations for martial law would be divided into two groups, planning and command-and-control matters. Skalski asked Kuklinski whether he would be willing to manage the planning group, which included about thirty officers from the military, the Interior Ministry, the propaganda section of the Central Committee, and other ministries. Colonel Franciszek Puchala would oversee the command-and-control group.
Skalski again offered Kuklinski the opportunity to decline, but Kuklinski decided the position would give him continued access to key documents.
Around the same time, he was summoned by Siwicki, the chief of staff, and asked to write his speech for the September 13 meeting of the KOK. Siwicki outlined what he wanted to say. Kuklinski knew that General Kiszczak, the new interior minister, would also be addressing the group, and he concluded that the two men were trying to put concentrated pressure on Kania to make the necessary political decision to implement the crackdown.
He decided to broach a sensitive subject: If Siwicki was going to argue for such a profound step, he should address whether the military would be allowed to use arms. Siwicki replied irritably that that was not his concern. Kuklinski thought it was dishonest to avoid the issue. Privately, Kuklinski hoped to scare Kania, in hopes that, fearing bloodshed, he would refuse to proceed with martial law. To that end, Kuklinski inserted a sentence in the draft that said the question of arms was still open. Siwicki, reviewing the draft, crossed it out. “I told you I would not say that,” he told Kuklinski.
On the evening of September 13, Kuklinski prepared another letter for the agency. “Intensive preparations for martial law are in progress,” he wrote, describing the two teams set up by Skalski, which were led by him and Puchala. “Planning, headed by me (Oh! Horrors!),” he noted.
He commented on his superior’s hint that he could refuse the assignment:
Skalski, who discussed this matter with me, stated that if I should decide that performing duties in this position collide with my conscience, I have the right to decline it. To tell the truth, I was at [a] loss as to what to reply. Guided by a higher need for obtaining information on decisions and plans of operation of the traitors to the national cause, I did not refuse. Only you know the truth, that every chance I have, I will spare no effort to give support to those forces which undertook the struggle, so that “Poland remains Poland.”
As he had expected, the SB had infiltrated Solidarity’s leadership “and has a good grasp of what is going on.” But there was a sharp split between party chief Kania, who “will not listen to any solutions using force,” and the defense and interior ministers. Jaruzelski, perhaps being pushed by the Soviets, had “changed his position, and currently favors more decisive solutions.” Siwicki, the chief of staff, believed martial law, although late, “is inevitable, and the sooner it is declared the better.” General Kiszczak, minister of interior, was pressing for “an immediate and surprise declaration of martial law, mainly for the purpose of interning the Solidarity radicals.” His ministry even had “photographs of their future victims.”
The Soviet maneuvers in the Baltic region were seen as a big success, Kuklinski said. “The maneuvers were of an extraordinary, greatest-ever show of thrust and dynamics, as well as employment of the most modern materiel,” he wrote. Soviet Defense Minister Ustinov, in a critique, had said, “The U.S.S.R. will not allow us to fall behind the U.S.A. in the field of armaments.”
On the evening of September 13, Kuklinski left a package containing his letter, a roll of film, which included Siwicki’s speech, and the faulty Iskra in a dead drop. He wrote
“B. Plne”
(very urgent) on the outside of the film canister. Warsaw Station immediately cabled the letter to headquarters and sent the film to Langley by special courier.
“B. Plne”
(very urgent) on the outside of the film canister. Warsaw Station immediately cabled the letter to headquarters and sent the film to Langley by special courier.
In Washington, Daniel continued to be concerned about the frequency of Gull’s exchanges and dead drops. “No one is to blame,” Daniel wrote in a September 14 cable to Warsaw, “and I am hesitant to suggest to Gull that he slow down. However, I’m afraid operational security dictates a note to him at our next exchange suggesting that we hold down the frequency of our meetings.”
Daniel was very attuned to the possibility that Kuklinski might take offense: “Clearly, we must be careful as to how we say this,” Daniel wrote, “since we don’t want him to think that his reporting isn’t needed and greatly appreciated. What are your thoughts?”
In another cable that same day, Daniel also told Warsaw Station that Kuklinski’s last two messages had been included in the “President’s Daily Brief,” and the most recent one was cabled “Eyes Only” to Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., who was traveling, and General Bernard W. Rogers, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. “In both of the latter cases, we received cabled notification that the report was destroyed, and Haig and Rogers had read the messages,” Daniel wrote.
On September 14, Kuklinski had a visit from a counterintelligence officer, who stressed the importance of preventing leaks. What had prompted the visit was a mystery, but the next day, Kuklinski learned more from a general, one of the pro-Soviet hard-liners who had attended the special meeting of the KOK. During the session, Interior Minister Kiszczak had announced that his ministry was investigating a leak. Solidarity had learned details of the martial-law plans, including its code name, Operation Spring.
That night Kuklinski left a signal at a site called Zaspa (snowdrift) that he would leave a message the next day. He drafted a letter describing Kiszczak’s revelation. The Ministry of Internal Affairs “was ordered to find the source of the leak urgently,” Kuklinski wrote.
At the KOK session, the blueprint for martial law had been finalized, he wrote, and he offered new details. The crackdown would be imposed at night, from Friday through Sunday.
