A Secret Life (49 page)
Authors: Benjamin Weiser
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Germany, #World, #True Crime, #Espionage
Davies ceased his campaign. But about a year later, on February 28, 1994, after a NATO summit in Brussels invited Poland and other former Soviet bloc countries to join a “Partnership for Peace” as a first step toward NATO membership, Davies sent a six-page letter to President Clinton.
“I hope you might call to the attention of President Walesa,” he wrote “the grotesque irony of the fact that the one Pole who risked his life before 1989 to assist NATO remains officially a traitor and subject to incarceration, while the leaders of today’s Poland pride themselves on their participation in NATO exercises and press for full membership in the organization.”
On April 25, 1994, Davies received a form letter from the White House, which thanked him for “sharing your concern about human rights.”
That same month, a legal adviser to Lech Walesa met privately with Kuklinski in Washington, telling him that he was still viewed as a traitor, and that only if he put forward a formal clemency request would the Polish president consider the issue. Kuklinski refused.
For Kuklinski, all issues related to his future became secondary when he and Hanka suffered a succession of devastating personal tragedies. In early January 1994, Bogdan, who had become an experienced sailor and professional diver, was lost at sea in a boating accident. Six months later, Waldek also died. Kuklinski and Hanka retreated in their grief.
In the spring of 1994, Jerzy Kozminski arrived in Washington as Poland’s new ambassador to the United States. Kozminski, a slim man with brown hair, a short beard, and glasses, had served at high levels in the Polish government since 1989. An economist by training, he had been chief of staff of Deputy Prime Minister Leszek Balcerowicz, the architect of Poland’s “shock therapy” economic reforms; then under-secretary of state under Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka; and finally first deputy foreign minister, confronting the question of Poland’s entry into NATO. By the time President Walesa appointed him ambassador to the United States in May 1994, he had won the trust of many Polish leaders.
Kozminski knew that Poland had a number of obstacles to overcome before it could join NATO. Some, like democratic and economic reform, applied to all former Soviet bloc countries seeking to become members of the alliance. Others were specific to Poland, such as civilian control of the military, export controls on arms and technology, and Polish-Jewish relations. And there was the matter of the colonel.
Kozminski knew Poland had cleared two former ambassadors, one to the United States and the other to Japan, who had received death sentences for defecting after martial law. Kozminski concluded that if Poland truly wanted to be America’s ally and strategic partner, Kuklinski’s conviction and twenty-five-year sentence would be “a very strange dowry,” as he put it.
The ambassador called Kuklinski, introduced himself, and said he wanted to open a line of communication. He also took up the matter with Brzezinski, who was by then based at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Brzezinski made clear that in his view, Poland could hardly join NATO while Kuklinski still had a conviction on his record for his service to the United States. Indeed, Kuklinski had been the first Polish officer in NATO, Brzezinski pointed out. But Kozminski did not believe there was sufficient political will or imagination in Warsaw to act on the matter, particularly if Kuklinski refused to seek a pardon.
In December 1994, Kuklinski gave an interview to
Tygodnik Solidarnosc
(Solidarity Weekly), a newspaper in Poland that treated him unabashedly as a hero. Kuklinski spoke at length about his motivation. Near the conclusion, the interviewer asked, “You do not want to ask or appeal for anything. What do you expect from the Polish authorities?”
Tygodnik Solidarnosc
(Solidarity Weekly), a newspaper in Poland that treated him unabashedly as a hero. Kuklinski spoke at length about his motivation. Near the conclusion, the interviewer asked, “You do not want to ask or appeal for anything. What do you expect from the Polish authorities?”
“I no longer expect anything,” Kuklinski said, still consumed with grief over his sons’ deaths.
Early in 1995, the acclaimed poet and moral voice of Poland, Zbigniew Herbert, called for Walesa to invalidate Kuklinski’s conviction. “Kuklinski, risking his life, proved that Poland is an integral part of the West,” Herbert wrote. “He cannot ask for parole because he is not guilty.”
