A Secret Life (20 page)

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Authors: Benjamin Weiser

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

BOOK: A Secret Life
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Kuklinski recalled the role of Polish troops in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and crushing of Prague Spring. He still felt bitter at “my almost direct participation in the infamous act of aggression of the socialist coalition against the Czechoslovak nation and its, after all, legal government.”
 
He was satisfied that he had been able finally “to break with the utopian doctrine and practice of hate in order to join the forces of true progress and freedom.
 
“I hope that this letter will not be the last which will reach your hands. I also trust that my modest achievement will be multiplied and be more useful in the future.
 
“Confident of that, I shake your hand, Daniel.”
 
 
 
 
After receiving Kuklinski’s letter about his close call, Warsaw Station officers cabled headquarters to say that although the news was deeply troubling, it seemed that any agents pursuing Kuklinski probably did not actually witness his exchange or identify him. The station recommended advising Kuklinski to destroy his photography equipment and message pads and to cease activity until he was confident that his situation was secure.
 
Headquarters responded that whatever had occurred, Kuklinski’s perception of events must govern. Urging Warsaw to exercise even greater caution, headquarters ordered several steps to protect Kuklinski, including the firming up of contingency plans for exfiltration. Warsaw was told to watch for Kuklinski in places he normally frequented, such as the yacht club and the site of his home construction on Rajcow Street.
 
The agency left a signal for Kuklinski that it was suspending the operation temporarily. Over the next few months, Warsaw-based officers kept an eye out for Kuklinski. Twice, officers reported seeing a man who fit his description on Rajcow Street, but there was still some uncertainty. Langley cabled out a new description of Kuklinski: Small, almost elfin build; shoulders square but not broad; sandy-colored hair; precise movements; direct but not rigid attitude; favors tan clothes; lips usually pursed; blue, penetrating eyes.
 
By February 1975 there were encouraging reports that Kuklinski had been seen carrying out the normal activities of his daily life. Headquarters suggested Warsaw Station try to contact him. A letter was drafted, which contained instructions for Kuklinski to resume contact by making a chalk mark on a street sign.
 
Daniel also cabled a letter to Warsaw Station on February 25, 1975, for delivery to Kuklinski when contact was reestablished.
 
 
You must know that I have thought about you every day since I received your November message. I have had many conversations with Eagle about you, and about the ways we can support and protect you during a troubled time. We had to agree that the best thing to do during the past four months was not to interfere with your life and work in any way. This was a difficult decision, but probably a wise one. . . .
 
If you believe we should prolong further the period of waiting, we will understand and abide by your wishes. . . .
 
 
 
Warsaw Station continued to try to observe Kuklinski, but by mid-May, it reported only one positive sighting of Kuklinski’s car, and Daniel wondered where he was.
 
5
 
NEAR MISS
 
KUKLINSKI HAD BEEN SENT to Moscow. After a fretful autumn in which he feared Polish counterintelligence might confront him at any time, he learned he had been selected to attend a short-term intensive course on operational strategies for senior Warsaw Pact officers, which was given at Voroshilov Academy, the elite military school run by the Soviet General Staff. In 1973, Kuklinski had been nominated to attend a two-year course at the academy, but he had put it off. He felt that turning down such an honor again would raise too many questions. Hoping to inform the CIA, he tried to leave a chalk mark at an intersection he regularly used in Warsaw for signals, but discovered that the designated signpost was gone, apparently removed by a construction crew.
 
He flew to Moscow with a group of Polish generals on February 24, and for the next two months, he received an abbreviated version of the course given to high-ranking Soviet officers. He socialized with Warsaw Pact deputy defense ministers, chiefs of General Staffs, and Warsaw Pact and Soviet commanders. He also forged friendships with several senior Polish officers, including General Czeslaw Kiszczak, who recalled Kuklinski padding around in socks on large military maps and who was struck by his meticulous attention to detail.
 
Kiszczak thought Kuklinski had a gift for illustrating military operational concepts on maps; he drew them beautifully and exactly.
 
As cautioned earlier by the CIA, Kuklinski did not take his camera to Moscow, but he found another way to collect intelligence there. At the academy, he was issued a leather portfolio for classified note-taking. Sewn inside the portfolio were about 200 numbered and registered pages. The portfolio could be locked and sealed with wax and had to be turned in when Kuklinski left Moscow. But he was told he could ask that it be sent to him for review back in Warsaw. Kuklinski was a model student at the academy, taking copious notes.
 
One day he attended a speech given by a Soviet general, who claimed the Warsaw Pact would not need to use nuclear weapons first in Europe because of its superiority in conventional forces. “It is an illusion to think that the West has superiority, even in its air force,” the general said. “We have superiority on land, in the air, and on the sea.” He said that within ten to twelve days, the Warsaw Pact would be able to realize operational goals and eliminate the main European NATO countries without the use of nuclear weapons on the European war theater. “We have superiority in conventional forces,” the general had said. “We shall not use nuclear weapons first. If the West uses nuclear weapons first, regardless of type, be it a nuclear mine or an accidental shot, there is only one answer―a global riposte.” Kuklinski was stunned by the general’s talk; he left no room for an escalating conflict with the West.
 
On April 29, 1975, Kuklinski returned to Warsaw with a dozen Polish generals and other officers who had attended the academy. General Jaruzelski invited the group to his office, where the officers were asked to talk about their experience in Moscow. During the discussion, Kuklinski candidly expressed the view that Moscow was exaggerating the threat NATO posed in Europe and overstating NATO’s willingness to start a war against the Warsaw Pact. General Kiszczak interrupted, saying he disagreed. Nevertheless, Jaruzelski later singled out Kuklinski and another officer for praise, calling them “our youth.”
 
