Be proud to be Polish! Let’s remind the NATO generals of the Polish HERO Ryszard Kuklinski.

Jarek Micewski | 2023-07-28 | Ludzie wierni Polsce | Brak komentarzy | Czytano: [368]

AUTHOR JAREK MICEWSKI

Miłość żąda ofiary i wierności, wierności dla jednego Boga i jednej, jedynej ojczyzny – Polski – mówił płk Kukliński, odbierając tytuł honorowego obywatela Krakowa. (PR, 29.04.1998)

Love demands sacrifice and fidelity, fidelity to one God and one and only homeland – Poland – said Colonel Kuklinski, receiving the title of honorary citizen of Krakow. (PR, April 29, 1998)

The spy who rocked the commune. Why did we forget the general Richard Kuklinski ?

undefined — **LAST ARMY ID OF COLONEL KUKLINSKI**

Kuklinski was born in Warsaw to a working-class family with strong Catholic and socialist traditions. During World War II, his father became a member of the Polish resistance movement, he was captured by the Gestapo, and subsequently died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After the war, Kuklinski began a successful career in the Polish Peoples Army. In 1968, he took part in preparations for the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia. Disturbed by the invasion, and by the brutal crushing of the parallel Polish 1970 protests, in 1972, Kukliński sent a letter to the US embassy in Bonn describing himself as an army officer from a Communist country, and requested a secret meeting.

In 1994, Kuklinski said that his awareness of the „unambiguously offensive” nature of Soviet military plans was an important factor in his decision to communicate the details of those plans to the United States, adding that „Our front could only be a sacrifice of Polish blood at the altar of the Red Empire”. Kukliński was also concerned that his homeland would be turned into a nuclear wasteland as the Warsaw Pact’s superiority in conventional forces would mean NATO would respond to military action with tactical nuclear weapons.

Between 1972 and 1981, he passed 35,000 pages of mostly Soviet secret documents to the CIA. The documents described Moscow’s strategic plans regarding the use of nuclear weapons, technical data about the T-72 tank and 9K 31 Strela-1 missiles, the whereabouts of Soviet anti-aircraft bases in Poland and East Germany, the methods used by the Soviets to avoid spy satellite detection of their military hardware, plans for the imposition of ,artial law in Poland, and many other matters.

Facing imminent danger of discovery from a denunciation by a secret Communist collaborator known only by his alias „Prorok”, Kukliński, his wife and two sons were spirited out of Poland by the CIA shortly before the imposition of martial law in December 1981. Though Kuklinski and his family successfully defected, his past may have followed him to the United States as both of his sons later died in separate incidents. The older, Waldemar, was run over by a truck without a licence plate in August 1994 on the grounds of an American university. His younger son, Bogdan Kukliński, drowned on December 31, 1993, when his yacht capsized on a quiet sea. Ryszard Kukliński did not claim that they were assassinated, but never rejected such a possibility either.

On May 23, 1984, Kukliński was sentenced to death, in absentia, by a military court in Warsaw. After the fall of communism. the sentence was changed to 25 years.

The colonel, cleared of all charges and rehabilitated, was able to return to Poland. He visited his homeland only once, in 1998. He delivered a speech to deputies and senators in the Sejm. He was given an honorary officer’s saber by Prime Minister Buzek. He was the initiator of the creation of the Katyn Monument in Warsaw and was awarded honorary citizenship by the authorities of Kraków and Gdańsk

He died from a stroke at the age of 73 in Tampa, Florida 11 February, 2004. The funeral Mass for Kuklinski was held at Fort Myer with CIA honors on March 30, 2004. His remains were transported to Poland and on June 19, 2004, Kukliński was buried in the row of honour in the Powazki military cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, along with the remains of his son Waldemar . Kuklinski was posthumously appointed to the rank of Brigadier General by President Andrzej Duda on September 2, 2016.

IPN – On 11 February 2020, the 16th anniversary of the death of Ryszard Kukliński was celebrated in Jordan Park in Krakow. The gathered laid flowers under the monument of the Polish Colonel and Cold War spy for NATO posthumously promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. The Institute of National Remembrance was represented by Maria Konieczna from the IPN’s Branch Office in Kraków.