Besides I expect a direct answer for the following sentence: "I could have sacrificed my son for
freedom and I'd have been nothing wrong if my son had been killed because of K***'s betrayal."
Do you agree with the sentence above or not?
I am not sure what you mean by that statement, but I will try to answer.
I was the Systems Manager for the Cl-289 Surveillance Drone System purchased by the West Germans and French to provide surveillance in case of a Warsaw Pact attack. It would permit identifying and locating targets for attack. Should the fathers of sons killed in that attack curse me for indirectly causing the deaths of their sons. Should they curse the developers of the missiles that directly killed their sons. Should they curse Kuklinski for providing the information that facilitated that attack.
No, of course not!. They should curse the communist lackeys in their government that acquiesced in supporting their Overlords of the Evil Empire on the aggressive invasion.
But Poles did not die in an invasion of Denmark. Kuklinski helped to keep the Cold War Cold, and not to become Hot.
I remember the words from the old song of Polish Knighthood “W Krwawem Polu Srebrne Ptaszę”: "Niechaj Polska zna, jakich synów ma !" “Let Poland Know What Kind Of Sons It Has.” Kuklinski’s father served in the Warsaw Uprising and his son served in the battle against the Evil Empire.
Here is more support of my position, including the words of prominent Poles. Emphasis in red is mine.
http://www.nationalreview.com/books/sik ... quote]June 01, 2004, 9:08 a.m.
Pride of Poland
From the April 19, 2004, issue of National Review.
By Radek Sikorski
A Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to Save His Country, by Benjamin Weiser (PublicAffairs, 400 pp., $27.50)
The subject of this remarkable book, Col. Ryszard Kuklinski, died in a Tampa military hospital on February 10. His had been one of the most dangerous —— and successful —— intelligence careers of the Cold War. Recipient of the CIA's Distinguished Intelligence Medal, he was the West's most important source in the Warsaw Pact between the time of Oleg Penkovsky's reports during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the end of the Cold War. Although only a colonel, Kuklinski was more valuable than several generals put together: He was director of the operational-planning directorate of the Polish general staff and liaised between Warsaw and Moscow. Over nine years,
he delivered 40,265 pages of documents, including plans of Soviet exercises of the invasion of Western Europe, the location of Soviet wartime command bunkers, plans for the imposition of martial law in Poland, and the details of numerous weapons. He gave successive U.S. administrations a direct insight into the planning of Warsaw Pact militaries and became the standard by which other intelligence from behind the Iron Curtain was judged. Kuklinski avoided detection. He was exfiltrated from Poland, with his family, only after being compromised by a leak from the U.S. government.
Sentenced to death by the Communist regime, Kuklinski lived to see a free Poland quash all charges against him, and to return to his native land in triumph in 1998. He was hosted to lunch by the prime minister and showered with the honorary citizenships of several Polish cities, all during the very week that the U.S. Senate voted to allow Poland into NATO. Given the fate of most defectors from the Soviet bloc —— some of them still face criminal sentences in their native lands —— this is a story of heroism and accomplishment with a remarkably happy end. Yet it is not an entirely happy story and Kuklinski did not die a satisfied man. Acceptance of his deeds came late, grudgingly, and still divides public opinion in Poland, testifying to the resilience of the Communist canon of Poland's recent history.
His diminutive figure casts in sharp relief all the dilemmas that are spared the lucky citizens of free countries that have never been occupied.
If your country has been taken over by a regime that is an agent of a foreign power, is it legitimate to use treachery to topple that regime? Is a country run by a repulsive ideology still your country —— right or wrong —— or do you owe loyalty to the nation rather than to the alienated state? Does patriotism have to be rooted in higher values or does tribal solidarity trump all? Finally, can one man be so sure of his moral compass and the consequences of his actions as to take it upon himself to judge that a normally distasteful act will serve the greater good? Kuklinski provokes all these questions in Poland and depending how you answer them you fall into the post-Communist or post-Solidarity camps. Tell me about Kuklinski, they say, and I will tell you who you are.
The great value of Benjamin Weiser's thorough book is that, for the first time, we can follow Kuklinski's story not just from reminiscences many years after the events, but from contemporary documents. Weiser obtained access to virtually the entire CIA file on the Kuklinski operation, and we can therefore be confident that little of substance will be added in future accounts.
What comes shining through in Weiser's story is not just
Kuklinski's idealistic motivation but the kind of selfless patriotism that is usually felt by men from nations that have just faced the abyss of extermination. A witness to Warsaw's wartime martyrdom —— his father had been murdered by the Nazis —— Kuklinski was in many ways a typical Pole of his generation. He tried to lead a normal life after the war, accommodating himself to the new Communist Poland by joining the army and the Party.