Kuklinski received increasingly important assignments and assisted Colonel Jan Zarek, who ran the strategic defense department and who had a heart problem, in drafting speeches for Jaruzelski. Kuklinski also received permission to organize a fourth surveillance voyage through Europe.
 
Still, he remained cautious. The Defense Ministry had become embroiled in a major scandal after Lt. Colonel Jerzy Pawlowski, a former Olympic saber champion, was charged with spying for the West. The General Staff was given lectures on security, with warnings that Western intelligence forces, notably the British, Israeli, and Dutch, with U.S. support, were increasing their activities in Poland. Kuklinski detected signs that an investigation was under way in the Defense Ministry.
 
It had been more than six months since Kuklinski had communicated with the agency, and he wanted to reestablish contact. In mid-May he spotted a signal indicating the agency intended to leave him a message. Kuklinski confirmed with a chalk mark that he had received the signal and went to the agreed-upon location. He picked up a piece of folded newspaper and a cigarette wrapper, but after examining both items at home, he realized they were just pieces of litter.
 
On June 10, after seeing another signal, he set out again, taking a long and intricate route to lose possible surveillance, and took the extra precaution of changing his clothes along the way. Tense and excited, he arrived at the signal location and only then discovered that he had left the chalk in the pocket of his other pants.
 
Kuklinski finally was able to exchange signals the next day confirming an exchange. “I am looking forward to today’s meeting with suspense and impatience,” he wrote on June 12. In his letter, he described his two months in Moscow and the missing street sign that had prevented him from signaling the CIA about his departure. He admitted that he had not followed the agency’s instructions that he suspend his collection activities after the incident the previous fall. In his latest eighteen rolls of film, he had included his certificate for completing the course at Voroshilov Academy.
 
Kuklinski said that his security was “ambiguous and uncertain,” although he admitted that perhaps he was not able to evaluate it objectively. Being sent to Moscow with “highly placed personalities in the Polish military hierarchy” certainly suggested that he was still well regarded, and he cited Jaruzelski’s praise of him and the “full confidence expressed to me by the General Staff leadership.”
 
Kuklinski informed the agency of the three-week yacht trip through Europe that was scheduled to depart on July 1. “I will expect Daniel or Henry in all ports.” He said he needed another location to leave chalk marks, because of the removal of the street sign they had used in the past. Until then, he would leave signals on the reverse side of the sign for Kostrzewskiego Street, where it intersected with Sobieskiego. Driving north on Sobieskiego, he wrote, it was possible to see the sign from a car.
 
Usually he photographed his letters to the CIA and included both the film and the paper copy in his package. This time he destroyed the paper copy and sent his message only on film, marking the roll in red ink. He packed his film in a leather pouch, along with the requested photographs of his son Bogdan.
 
CIA officials were stunned to read that Kuklinski had disregarded their advice to suspend his clandestine activity, although Daniel saw one positive result: “We realized that he was still there, and able to tell us about it.”
 
 
 
 
The first summer meeting in 1975 was held on July 6 in Kiel. When Colonel Henry first saw Kuklinski, a day before Daniel arrived, he appeared distracted and nervous, and his smile was forced. His handshake, his embrace, even his kisses on Henry’s cheeks lacked the usual enthusiasm.
 
Kuklinski reviewed his difficult year. Even during the voyage, the
Legia
had been held up for almost eight hours by the Polish authorities. A crewmate had told him that another officer on the boat was under investigation by Polish counterintelligence. Kuklinski had taken the news impassively, but wondered whether surveillance might be tighter on the trip.
 
When Henry asked why Kuklinski had ignored the agency’s instructions that he suspend his clandestine activities after being chased by the SB the previous fall, Kuklinski smiled briefly. The materials were “much too attractive to be ignored,” he said, adding that he hoped the CIA enjoyed this “high-grade” intelligence.
 
“We had to admit, of course, that we certainly did,” Henry wrote later. He noted that Kuklinski then “became serious again and solemnly promised to obey our signals in the future.”
 
Kuklinski reaffirmed that he wanted to stay in Poland and, “nerves permitting,” continue his secret work for ten more years. But he asked for some clarity regarding exfiltration procedures, wondering how long someone in his position could endure psychologically. Henry, who said that it wasn’t the kind of question he was supposed to answer, acknowledged that the toll could be enormous. He cited the case of Oleg Penkovsky, the Soviet GRU colonel, who had spied for the West in the early 1960s for less than two years before he was arrested and executed. Henry thought someone could stay in place for about five or six years before the psychological toll became too taxing. Of course, Kuklinski could always stop for a while or slow down his activity.
 
Kuklinski also asked Henry whether he, like Daniel, worked for the CIA. Henry replied obliquely, “This operation could not be run without the participation and guidance of the CIA.”
 
Daniel joined them the next afternoon and on July 11 and 12 at the meetings in Amsterdam. In their sessions, Kuklinski raised the Pawlowski affair, which he said was the talk of the General Staff. He did not know Pawlowski, but there were rumors that he had worked secretly for the West Germans.
 
Daniel said the rumors were wrong, that Pawlowski had been meeting with the CIA in the West for several years until 1973. It was possible Pawlowski had been in touch with the Germans as well, he said, but through their interrogations of Pawlowski, the Poles were probably aware of his cooperation with the Americans.
 
Responding to Kuklinski’s concerns on exfiltration, Daniel reviewed the contingency plans to help Kuklinski and, if necessary, his family escape from Poland and build new lives in the West. They would be given language and professional training, and Kuklinski would probably receive a consulting position with the Pentagon. But Daniel also pointed out that there was no hard evidence Kuklinski was under suspicion, citing the “demonstrable fact of his undiminished success, vital work, and repeated expressions of confidence by his superiors in his work.”

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