That is when factories will not operate. The detention operations would begin around midnight, six hours before the proclamations of martial law on radio and television. In Warsaw, about 600 people will be detained by about 1,000 policemen, using their own private cars.The same night, the Army will block the most important parts of Warsaw and other major cities. Initially, the operations are supposed to be carried out only by the Interior Ministry forces. In order to “improve the troops’ situation,” i.e., to relocate entire divisions in the vicinity of major cities, a separate political decision is expected to be made.This will take place only after the major resistance centers flare up. It has not been ruled out, however, that divisions which are stationed far from the areas of their future operations could begin their relocation with the moment of the imposition of martial law, or even earlier, e.g., the 4th Mechanized Division needs about 54 hours in order to move in the vicinity of Warsaw.
Kuklinski paused. He had no idea if the leak under investigation by Kiszczak was due to his activities, but any investigation would inevitably lead to him and the small group working on martial law.
He made three large X’s on the sheet, for emphasis, and continued to write:
Due to the investigation in progress, I have to stop providing daily information about the situation. I ask you to use data provided by me cautiously, because, I think, my mission is nearing its end.That data could easily reveal its source. I do not oppose the idea―and that is even my wish―that information provided by me serve the cause of those who struggle for Poland’s freedom with their heads up. I am also ready to pay the highest price, but we can accomplish something only by action, not by sacrifice.Long live free Poland! Long live Solidarity, capable of bringing freedom to all oppressed nations.
Kuklinski photographed the letter. He then opened his camera, removed the roll of film, and wrapped it in paper and cellophane. He then placed his tiny package inside an old glove, which he dipped into hot grease. Finally, he took the glove outside and rubbed it in the dirt.
Usually, before leaving for an exchange or a dead drop, Kuklinski checked the list of sites the CIA provided him on a sheet of microfilm, which he read with a magnifying glass. The microfilm, when rolled up, was no thicker than a match. During his house construction, he had hidden the microfilm beneath some bricks. Later, after he moved in, he secreted it behind a piece of wood in the barn of Bogdan’s farm in Wiazowna. As Bogdan and Iza were spending time on the farm, Kuklinski often drove there and visited the barn to confirm the location of the next site.
That day, Kuklinski trusted his memory. He was certain the next dead-drop site was Kaftan (jacket), the code name for an overgrown lot strewn with garbage and rocks. The lot was often used as a shortcut to a nearby bus stop, so it was not unusual for people to cross it. After a long drive, Kuklinski parked at Kaftan, walked through the lot, and dropped the glove on the ground.
On September 16, Sue Burggraf headed out in her Fiat on an SDR. She drove toward the next site on the list kept by the CIA, Przelot (passage), which was located near the Jewish cemetery. After parking a few blocks away, Burggraf walked to the spot and searched under a specified streetlight, but found nothing.
The next morning, Burggraf reported to Ryan that she had come back empty-handed. She assumed Gull had aborted the run. The CIA had worked out signals to confirm to Kuklinski whether it had received his packages. An officer parked a car in front of an ice cream store on Pulaski Street (a site code-named Dublet) with its wheels turned inward. That meant a package had not been received.
But as Kuklinski passed by the ice cream store the next morning, he failed to see the car with its wheels turned in. He drove on, assuming that his package had been retrieved.
As the days passed, the glove containing Kuklinski’s declaration in support of Solidarity and a free Poland lay in the overgrown lot, and neither he nor Warsaw Station realized a mix-up had occurred.
In mid-September, the Soviet ambassador to Poland had delivered a personal message to Kania and Jaruzelski, warning that Poland must “take determined and radical steps” to end the anti-Soviet actions in Poland. On September 18, when the letter was made public, the U.S. State Department publicly criticized the Soviet message, calling it “interference in Poland’s internal affairs.”
Kuklinski, feeling the strain of recent weeks and worried that he might become a target of investigation, decided to take a short break. He and Hanka drove to Krakow, his favorite city. Its beauty had survived World War II intact. For centuries, Polish kings had lived in Krakow’s glorious Wawel Royal Castle, and forty-two of the royals were buried under the cathedral. There, too, were the burial sites of Poland’s greatest heroes-Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the dashing military engineer who helped the Americans win the Revolutionary War and later led Poland’s uprising against the Russians; General Wladyslaw Sikorski, who led Poland’s government-in-exile after the Nazi invasion; Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, who fought the Russians in 1920 and was Poland’s first head of state; and Adam Mickiewicz, the legendary poet and patriot. Kuklinski felt energized whenever he was in Krakow.
Daniel soon had another reason to be concerned. For more than a decade, a Polish colonel named Wlodzimierz Ostaszewicz, deputy chief of Polish military intelligence, had been cooperating with the CIA. Now he had decided to leave Poland and seek protection in the West. Colonel Ostaszewicz lacked Kuklinski’s access to sensitive operational intelligence, but he had provided valuable information on what the Polish military intelligence knew about NATO. More recently, he had served as an adviser to the Polish delegation to the arms talks in Vienna and had worked with Daniel when he was posted there. By coincidence, Ostaszewicz was also a member of the military cooperative on Rajcow Street, and a neighbor of Kuklinski’s. They knew each other slightly, although neither realized the other was cooperating with the CIA.
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