AKA Jack Strong: Colonel Ryszard Kukliński

Polish Colonel Ryszard Kukliński (1930–2004) was one of the most important spies who provided information to the U.S. during the Cold War that followed the end of World War II.

The Soviet Union and its communist puppet states in Eastern Europe created the Warsaw Pact, which countered NATO formed by the U.S., Canada, Britain and other Western European countries after the war. The postwar communist Polish government was, of course, a member of the Warsaw Pact and beholden to the Soviet Union.

Kukliński’s father had been member of the Polish Underground during World War II, was captured by the Gestapo, and died at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In 1947, at age 17, Kukliński joined the Polish People’s Army. Over the next 20 years, he climbed through the ranks, eventually being promoted to colonel.

But Kukliński always remained at heart a Polish patriot. By 1972 he had become sufficiently disturbed by the Sovietization of the Polish army, by the Warsaw Pact’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and by the brutal crushing of the parallel Polish 1970 protests, to consider taking action.

In August 1972, while on a military surveillance mission at German, Dutch and Belgian ports, he contacted U.S. intelligence and met secretly with American agents while in Amsterdam. He told them that, as a senior military officer, he had access to Soviet military plans for Western and Eastern Europe, the latest military exercises, equipment developments, and other important information.  He said to them: “I consider myself a servant not of your country alone, because I work for the freedom of all, but since this freedom emanates mainly from your country, I have decided to join with you, and I shall continue as long as my strength lasts.”

Under the alias “Jack Strong,” by 1980 Kukliński had passed along thousands of Soviet military documents, including plans for the invasion of Western Europe.

He was playing a dangerous game, and by 1981 his superiors had become aware of a leak. Though they had not yet traced the leak to Kukliński, he decided it was time to leave Poland. Late that year he defected to the U.S. with his wife and two sons.

On the Witness History podcast of the BBC World Service, host George Crafer interviewed Aris Pappas, a CIA agent who analyzed Kukliński’s intel. Listen to the BBC podcast below (approx. 9 minutes): 

The New York Times published an obituary for Kukliński upon his death in February 2004, read it online or in pdf…

Learn more about Kukliński at Culture.pl online or in pdf….