A Secret Life (4 page)
Authors: Benjamin Weiser
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Germany, #World, #True Crime, #Espionage
Speaking in broken English, P.V. asked for a meeting. He said he would be leaving the next morning for Rotterdam.
“No uniforms,” he said.
His voice sounded distant and formal.
Lang said that he and his partner, an army colonel, would meet P.V. at the central railroad station in The Hague that night between nine and ten o’clock. Lang said his partner would have a copy of
Time
magazine under his arm.
Time
magazine under his arm.
Can he speak Polish? P.V. asked.
That was not a problem, Lang said.
P.V. said that he would be wearing a tan suit and would make the first signal. Then he hung up.
Henry returned from Amsterdam and drove with Lang to the railroad station, arriving at about 9:00 P.M. Another CIA officer based in The Hague joined them. He discreetly performed countersurveillance, to ensure that they were not being watched. Even at that late hour, the station was bustling with commuters and tourists, and the three officers blended easily into the crowd. Lang stood at a tram stop about 100 meters away from the station; Henry took up a position at the entrance, flipping through his magazine.
More than an hour passed, and they saw no one who fit P.V.’s description. Then at about 10:10 P.M., Henry saw a man he thought might be their target. He began to follow him, but the man made no attempt to signal back and soon disappeared. At about the same moment, Henry saw another man, wearing a light suit, briefly make eye contact and then turn away. His eyes darted around the station, as if he were checking to see that he was not being observed. Then he looked back.
Henry nodded purposefully and began to walk out of the station. The man followed without hesitation. Lang walked in front of them both, leading them about 200 meters around the corner to their car. Without hesitation, the man got into the backseat and was joined by Henry.
Lang got behind the wheel, then turned and introduced himself. In the dark, he could barely see the man’s face, but he never forgot the handshake: P.V.’s grip was firm, but his palm was icy cold.
Lang pulled up at the nearby Central Hotel and dropped Henry and P.V. at the front entrance. After parking, he entered the lobby and found the CIA support officer who had performed countersurveillance in the railroad station and had followed them in another car. Lang said the trip was “worth it”―a prearranged signal that meant everything had gone as planned. Lang said he would soon return with more details.
Soon they were all in a hotel room, where P.V. introduced himself.
“My name,” he said, “is Ryszard Kuklinski.” He had been born in Warsaw, on June 13, 1930, and was a lieutenant colonel on the Polish General Staff.
Henry displayed his military ID and introduced himself as “Pulkownik Henryk,” or “Colonel Henry.” He offered P.V. some coffee or cognac.
Kuklinski shook his head. Speaking in broken English, he said that he had had enough of both drinks for the evening.
Kuklinski and Henry sat in two armchairs; Lang perched on the end of the bed. Henry asked Kuklinski for some identification, and he immediately handed Henry his military identification card and passport.
Switching to Russian, Kuklinski identified himself as the captain of the
Legia
, a fifty-foot yacht owned by the Polish General Staff, and commander of its nine-member crew, which was made up of army, navy, and air force officers. They had left Poland two weeks earlier, were visiting German, Dutch, and Belgian ports, and would leave for home in late August. Kuklinski described himself as an experienced yachtsman and said he had organized the voyage with the approval of his superiors. They were sailing as tourists, dressing casually, and spending their time sightseeing and shopping. Kuklinski had even brought along his seventeen-year-old son, Boguslaw, also known as Bogdan, who loved to sail with his father. But as Kuklinski had explained to his bosses, the trip would actually serve as cover for a Polish Army surveillance mission, to spy on Western ports and naval installations. They would scout the coastline, rivers, ports, bridges, channels, and canals that they knew only from their military maps.
Legia
, a fifty-foot yacht owned by the Polish General Staff, and commander of its nine-member crew, which was made up of army, navy, and air force officers. They had left Poland two weeks earlier, were visiting German, Dutch, and Belgian ports, and would leave for home in late August. Kuklinski described himself as an experienced yachtsman and said he had organized the voyage with the approval of his superiors. They were sailing as tourists, dressing casually, and spending their time sightseeing and shopping. Kuklinski had even brought along his seventeen-year-old son, Boguslaw, also known as Bogdan, who loved to sail with his father. But as Kuklinski had explained to his bosses, the trip would actually serve as cover for a Polish Army surveillance mission, to spy on Western ports and naval installations. They would scout the coastline, rivers, ports, bridges, channels, and canals that they knew only from their military maps.