He contacted the Americans only in the early 1970s, partly out of disgust at the invasion of Czechoslovakia and partly because he was alarmed at what Soviet invasion plans against Western Europe would mean for Poland. Because the Warsaw Pact enjoyed superiority over the West in conventional arms, NATO planned to respond to an attack with nuclear weapons —— but because an attack against the USSR would provoke a full-blown strategic nuclear retaliation, NATO planned to nuke the Second Strategic Echelon of Soviet forces as they streamed West: across Poland. Kuklinski told me on one occasion that Soviet maps even showed areas —— tails broadening east with the prevailing wind —— that would be contaminated after hundreds of warheads struck. Was it treasonous for a Polish officer to try to preempt such a scenario, or was it treasonous to go along with it? One can't help agreeing with the 30 Communist generals who wrote —— in a public letter protesting Kuklinski's exoneration —— that "if he is a hero, then we are traitors."
Kuklinski did not see himself as a spy at all, but rather as an officer making contact with the U.S. army in furtherance of a potential conspiracy that could upset Soviet invasion plans. The CIA's involvement was kept a secret from him for a while and he only reluctantly agreed to act alone by passing information.
In case of war, his contribution could have been decisive: By supplying the U.S. with details about the wartime command bunker he made it possible to stop the Soviets by liquidating the Soviet leadership instead of liquidating Poland. As Zbigniew Brzezinski —— one of the few U.S. officials who had access to raw Kuklinski data —— told Marshal Kulikov, the former Warsaw Pact supreme commander, many years later, the entire Soviet command, including Kulikov, would have been dead within three hours of a Soviet attack on NATO.
While increasing the odds of a Western victory, Kuklinski also helped preserve the peace. The insight he gave Western decision makers, often almost in real time, prevented the kind of miscalculation that could have sparked an uncontrollable escalation. In the fall of 1980, for example, Brezhnev was planning to crush Solidarity with a full-scale invasion of Poland. Kuklinski's information on the plans helped President Carter make pointed, well-timed warnings to the Soviets, which arguably prevented the invasion and what would have been a major East––West confrontation.
Kuklinski was hurt by the early lack of recognition from his countrymen for what he did, particularly from Solidarity veterans. President Lech Walesa, whom Kuklinski worshipped, failed to lift a finger in his defense. Adam Michnik, the left-wing dissident, befriended General Jaruzelski, the martial-law dictator, instead of Kuklinski. But the mood is shifting. As Poland takes its place among Western allies and the effects of Communist brainwashing wane, Kuklinski is seen less and less as a foreign spy and more and more as "Poland's first officer in NATO." Now that he does not have to appease Communist-era generals, Walesa has relented and calls Kuklinski a hero. He will be buried in Poland with military honors. Kuklinski joins Claus von Stauffenberg in the pantheon of tragic heroes who betrayed their state to try to save their country. Benjamin Weiser's book —— lucid, authoritative, and unputdownable —— is a must-read for scholars of the Cold War, and for all of us who lived in the shadows of totalitarianism and enjoy the fruits of the ultimate triumph of liberty.
—— Mr. Sikorski is executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute.
http://www.friends-partners.org/friends ... lish,,new)
POLISH GOVERNMENT TO COMPENSATE FORMER CIA SPY. Poland will pay some $366,000 to Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, the CIA's spymaster within the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, to compensate him for property confiscated in communist-era Poland, Reuters reported on 26 October. That sum will come from the government's budget reserve. Kuklinski passed some 35,000 top secret documents to the CIA between 1972 and 1981 before defecting to the West with his family. A communist court sentenced him to death in 1984 and confiscated all his property. That sentence was lifted in 1995, and Kuklinski was fully rehabilitated in 1997.
According to Kuklinski, he received no money for his espionage activities. JM
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/cia_folde ... 0skuk.html
Grajewski, Marcin. "Spy for U.S Gets Mixed Reception in Poland." Reuters, 27 Apr. 1998. [
http://dailynews.yahoo.com]
Ryszard Kuklinski returned to his native Poland on 27 April 1998. After meeting with the Cold War spy,
Polish Premier Jerzy Buzek told reporters: "Kuklinski was a witness of history. He took his decision at moments that were very difficult for Poland. I have a right to suppose that these decisions saved our country from bloodshed."
