Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

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henryk
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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#31

Post by henryk » 03 Mar 2010, 21:29

http://www.thenews.pl/national/artykul1 ... rakow.html
Cold War spy’s monument to stand in Krakow
02.03.2010 11:21
Most citizens of Krakow in southern Poland want a monument to the controversial communist-era spy Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski to be erected near the main train station.

At the end of 2009, Krakow authorities came up with the idea to honour the late Col. Ryszard Kuklinski by erecting a monument in the city. City councilors conducted an opinion poll, asking the citizens of Krakow where they would like the monument to be located.

Out of over 500 people who participated in the survey, 124 voted for Jan Nowak Jezioranski’s Square (named after one of the most notable resistance fighters during II WW), near the main train station in Krakow and almost 100 for Ronald Reagan’s Square in the Nowa Huta district. On 17 March the city council will take a final decision where the monument should stand and organize a contest for sculptors.

Ryszard Kuklinski remains a controversial figure - for some he was a hero, for others a traitor.

Kuklinski was one of the top officers of the General Staff in the Polish Armed Forces during the 1970s in communist Poland. He defected to the United States on the eve of the introduction of Martial Law in December 1981. During that period he supplied the Americans with plans of martial law as well as other secret documents of the Warsaw Pact, including information about the Soviet Red Army.

Kuklinski sentenced to death in absentia by court martial in 1982. It was not until the late 1990s that in a free and democratic Poland his sentence was reversed and his honour reinstated. (mg/di)

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#32

Post by henryk » 10 Feb 2014, 21:04

http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/16158 ... [quote]CIA spy Kuklinski legacy still divides Poles
PR dla Zagranicy Nick Hodge 10.02.2014 13:29
A new Polish film has prompted politicians and public figures to debate whether a colonel who defected to the US during the 1970s deserves to be honoured by his home country.
Kuklinski's Polish military ID: wikipedia
Discussions about whether Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski should be posthumously awarded Poland's highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, or have a Warsaw street named after him, were sparked by the movie Jack Strong, which went on release on Friday. Adam Hofman, spokesman for conservative opposition party Law and Justice, has argued that Kuklinski's defection from communist Poland was entirely justified. “It was not a sovereign state,” he told Radio Zet. “He did everything he could to help the nation.”
However, Gromoslaw Czempinski, who was head of Poland's now defunct UOP intelligence agency from 1993 to 1996, told the same radio station that Kuklinski was “a traitor.” Czempinski said he refused to believe that Kuklinski was not paid by the CIA (allegedly the colonel did not accept a single dollar until being evacuated from Poland in 1981). “For me, the most important thing was Poland, regardless of what kind of Poland that was,” Czempinski said. “I understand that in the film he is presented as a hero, because we need heroes. “We would like today's youth to remember Kuklinski as he is in the film, but among the people from the forces and the intelligence services, that will never be the case,” he said.
According to CIA veterans, Kuklinski sought contact with the US in 1972, appalled by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and a bloody Polish crackdown on workers in Gdynia in 1970. However, Czempinski put forward the old allegation that Kuklinski was hired by the US in Vietnam in 1967 (Kuklinski was in Vietnam on a peace-keeping mission). Kuklinski, working under the codename of Jack Strong, passed on thousands of classified documents to the US.
Pawel Kowal, MEP for the Poland Together party, has said that a Warsaw street (ed: a major expressway) named after WWII communist resistance group the People's Army (Armia Ludowa) should be renamed in Kuklinski's honour. Kowal told the Polish Press Agency that People's Army “collaborated with the Soviet Union” whereas he described Kuklinski as “a modern-day titan, who independently and effectively confronted the Soviet empire.”
Following the premiere of Jack Strong last week, President Bronislaw Komorowski said he was considering a posthumous honour for Colonel Kuklinski. (nh) [/quote]


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Re:

#33

Post by DarthMaur » 09 Oct 2014, 14:08

henryk wrote:Anyone else on the Forum from Poland with a view?
I think its complicated.