12
RETURN
THE DECADE-LONG DEBATE in Poland took a dramatic turn in March 1995 when the chairman of the Supreme Court of Poland called on the country’s highest military court to conduct an extraordinary review of Kuklinski’s case, saying he might “have acted out of higher necessity and for patriotic reasons.”
There was speculation in the Polish news media that Kuklinski might travel to Poland later in the spring to attend a hearing in the matter. But in April, he released a statement to the Polish press saying he had no plans to seek a pardon or other review. “I am not guilty, and I do not feel any remorse,” he said. “Everything I have done in my life I have done with Poland in mind.”
The hearing was held May 25, 1995, in a white granite building on Nowowiejska Street. There was a sense of excitement as about seventy spectators and journalists crowded into a cramped courtroom on the second floor of the Court of Military Appeals in Warsaw. With its low ceiling and peeling paint, the courtroom was largely unchanged from Communist days, except for the new government’s white eagle insignia that hung on the wall.
Krzysztof Piesiewicz, a prominent Polish lawyer, walked into the courtroom. Piesiewicz, who wore a flowing black robe, was also a well-known screenwriter (his movie credits included
Blue, White,
and
Red,
the trilogy directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski). But Piesiewicz, fifty, had made a name for himself defending Solidarity activists interned during martial law; he also represented the family of Father Jerzy Popieluszko, a popular Solidarity priest who was kidnapped and murdered in 1984 by the SB.
Blue, White,
and
Red,
the trilogy directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski). But Piesiewicz, fifty, had made a name for himself defending Solidarity activists interned during martial law; he also represented the family of Father Jerzy Popieluszko, a popular Solidarity priest who was kidnapped and murdered in 1984 by the SB.
Piesiewicz was joined by two other lawyers working on Kuklinski’s behalf―Jacek Taylor, who had defended Solidarity activists before Communist courts in the 1980s, and Piotr Dewinski, who had represented Kuklinski’s interests in Poland for several years.
Piesiewicz had agreed to take on Kuklinski’s case at the request of a friend, the editor-in-chief of
Solidarity Weekly
. He had never met or even talked to Kuklinski; he knew the case only from news accounts. He researched the military legal code under which Kuklinski had been charged and for two months studied the thick file of the government’s investigation, which he was allowed to read on a confidential basis. When he finished his research, he pronounced the prosecution’s case to be “rubbish.” The file contained all sorts of papers that had no bearing on anything: lists of restaurants Kuklinski had gone to, furniture he bought, the make of his car.
Solidarity Weekly
. He had never met or even talked to Kuklinski; he knew the case only from news accounts. He researched the military legal code under which Kuklinski had been charged and for two months studied the thick file of the government’s investigation, which he was allowed to read on a confidential basis. When he finished his research, he pronounced the prosecution’s case to be “rubbish.” The file contained all sorts of papers that had no bearing on anything: lists of restaurants Kuklinski had gone to, furniture he bought, the make of his car.
As Piesiewicz saw it, Kuklinski had been convicted of violating the laws of the Polish People’s Republic, as Poland was called in the Communist era. But the PPR had vanished along with Communist domination, and thus Kuklinski’s case should logically also disappear.
As the hearing began, the five military judges took their seats. Each had served as an officer in the Communist era, and Piesiewicz suspected their loyalties still resided there. One judge, a navy commander, presented the charges and gave a short history of the case. He noted that Kuklinski’s 1984 trial had never confirmed his cooperation with American intelligence.
The military prosecutor, Major Jaroslaw Cieplowski, suggested that the case against Kuklinski was strong, and that his betrayal had begun earlier than was previously known. The “charge of betrayal was undisputable,” Cieplowski said.
Piesiewicz then rose. Calling the prosecutor’s arguments “pure hypocrisy,” he argued that Kuklinski’s story did not begin with his decision to cooperate with the West but earlier. “Kuklinski’s story starts back in 1944, when the new tragic history of Poland begins.”
The lawyer addressed his client’s motivations: “This courageous officer of the Polish Army understood that it is his duty to fight for the liberation and sovereignty of Poland,” Piesiewicz said, adding that there was no indication Kuklinski had been motivated by money or had wanted to seek a better life elsewhere.
