CIA director in talk with president Regan said about "HIM": "Nobody, in the last 40 years did not harmed communism so much like this Pole". However after 16 year on emigration, when Kukliński returned to Poland, Polish society had split opinions on his actions. He was and still is considered as a hero and a traitor.
Why is this so ? Kukliński (alias Jack Strong) - extremly capable and sympathetic military - was very quickly promoted to colonen. He has become one of very few persons in Poland, which had access to the most important secrets. In 60'th he and the other high military personel, planned invasion on Czechoslovakia (current Slovakia and Chech Republic).
For the first time, he contacted with CIA in 1967. Kukliński was very important for USA inteligence, beacause,he was very close associate of the Jaruzelski general - Polish army leader.
Photo from official page of Polish Senate http://www.senat.gov.pl/K4/AGENDA/ under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0
Jack Strong has stolen for the USA informations about localization of the most important military outposts, soviet weapons, Polish defense system and strategic plans. The most important one was information about martial law plans in Poland. When he gave this info to CIA, he and whole his family disappeared from Poland. Kuklinski was very quickly sentenced to the dead for the betrayal.
Kukliński says, that his actions saved Poland from the Russian nuclear invasion. There were ZSRR's plans in which Polish army was to become cannon fodder in Russian invasion on Western Europe. Of course this invasion never happened, and was only in plans, but whether it was thanks to the Kukliński ? This is not known.
Life of Kukliński, after transfer to USA, was not very happy one. His two sons died in car accidents in strange circumstances - both sons in same year. Probably the KGB or Polish SB was involved in those "accidents". It could be the revenge for the Kukliński actions. At the end of his life, Kuklinski was wreck - both sons killed, accusation of the betrayal - he wanted only one thing: rehabilitation and to get rid of betrayal allegations.
Official Kuklinski rehabilitation took place in 1995. Kuklinski become a national hero then. He died at the age of 74 on 11 Februar 2004 in the USA.
Author: Cezary p (Cezary Piwowarski) under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0
Author: Piotrus under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
English translation to the photo above (taken from wikipedia):
Hall of remembrance of Colonel Kukliński
- Colonel Ryszard Kukliński (1930-2004)
- Conspirational pseudonym Jack Strong.
- Polish and American Hero, helped the USA defeat Soviet Russia,
- obtained in Moscow the highly secret plans of the Red Army's aggression on Europe,
- – prevented the outbreak of World War III,
- in which Poland was to become a nuclear battlefield.
- Sentenced by the communists to death during the martial law period,
- he was acquitted by the free Republic of Poland.
some informations are based on: mojeopinie.pl
Comments
KGB for many years had not found the way to kill him.
But according to words of his friend Józef Szaniawski, Kukliński died after he had read an article in a certain newspaper.
In this article the journalist wrote (lied to be exact) that Kukliński confirms motives that made general Jaruzelski proclaim martial law in 1981.
This wasn't true.
On the 5th of February 2004 Ryszard Kukliński was writing a rectification to the newspaper when he got a cerebral haemorrhage.
He fell into a coma and died after 6 days (on the 11th of Fabruary 2004).
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