Of course, Kuklinski said, he did not tell his superiors his other ulterior motive for the trip: It was an elaborate scheme to enable him to make contact with the West.
Kuklinski seemed agitated and excited, but he also appeared to be driven by a strong will. He had told his crew to return to the
Legia
by midnight, which meant that he had only about ninety minutes. A Polish counterintelligence officer on their boat had directed that they go out in groups of two or more, a rule he had broken by leaving alone. There was plenty of time for a crew member to notice his absence and ask questions. Because Kuklinski assumed that he would have only one meeting, one opportunity to make his case, he made an emotional plea for Henry to understand his reasons for making contact with the American military. He smoked constantly as he talked, stabbing the air with his cigarette.
Legia
by midnight, which meant that he had only about ninety minutes. A Polish counterintelligence officer on their boat had directed that they go out in groups of two or more, a rule he had broken by leaving alone. There was plenty of time for a crew member to notice his absence and ask questions. Because Kuklinski assumed that he would have only one meeting, one opportunity to make his case, he made an emotional plea for Henry to understand his reasons for making contact with the American military. He smoked constantly as he talked, stabbing the air with his cigarette.
Poland had not chosen its place in this divided world, Kuklinski said. And the Polish Army had not chosen to be part of a Soviet war machine. He felt Poland’s interests were much more aligned with the West’s than with Moscow’s, and he wanted Poland to be free of Soviet domination. He did not see America as an adversary and believed that for mutual security, the Polish and American armies should open a line of communication. Kuklinski said he had reached this conclusion while serving as an officer on the General Staff, where he had access to the military secrets of his country and the Warsaw Pact. For almost nine years, his assignment had been to prepare for a “hot war” with the West. But everything he had seen confirmed his belief that his country was on the wrong side.
Henry asked him what materials he might have access to. Kuklinski replied that he had in-depth knowledge of, and access to, the Soviet war plans for Western Europe. They included Soviet orders directed to Polish and Warsaw Pact forces in the event of war, and important elements of the order of battle for East German and Czech forces and for Soviet troops in East Germany. He knew of the latest military exercises―he had written many of them. They were based on collected data concerning the strengths and mobilization speeds of Warsaw Pact troops. He could provide testing reports for Soviet rockets, bombs, and tanks, the information on which the battle-readiness plans were based. He had access to all major calculations for the mobilization, deployment, and regrouping of Warsaw Pact troops. He could provide copies of the top-secret Soviet journal
Voyennaya Mysl
(Military Thought). It was too risky to have carried anything on the boat, but he could provide copies as soon as he returned to Poland.
Voyennaya Mysl
(Military Thought). It was too risky to have carried anything on the boat, but he could provide copies as soon as he returned to Poland.
Kuklinski said he had concluded that NATO had a significant blind spot in its knowledge of Soviet war strategies, and he wanted to help close that gap, to strengthen the Western forces, which was the best way to keep the peace.
He said he would do anything to demonstrate his sincerity, even take a “truth test,” as he put it. He knew a little English, he said, but had always been lazy about mastering the language. He would do that as soon as possible.
Kuklinski said he frequently withdrew large numbers of files from the classified vaults of the Ministry of Defense. He had considerable rapport with the officers who maintained the files and could get virtually any document from them. He identified other officers who shared his concern about Poland’s survival in the event of war, listing their names, ranks, and positions. He proposed to form a conspiracy to provide an early warning to the West in the event of an unprovoked and surprise attack. Any such attack would depend on the Soviet Union’s ability to move a huge ground force known as the Second Strategic Echelon across Poland as it moved into Western Europe. Kuklinski’s plan was to paralyze the communications and command systems of the Warsaw Pact and try to thwart the movement of this force.
He had not yet broached the idea with other officers, but he was convinced that if asked, they would agree to help him. Kuklinski and his co-conspirators would issue their own directives, ordering soldiers to stand down and not join an offensive unless the West attacked first. Kuklinski said he had committed to memory the location of every strategic highway, bridge, canal, railroad, radio tower, and refueling stop that the Second Strategic Echelon would have to use in crossing Poland.
Kuklinski was correct. The Pentagon’s most deep-seated fear was that Moscow and the Warsaw Pact, with its advantage in conventional forces, would attack Western Europe without a big buildup, “a bolt out of the blue,” as one American officer put it.