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#34

Post by henryk » 17 Sep 2015, 19:34

http://www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/2215 ... ote]Statue of Cold War spy Kukliński unveiled in Poland
PR dla Zagranicy Nick Hodge 17.09.2015 17:07
A statue of a Polish colonel who spent years spying on his communist colleagues for the CIA was unveiled on Thursday in Gdynia, on the Polish stretch of the Baltic coast.
The statue of Ryszard Kukliński. Photo: PAP/Adam Warżawa
Today's ceremony marked the twentieth anniversary of the annulment of a death sentence that was handed down to him in absentia. Colonel Ryszard Kukliński was spirited out of Poland in 1981, having informed the US that the Polish government was planning to introduce martial law. The bronze statue unveiled in Gdynia on Thursday afternoon was funded by local businessman Andrzej Boczek. “The colonel showed great wisdom, courage and independent thinking, which allowed him to see what Poland's real interests were, which certainly did coincide with the interests of the USSR,” he said.
In 1997, the Gdynia City Council passed a resolution that described Kukliński as “an officer who by making a wise and courageous choice risked his life - and history has proved him right – and contributed to the recovery of our freedom.” Kukliński handed thousands of classified documents to the US between 1972 and 1981, before being spirited out of the country by the Americans with his wife and two sons. Once in the United States, he lived under a false name, but his life was not free from tragedy, as both sons died in separate accidents, sparking conspiracy theories about a KGB plot. It was not until 1995, five years after the fall of communism that the death sentence was annulled.
Kukliński died in February 2004, aged 73. An award-winning film about the colonel was released in Poland in 2014 under the title of 'Jack Strong', his CIA pseudonym. (nh/rk) Source: PAP[/quote]

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#35

Post by henryk » 11 Feb 2016, 20:43

http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/24025 ... te]Defence Minister wants posthumous promotion for Colonel Kukliński
PR dla Zagranicy Paweł Kononczuk 11.02.2016 08:15
Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz has appealed to the president to posthumously promote Colonel Ryszard Kukliński, who passed secret Warsaw Pact documents to the CIA during the Cold War.
Bust of Colonel Ryszard Kukliński. Photo: Flickr.com/Piotr Drabik
Macierewicz wants Polish President Andrzej Duda to posthumously award Kukliński the rank of general. Talking to journalists in Brussels on Wednesday, during a break in a meeting of NATO defence ministers, Macierewicz said that his request is an expression of gratitude to a man who devoted his life to the cause of Polish independence and who paid with the lives of his closest family. In his remarks, Macierewicz referred to the death, in unexplained circumstances, of Kukliński’s two sons.
“Colonel Kukliński should serve as a model for us all,” Macierewicz said. February 11 marks the 12th anniversary of Kukliński’s death, in the US state of Florida. Wreaths and flowers are to be laid at his grave at Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery and a Catholic mass in his honour is to be celebrated in the evening in the city’s St John’s Cathedral. Kukliński passed top-secret Warsaw Pact documents to the CIA between 1971 and 1981, including plans for a military onslaught on the West and for the imposition of martial law in Poland to crush the Solidarity movement.
Shortly after the declaration of martial law in December 1981, Kukliński was extracted from Poland by the CIA, along with his family. In 1984, a military court in Warsaw sentenced him to death in absentia. The sentence was annulled after the fall of communism in 1989. Kukliński visited Poland in 1998. He died at the age of 74. (mk/pk)[/quote]

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#36

Post by 4thskorpion » 14 Feb 2016, 11:10

Using the same argument that Macierewicz applied to Colonel Ryszard Kukliński then anyone who betrayed their home country to pass secrets on to to the Soviets because they believed in the communist system as much as Kukliński was against it must therefore also be recognised as serving "as a model for us all". What is Macierewicz's view about Józef Światło's defection to the West in cause for "freedom"? Swiatlo's broadcasts on RFE into Eastern Europe were a fundamental part of the CIA "Crusade for Freedom" and "Fight Communism with Truth Dollars" campaigns.