“Now, I ask―all those dachas, residences around Warsaw, what were they bought for? What money? Which intelligence service’s money? Those who had and have them, which uniforms were they wearing?” Piesiewicz asked rhetorically, a clear reference to top Polish generals who had thrived in the days of communism and were still enjoying the fringe benefits.
“Please remember that his activity had a deeper sense,” Piesiewicz said. “It was not just a delivery of documents and classified files. He operated conceptually―there was an idea behind his action. He was thinking about Poland, about [our] nation.”
He noted that Kuklinski was charged under article 122 of the Polish Penal Code:
This code protected the People’s Republic of Poland and its political interests. But today, we have a different Poland, the Republic. Back in the 1980s, Poland had a different constitution. And its political interests simply meant the lack of sovereignty. Poland after 1945 was not a sovereign country.The crime, if we at all can call it a crime, simply does not exist today under the new amended constitution and Article 122 cannot be applied. We must then ask, in what kind of Poland are we living ? . . . Are we taking this change seriously? Or, is it another Polish illusion? Is our sovereignty today an illusion?
If Poland refused to accept its transformation, he said, then the Republic was merely “a pure continuation” of Communist Poland. Piesiewicz called for a complete vindication of Kuklinski.
After briefly recessing, the judges announced that they would lift Kuk linski’s conviction and sentence, but ordered the case returned to military prosecutors for further investigation. The panel said the evidence presented before the military court in 1984 was “not convincing” and was insufficient to prove the crimes charged.
Outside the courthouse, Piesiewicz denounced the verdict. “I am not satisfied with the ruling.” He asserted that the judges had abdicated their responsibility and ignored the central question. “What country are we living in?” he asked. “Do we have law or not?”
That night, Kuklinski called Piesiewicz and thanked him and the other lawyers. Piesiewicz said he was convinced the judges did not know what to do with the case.
In November 1995, Aleksander Kwasniewski, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Left Alliance, which had its roots in the former Communist Party, defeated Lech Walesa in an upset victory. With the unexpected result and other immediate controversies, Kuklinski’s case receded temporarily, but in mid-1996, Ambassador Jerzy Kozminski raised the matter with Leszek Miller, a high-level official in the Polish government who was visiting the United States. The Kuklinski matter was an important issue on Poland’s road to NATO, Kozminski said.
That summer, the military prosecutors in Warsaw announced they had dropped the arrest warrant for Kuklinski. But because he was still under investigation, the prosecutors said, he would be subject to arrest if he returned to Poland.
In January 1997, Leszek Miller, Poland’s new minister of interior, called Ambassador Kozminski as he prepared to fly to Washington for his first official visit with the FBI and CIA. Miller told Kozminski that he expected the Kuklinski case might arise in his discussions. Miller had discussed the issue with President Kwasniewski in Poland, and they had agreed that a solution was necessary, but it would have to be fashioned within the Polish legal system.
A few weeks later, Miller visited Zbigniew Brzezinski in Washington and relayed Kwasniewski’s position, saying there was no avoiding the fact that Kuklinski would have to submit himself to the Polish legal system. Miller and Brzezinski went back and forth on the subject, until Brzezinski said, “That’s all well and good, but Kuklinski is not willing to submit himself to the Polish judicial process.”
Brzezinski said he might be able to persuade Kuklinski to change his mind, but only under one condition. “I’d have to have some assurances from you,” Brzezinski said.
Miller said he was confident in Poland’s legal process, but no result could be guaranteed.
“That’s not good enough,” Brzezinski said. “We’re talking about both a judicial process and political realities. I can deliver Kuklinski, but you have to deliver a constructive outcome, and you have to pledge yourself to it. If you do,” Brzezinski added, “we have an agreement.”
Miller finally gave Brzezinski the assurance he was looking for: He would obtain a complete vindication of Kuklinski. Brzezinski poured some cognac, and they shared a toast to a positive outcome.
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