Kuklinski said that Soviet war planners believed the only way the Pentagon could counter such an attack was to retaliate with nuclear weapons. But America was unlikely to use them on Soviet territory, because to do so would dangerously escalate a conflict. Instead, the West would take an intermediate step: Use nuclear weapons to hit the Second Strategic Echelon, after it had left Soviet territory but before it arrived in Western Europe.
There was only one place where that could occur: Poland.
Almost 95 percent of the thousands of tanks and other vehicles that made up the Second Strategic Echelon would have to pass through Poland before reaching West Germany, France, Holland, and Belgium. That meant Poland would be targeted by NATO for 400 to 600 direct nuclear hits. Even if the Soviet Union and the rest of the Warsaw Pact succeeded in such an attack, Kuklinski said, Poland would be destroyed.
Henry listened attentively and interpreted for Lang. He told Kuklinski that he sympathized with his antipathy toward Moscow, but a peacetime conspiracy of Polish officers was doomed to fail. Kuklinski and his co-conspirators would lose their lives.
Henry said that the best way for Kuklinski to achieve his goals was by operating alone and keeping the United States informed about their mutual enemy.
As the two men spoke, Lang scrutinized Kuklinski and later wrote: “He is a small man with tousled blond hair, penetrating blue eyes and the gestures and mannerisms of a man within whom an unbounded supply of energy is tightly bottled up. He smiles briefly from time to time, but humor seems to play only a small part of his general behavioral pattern.”
Kuklinski spoke with assurance, even a slight air of superiority. “He wanted us to know exactly what he wanted to do, and exactly what he could provide,” Lang noted.
“I will tell you all I know . . . ” Kuklinski said. “You can copy all of my documents.... When I help you, I am helping my own country.”
As the conversation progressed, Lang excused himself. He took Kuklinski’s identification card and passport into the bathroom, removed a notebook from his hip pocket, and copied the information, adding brief details of the conversation Henry had interpreted for him. Returning to the room, Lang again excused himself and said he would return soon. He then went to the lobby of the hotel, found the CIA support officer, and turned over his notes.
When Lang returned, Kuklinski and Henry were deep in conversation, and although Lang did not speak Russian, he could see the men were discussing their mutual revulsion for the Soviet system and taking turns damning communism. Kuklinski volunteered only fragments of information about his life: His father had been murdered in a German concentration camp. He had joined the Polish Army after the war, in 1947, when he was seventeen years old. In 1952 he married Joanna, whom he affectionately called Hanka. They had two sons. In 1967 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
This was not the first time he had thought about contacting the West. From November 1967 to May 1968, he had served in Vietnam with the Polish delegation to the International Control Commission (ICC), which included Poland, Canada, and India and which monitored the Geneva accords. As Kuklinski observed the American soldiers in Saigon, he debated finding a U.S. officer of Polish descent in whom to confide. In the end, he decided the moment was not right, but he left Saigon with the feeling that the West was not as decadent as Polish and Soviet officials always portrayed it. He acknowledged that he had prospered in the Communist system; he expected to be promoted to a full colonel that fall and might be made chief of staff for a division. But two events had compelled him to act: the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, in which Polish troops assisted the Soviets, and the Polish Army’s shooting of workers on the Baltic Coast two years later.
Henry checked the time. Kuklinski needed to get back to his boat. They agreed to meet again, and Kuklinski suggested they wait a few days, until the
Legia
reached Ostend. But Henry pressed for a meeting the next day in Rotterdam. Lang suggested they find each other at the Euromast, a well-known tourist attraction, which was easy to find and convenient to the harbor. Kuklinski could go there without drawing attention, Lang said, although he should take care, as it was a popular tourist site and might attract others from his crew. Henry said they would watch for him at 5:00 P.M. at a TV tower in the park, and if he was not there, they would return at seven o’clock, and again, if necessary, at ten.
Legia
reached Ostend. But Henry pressed for a meeting the next day in Rotterdam. Lang suggested they find each other at the Euromast, a well-known tourist attraction, which was easy to find and convenient to the harbor. Kuklinski could go there without drawing attention, Lang said, although he should take care, as it was a popular tourist site and might attract others from his crew. Henry said they would watch for him at 5:00 P.M. at a TV tower in the park, and if he was not there, they would return at seven o’clock, and again, if necessary, at ten.
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