Operation SPOTLIGHT: The Defection of Colonel Jozef Swiatlo and RFE
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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#37

Post by wm » 14 Feb 2016, 20:04

Actually both Kukliński and Światło betrayed the Soviet regime not Poland. The Army and the Secret Police they worked for were direct extensions of their Soviet counterparts and under direct Soviet control.

Additionally, it seems Kukliński sincerely believed he was doing it for Poland.
Światło was an uneducated Ukrainian Jew who became a rootless and psychopathic Stalinist, betraying even his own people and the communists - a Polish Lavrentiy Beria who was afraid that the Beria's fate was awaiting him,

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#38

Post by henryk » 14 Feb 2016, 20:39

4thskorpion wrote:Using the same argument that Macierewicz applied to Colonel Ryszard Kukliński then anyone who betrayed their home country to pass secrets on to to the Soviets because they believed in the communist system as much as Kukliński was against it must therefore also be recognised as serving "as a model for us all".
In Macierewicz's "as a model for as all", The "all" refers to anti-Communist Poles who believed and strived for a free-from-the-USSR Poland.

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#39

Post by 4thskorpion » 15 Feb 2016, 12:46

henryk wrote:
4thskorpion wrote:Using the same argument that Macierewicz applied to Colonel Ryszard Kukliński then anyone who betrayed their home country to pass secrets on to to the Soviets because they believed in the communist system as much as Kukliński was against it must therefore also be recognised as serving "as a model for us all".
In Macierewicz's "as a model for as all", The "all" refers to anti-Communist Poles who believed and strived for a free-from-the-USSR Poland.
It is not at all clear that Kukliński was the anticommunist "model for as all" Macierewicz tries to make out. Where is the evidence that Kukliński enlisted with communist Polish People's Army (achieving the rank of Colonel) in order to carry out anti-communist resistance towards a "free-from-the-USSR Poland"?. What was Colonel Ryszard Kukliński's role in the Polish participation in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968? What about the military oath of allegiance to the Polish state that Colonel Kukliński pledged to uphold or is there no such oath?

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa who was the first freely elected president of Poland, dismissed Kukliński as a traitor and refused to pardon him. Kukliński had been tried in absentia and sentenced to death in 1982, later after the collapse of communism the sentence was commuted to a 25-years for treason and desertion.

Was it not true that "the administration of US President Clinton nonetheless took the stance that it would oppose Polish membership in NATO unless Kukliński were exonerated." so lo and behold "...."on 2 September 1997, with the reluctant approval of Walesa’s successor, Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former minister in Jaruzelski’s government, the chief military prosecutor revoked all charges against Kuklinski" and Poland joins NATO in 1999. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for- ... art03.html


BTW is this Macierewicz the same Macierewicz mentioned here: "Poland's New Defense Minister Defended 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' as True":
In 2002, Macierewicz told Radio Maryja that he had read the 'Protocols' and reportedly said that 'experience shows that there are such groups in Jewish circles.' read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.685811
:D

Is this the same Macierewicz who;
More recently, he has been the main champion of a theory that a plane crash that killed 96 Poles in 2010, including the Polish president, was assassination orchestrated by Russia, rather than an accident as official investigations found.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/n ... acy-theory
:D

...and Macierewicz is going to represent Poland in NATO.

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#40

Post by wm » 15 Feb 2016, 20:55

Adam Maciarewicz: one of the top leaders of the anti-communist resistance in Poland. Expelled from his High School for refusing to take part in an anti-Catholic campaign. His first underground group created at the age of nineteen. Took part in the March events of 1968, a major student and intellectual protest action, produced and distributed leaflets, defended March events Jewish leaders. Helped and supported workers wounded during the Polish 1970 protests. In 1976 defended and helped the persecuted workers of Radom, Ursus and other cities. A founding member of the KOR, the first major anti-communist group in Eastern Europe. One of the leaders of the Solidarity movement.

