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Authors: Benjamin Weiser

Tags: #History, #Europe, #Germany, #World, #True Crime, #Espionage

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BOOK: A Secret Life
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PublicAffairs is a publishing house founded in 1997. It is a tribute to the standards, values, and flair of three persons who have served as mentors to countless reporters, writers, editors, and book people of all kinds, including me.
 
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, combined a commitment to the First Amendment with entrepreneurial zeal and reporting skill and became one of the great independent journalists in American history. At the age of eighty, Izzy published
The Trial of Socrates,
which was a national bestseller. He wrote the book after he taught himself ancient Greek.
 
BENJAMIN C. BRADLEE was for nearly thirty years the charismatic editorial leader of
The Washington Post.
It was Ben who gave the
Post
the range and courage to pursue such historic issues as Watergate. He supported his reporters with a tenacity that made them fearless and it is no accident that so many became authors of influential, best-selling books.
 
ROBERT L. BERNSTEIN, the chief executive of Random House for more than a quarter century, guided one of the nation’s premier publishing houses. Bob was personally responsible for many books of political dissent and argument that challenged tyranny around the globe. He is also the founder and longtime chair of Human Rights Watch, one of the most respected human rights organizations in the world.
 
 
 
For fifty years, the banner of Public Affairs Press was carried by its owner Morris B. Schnapper, who published Gandhi, Nasser, Toynbee, Truman, and about 1,500 other authors. In 1983, Schnapper was described by
The Washington Post
as “a redoubtable gadfly.” His legacy will endure in the books to come.
 
Peter Osnos,
Publisher
 
1
In the mid-1960s, the CIA merged the Soviet Russia (SR) and East Europe (EE) Divisions into the Soviet Bloc (SB) Division, and in the 1970s, into the SE (Soviet-Eastern Europe) Division. In this book I refer simply to the Soviet Division, as it was commonly called by officers.
 
2
Pseudonym.
 

Nickname of an officer whose true name is not used here.
 
3
Pseudonym.
 
4
Later, this position became known as Deputy Director for Operations, or DDO.
 
5
Declared persona non grata and expelled.
 
6
Kuklinski had been told that Eagle was CIA Director Richard Helms.
 
7
The Southwestern Theater of Operations included Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and the southwestern part of the Soviet Union.
 
8
Pseudonym.
 
9
Lt. General Ion Pacepa, the former deputy chief of Nicolae Ceausescu’s foreign intelligence service, defected to the West in 1978.
 
10
Pseudonym.
 
11
Pseudonym.
 
12
Pseudonym.
 
13
The agency included phone numbers if Kuklinski felt that he needed to call the embassy in advance of his arrival. On any weekday, from 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., he could dial the embassy’s main number and request extension 220. At nighttime and on weekends, he should dial CIA officers at home.
 
14
The CIA also provided Kuklinski with an updated list of vehicles being driven by its officers so that he could recognize them in moving-car deliveries. Warsaw Station said it had disposed of a blue 1978 Fiat Brava and a white 1979 Volkswagen camper, and Kuklinski should not expect to see them again. It said its officers still had a dark blue VW Dasher and white and green Fiats.
 
15
In Kuklinski’s reports on martial law, he used the Polish term
stan wojenny
to describe the crackdown, a phrase the CIA initially translated as “wartime readiness.” The CIA soon switched to “martial law.” I have used “martial law” from the start, as Kuklinski intended it.
 
16
These documents included:
 
Note on the Subject of Martial Law with Consideration for State Security. Secret. Polish. 5 pages.
 
Resolution of the State Council Concerning the Introduction of a State of Martial Law. Secret. Polish. 2 pages.
 
Law on Amendment of the Constitution of the PPR. Secret. Polish. 1 page.
 
Decree on Protection of State Security and Public Order During the Existence of a State of Martial Law. Secret. Polish. 8 pages.
 
Decree on Supplying the Population During the Existence of a State of Martial Law. Secret. Polish. 5 pages.
 
Decree on Labor Relations During the Existence of a State of Martial Law. Secret. Polish. 5 pages.
 
Proposals Pertaining to the Procedure for Introducing a State of Martial Law with Consideration for State Security. Secret. Polish. 5 pages.
 
Initial Draft. Decree on the Administration of Justice During the Existence of a State of Martial Law. Secret. Polish. 8 pages.
 
Decree on Protection of State Security and Public Order During the Existence of a State of Martial Law. Secret. Polish. 8 pages.
 
17
Kuklinski had new construction details about a second Project Albatross installation, the underground wartime Soviet command post that was to be built in a former hunting lodge in the forests near Opole. The two bunkers, to be built near an abandoned brickyard containing two small man-made lakes, would be able to withstand a force of fifteen kilograms per square centimeter. The usable area would be suspended inside a chamber on nitrogen-filled cylinders. “The chamber has a 3-meter-thick reinforced concrete foundation and protective shields against explosion and shock. The inside wall of the chamber is covered by steel plates and fortified by cushions made of glass wool.”
 
18
Pseudonym.
 
19
Pseudonym.
 
Copyright © 2004 by Benjamin Weiser.
Published in the United States by PublicAffairs™,
a member of the Perseus Books Group.
 
All rights reserved.
.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address PublicAffairs, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1321, New York NY 10107. PublicAffairs books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge MA 02142, or call (617) 252-5298.
 
Selected lines [14] from “Report from the Besieged City” from
Report from the Besieged City and Other Poems
by Zbigniew Herbert. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by John Carpenter and Bogdana Carpenter. Copyright © 1985 by Zbigniew Herbert. .
Ryszard Kuklinski speech on page 333: Polish Radio 1, Warsaw, in Polish 1034 gmt 29 Apr 98/BBC Monitoring.
All photographs courtesy of Ryszard Kuklinski except:
David Forden, the longtime CIA case officer
, courtesy of David Forden;
Forden and his two roommates, Peter Falk and Alan Goldfarb
, courtesy of Alan Goldfarb;
Kuklinski receives a blessing from Pope John Paul II
, courtesy of the Vatican (Photo “L’Osservatore Romano”)
 
Set in Dante
 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Weiser, Benjamin.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-0-786-73890-8
1. Kuklinski, Ryszard Jerzy, 1930- 2. Spies―United States―Biography. 3. Poland―Armed Forces―
Officers―Biography. 4. Espionage, American―Poland. 5. United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
6. Cold War. I. Title.
UB271.U52K.1273’0438’092―dc22
[B]
2003065930
 
 
BOOK: A Secret Life
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