http://www3.law.nyu.edu/eecr/vol6num4/c ... oland.html
On September 2, the Warsaw prosecutor’’s office dropped charges against Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski. In the 1970s, Colonel Kuklinski worked for the CIA and passed to them extremely sensitive information on the Warsaw Pact, including operational plans and information about the plans to impose martial law in Poland. Under martial law, the colonel was sentenced to death in absentia. After 1989, efforts were frequently made to find a way out of the case. But it was embarrassingly difficult to say when a soldier has a right to decide on his own if his superiors act in accordance with his country’’s interests. In justification of the September decision to dismiss the case,
Major Bogdan Wodarczyk stated that Kuklinski was not actually working on behalf of a foreign power, since the real purpose of his work was the good of Poland. Paradoxically, the dismissal of the case against Kuklinski owes a lot to ex-minister Leszek Miller, who believes that, as a candidate for NATO, Poland cannot consider someone who acted on behalf of this alliance to be a traitor to his country.
http://www.ambasciatapolonia.it/Files/A ... 004.06.htm
But present were U.S. ambassador Christopher Hill, former PMs Jerzy Buzek and Jan Olszewski, former foreign minister Wldadyslaw Bartoszewski, former Sejm speaker Maciej Plazynski. During a requiem mass
bishop Slawoj Leszek Glodz described Col. Kuklinski as "one of the fathers of Polish freedom." Head of the National Remembrance Institute Leon Kieres said that "what Ryszard Kuklinski did helped Poland regain independence and bring about world peace. It was an act of the highest heroism and I came here to show him my gratitude for that." He said that this official funeral may be considered to be "some form of the Colonel's social rehabilitation."
(This site presents, in more detail, the words of Bishop Slawoj Leszek Glodz, Wldadyslaw Bartoszewski and Lech Kaczynski at the funeral:)
http://dzis.dziennik.krakow.pl/public/? ... 10/10.html
- Ilez juz lat trwa spor o plk. Kuklinskiego? Ilez ksiazek, audycji, polemik, przeciwstawnych opinii... Moze dzieje sie tak, bo spor o plk. Kuklinskiego jest czyms wiecej niz sporem o niego samego - jest sporem o Polske. Toczy sie nie tylko na plaszczyxnie moralnej, takze prawnej, politycznej, historycznej. To spor o Polske, ktorej ksztalt i przyszlosc zostaly zadekretowane w Jalcie" - mowil bp Glodx w homilii mszy zalobnej.
- Czesto stawia sie plk. Kuklinskiemu zarzut, ze zlamal zolnierska przysiege. Przysiega dla zolnierza to rzecz swieta. Ale co sie dzieje, kiedy konsekwencje przysiegi wchodza w konflikt z zasadami prawego sumienia? - pytal biskup. Uwaza on, ze w zyciu plk. Kuklinskiego zdarzyla sie ta chwila, kiedy potrafil powiedziec stanowcze nie. - Wiedzial, jakie moga byc tego konsekwencje dla niego i dla najblizszych - dodal biskup. Biskup nazwal zmarlego "jednym z ojcow polskiej wolnosci".
Urny z prochami plk. Kuklinskiego i jego syna przewieziono nastepnie na wojskowe Powazki. Tam zebralo sie kilka tysiecy ludzi, chcacych towarzyszyc Kuklinskiemu w ostatniej drodze.
Bartoszewski porownal natomiast postac plk. Kuklinskiego, do Romualda Traugutta. - Z tym, ze jego sytuacja byla bardziej oczywista, a Kuklinski stal sie bardziej postacia tragiczna - dodal. Wedlug Kieresa, "bez dzialalnosci Kuklinskiego Polska nie odzyskalaby niepodleglosci tak szybko".
Lech Kaczynski wspominal w oficjalnym wystapieniu, jak w czasach, gdy byl szefem Biura Bezpieczenstwa Narodowego, owczesni generalowie III RP mowili mu, ze skoro Kuklinski jest bohaterem, to oni sa zdrajcami. - Odpowiem im teraz, ze nie sa zdrajcami, ale bohaterem jest Kuklinski - powiedzial. Dodal, ze zmarly "ryzykujac zyciem, podjal samotna walke i odniosl w niej zwyciestwo".
- Wedlug owczesnych planow, gdyby wojna swiatowa wybuchla, gdyby sowiecka Rosja ruszyla na Europe, nasz kraj w sensie fizycznym, doslownym przestalby istniec. I to jest miara zaslug pulkownika Ryszarda Kuklinskiego - jestesmy dzisiaj. Istniejemy. I mozemy powiedziec pulkownikowi: spij spokojnie, dobrze zasluzyles sie ojczyxnie - dodal Kaczynski.
(My translation of Kaczynski’s words:
"According to the plans at that time, if world war broke out, if Soviet Russia invaded Europe, our Country, in the physical sense, would be no more. And that is the standard to judge Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski by. But we exist today. And we can say to the Colonel: sleep in peace, you served the Fatherland well." )
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