Maciarewicz fought for free Poland for over 22 years, in times you had to have balls of steel to even think about it. He was arrested thirty times, countless times interrogated, his wife was arrested, his daughter threatened with murder.

I wonder, what are the credentials of those other NATO representatives, because obviously it would be a shame he have to deal with some nobodies, who for the cause of freedom did nothing and risked nothing.
Last edited by wm on 15 Feb 2016, 21:13, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#41

Post by henryk » 15 Feb 2016, 20:56

4thskorpion wrote: It is not at all clear that Kukliński was the anticommunist "model for as all" Macierewicz tries to make out. Where is the evidence that Kukliński enlisted with communist Polish People's Army (achieving the rank of Colonel) in order to carry out anti-communist resistance towards a "free-from-the-USSR Poland"?. What was Colonel Ryszard Kukliński's role in the Polish participation in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968? What about the military oath of allegiance to the Polish state that Colonel Kukliński pledged to uphold or is there no such oath?
It is not important that Kuklinski made his decision at enlistment, but that he finally made his decision. Perhaps the Invasion of CzechoSlovakia was part of his making his decision, as well as other Communist Poland's actions.

http://www.polskieradio.pl/zagranica/gb ... ?iid=54187
After the war, Kuklinski began a successful career in the communist Polish People's Army. He took part in the preparations for the Warsaw Pact's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. After the December 1970 masascre of Polish workers in Gdynia by communist forces, Kuklinski contacted CIA and offered his services as a spy. As a result, between 1971 and 1981 he passed 35,000 pages of mostly Soviet secret documents to the CIA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Army_oaths

Is this the oath he disobeyed?
First taken on 15 July 1943 in Sielce at the Oka River. It was used by the Soviet-backed military of Poland until the end of the Second World War and afterwards.

Polish text
Składam uroczystą przysięgę ziemi polskiej, broczącej we krwi, narodowi polskiemu, umęczonemu w niemieckim jarzmie, że nie skalam imienia Polaka, że wiernie będę służył Ojczyźnie.
Przysięgam ziemi polskiej i narodowi polskiemu rzetelnie pełnić obowiązki żołnierza w obozie, w pochodzie, w boju, w każdej chwili i na każdym miejscu, strzec wojskowej tajemnicy, wypełniać wiernie rozkazy oficerów i dowódców.
Przysięgam dochować wierności sojuszniczej Związkowi Radzieckiemu, który dał mi do ręki broń do walki z wspólnym wrogiem, przysięgam dochować braterstwa broni sojuszniczej Czerwonej Armii.
Przysięgam ziemi polskiej i narodowi polskiemu, że do ostatniej kropli krwi, do ostatniego tchu nienawidzieć będę wroga - Niemca, który zniszczył Polskę, do ostatniej kropli krwi, do ostatniego tchu walczyć będę o wyzwolenie Ojczyzny, abym mógł żyć i umierać jako prawy i uczciwy żołnierz Polski.
Tak mi dopomóż Bóg!

English translation
I hereby swear to the blood-rinsed Polish land, to the Polish nation tormented by German yoke, that I will not desecrate the name of a Pole and that I will courageously serve my Fatherland.
I swear to the Polish land and to the Polish people that I will honestly serve the duties of a soldier, in march and in battle, in the camp and at any other moment I will guard the secrets and fulfil the orders of my officers and commanders.
I swear to be a loyal ally of the allied Soviet Union, which gave me the arms to fight our common enemy, and I swear I will preserve the brotherhood of arms with the allied Red Army.
I swear to the Polish land and to the Polish nation that to the last drop of blood, to the last breath shall I hate the enemy - the German who destroyed Poland; to the last drop of blood, to the last breath shall I fight for the liberation of my Fatherland, so that I could live and die as a rightful and honest soldier of Poland.
So help me God!
This is an oath to the overlords of a captive nation, and deserves to be disobeyed.

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#42

Post by 4thskorpion » 16 Feb 2016, 10:33

henryk wrote:
I hereby swear to the blood-rinsed Polish land, to the Polish nation tormented by German yoke, that I will not desecrate the name of a Pole and that I will courageously serve my Fatherland.
I swear to the Polish land and to the Polish people that I will honestly serve the duties of a soldier, in march and in battle, in the camp and at any other moment I will guard the secrets and fulfil the orders of my officers and commanders.
I swear to be a loyal ally of the allied Soviet Union, which gave me the arms to fight our common enemy, and I swear I will preserve the brotherhood of arms with the allied Red Army.

I swear to the Polish land and to the Polish nation that to the last drop of blood, to the last breath shall I hate the enemy - the German who destroyed Poland; to the last drop of blood, to the last breath shall I fight for the liberation of my Fatherland, so that I could live and die as a rightful and honest soldier of Poland.
So help me God!
This is an oath to the overlords of a captive nation, and deserves to be disobeyed.
I assume that Kuklinski willingly took this solemn oath of allegiance to Poland when he enlisted in the communist Polish Army which included swearing allegiance to the Soviet Union as contained in the oath you quote. It is clear Kuklinski betrayed the oath he willing pledged to uphold. Kuklinski was simply a CIA spy.

In contrast to Kuklinski there was former Polish intelligence officer Marian Zacharski, nicknamed the "Silicon Valley spy" by the US media due to his success in stealing US defence secrets and technology. Arrested in 1981 Zacharski was exchanged four years later for 25 Western agents held in Soviet and East European prisons. In 1994 the Polish government was to appoint Zacharski to head Polish intelligence but the US coerced the Poles into dropping Zacharski if they wanted to join NATO - just as the US had insisted that CIA spy Kuklinski HAD to be exonerated if Poland wanted to join NATO. Poland had seemingly exchanged one overlord for another!
On 15 August 1994, the Polish Government announced Zacharski’s appointment as head of civilian intelligence in the Office of State Protection. He never got to see the inside of his office. Brzezinski and Jan Nowak, another prominent Polish-American, both protested the appointment, warning that it would cast a shadow on Poland’s chances for joining NATO.50 Warsaw denied that the appointment had political overtones, but conservatives complained that it was part of a Communist restoration. On the 17th, the US Embassy delivered a démarche to the Polish Government. It noted that Zacharski was still under a life sentence in the United States and requested that Warsaw reconsider his appoint-ment.51 Zacharski withdrew his name the next day. But the episode left a bad feeling in Poland. Once again, Washington and Polish-Americans had intervened in an internal matter and pressured Warsaw to reverse an official decision. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for- ... art03.html
Published in 2014 Szpiedzy PRL-u or "Spies for the PRL" by Władysław Bułhak, Patryk Pleskot of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance who have written numerous scientific studies dealing with the special intelligence services in the Polish People's Republic. "Spies for the PRL"...heroes of Poland?

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#43

Post by henryk » 16 Feb 2016, 20:39

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Pe ... [quote]The Polish People's Republic (Polish: Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was the official name of Poland until 1989 according to Constitution of 1952 based originally on the Soviet blueprint. Until 1952, the name of the Polish state according to a temporary Constitution of 1947 issued by the communists was simply Rzeczpospolita Polska (the Republic of Poland).[1] At the time of its founding during final stages of World War II, the new Soviet-controlled Poland was regarded as a puppet entity set up from outside the State concerned,[2] and over time, it developed into a satellite state of the Soviet Union.[3]

The Soviet Union had much influence over both internal and external affairs, and Red Army forces were stationed in Poland (1945: 500,000; until 1955: 120,000 to 150,000; until 1989: 40,000).[3] In 1945, Soviet generals and advisors formed 80% of the officer cadre of the Polish Armed Forces. The Polish United Workers' Party became the dominant political party, officially making the country a Communist state.
[/quote]
The oath to the PRL was an oath to Stalin and his successors, the Overlords, not to the real Poland. Actions in support of the USSR were anti-Free Poland, a betrayal of Free Poland.

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#44

Post by 4thskorpion » 16 Feb 2016, 21:16

henryk wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Pe ... [quote]The Polish People's Republic (Polish: Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was the official name of Poland until 1989 according to Constitution of 1952 based originally on the Soviet blueprint. Until 1952, the name of the Polish state according to a temporary Constitution of 1947 issued by the communists was simply Rzeczpospolita Polska (the Republic of Poland).[1] At the time of its founding during final stages of World War II, the new Soviet-controlled Poland was regarded as a puppet entity set up from outside the State concerned,[2] and over time, it developed into a satellite state of the Soviet Union.[3]

The Soviet Union had much influence over both internal and external affairs, and Red Army forces were stationed in Poland (1945: 500,000; until 1955: 120,000 to 150,000; until 1989: 40,000).[3] In 1945, Soviet generals and advisors formed 80% of the officer cadre of the Polish Armed Forces. The Polish United Workers' Party became the dominant political party, officially making the country a Communist state.
The oath to the PRL was an oath to Stalin and his successors, the Overlords, not to the real Poland. Actions in support of the USSR were anti-Free Poland, a betrayal of Free Poland.[/quote]

Of course the PRL was the real Poland! But regardless, Kulkanski willingly swore that oath of allegiance to the Polish communist regime and its allies and eventually reaching the rank of Colonel in the Polish Army. He then betrayed that sworn military oath and his countrymen by becoming a spy for the CIA - which is why Lech Wałęsa refused to exonerate Kulkanski when he was President of "Free" Poland. Is it not true that Kulkanski was only exonerated because Poland was desperate for the security of being within NATO and the US said Kulkanski HAD to be exonerated as the price for Poland's membership of NATO? Who were Poland's overlords now?

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Re: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski Museum

#45

Post by 4thskorpion » 17 Feb 2016, 10:05

It's the hot year 1956. The country is seething. This is the turning point that will eliminate the perversions of Stalinism.

Soviet forces start off from their garrisons near the German border towards Warsaw, prepared to stifle Polish democratization. A flotilla with the cruiser Zhdanov tries to get into the Bay of Gdańsk, but the Polish Navy commander, Commodore Admiral Jan Wiśniewski refuses right of entry into Polish territorial waters and threatens to use force. Gen. Jan Frey-Bielecki orders an air force squadron from Poznań to bomb the Soviet armored units if the talks with the Russians should fail. In Warsaw, Spanish Civil War veteran Gen. Wacław Komar garrisons the airport, radio stations and telephones to defend the democratic changes.

1968-student demonstrations in Poland in defense of freedom of speech. Officers are ordered to dress in civilian clothes and disperse the demonstrators. Only one of them, Col. Edward Perkowicz, says he won't go at students with a truncheon.

Wiśniewski, Frey-Bielecki, Komar and Perkowicz wore the same uniforms as Ryszard Kukliński. May the colonel's shadow forgive me, but I put more value on the actions of those forgotten Polish officers of communist times than on even his most magnificent service to the CIA.
Today Col. Kukliński has become the object of the Polish rightists' sacralization efforts. He has become the right's icon even, especially for the extreme rightists who draw their life's strength from continuing a slightly belated battle against the spirit of communist Poland. He is a model of fighting against communist Poland as a vassal state of the Kremlin, a precursor of the U.S.-Polish alliance who built it in great secret long before an open alliance became possible. That's why the gentlemen from the right compare the colonel to the heroes of the national uprisings and debate which streets to name after him.
Warsaw Voice - "The Shadow of Colonel Kukliński
By Sławomir Majman
3 March 2004

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