Ryszard Kuklinski - Jack Strong

It was the opinion of many Poles that Col. Ryszard Kukliński was a traitor for passing secrets to the CIA during the Cold War. Even after Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa  became president he refused to honor Kuklinski and the important roll he played in adverting an East-West confrontation in which Poland most assuredly would have been one of the first theaters of battle. 

A just released Polish movie casts Kukliński in a different light, as a hero who acted on conscience and helped avert bloodshed. See also the post on the documentary "War Games" featuring Kuklinski's spying activities.

The movie "Jack Strong" — after Kukliński's CIA code name — traces the colonel's life from his career as a loyal officer to his lonely and ultimately tragic years as an exile in the United States. The movie opened Friday February 7, 2014 in Polish cinemas.

Kukliński served as a liaison officer between the Polish military command and the Soviet Army under communism. Disillusioned by the army's role in the bloody suppression of a Polish workers' protest in 1970, and convinced that Moscow was planning a military conflict with the West, he contacted the CIA with an offer to co-operate without any compensation.

From behind the Iron Curtain, he passed thousands of pages of Warsaw Pact secrets to the CIA, including the communist government's plan to impose martial law in 1981 and launch a brutal crackdown on the pro-democracy Solidarity movement. He was spirited out of Poland with his wife and two sons by the American spy agency shortly before the Dec. 13, 1981 military crackdown, and the family lived in hiding in the U.S. In 1989 the Poles peacefully ousted communism, paving the way to independence for other nations in the Soviet bloc.

Aris Pappas, a CIA analyst who assessed information from Kukliński, said the Polish spy took no money for the information he provided over 9 1/2 years.

"As an analyst I was on the receiving end of all of that information," Pappas told The Associated Press. "It was absolutely amazing. The beauty of the information that was being provided was that it allowed us to have an insight into the deliberations at the highest levels of the Warsaw Pact command. ... The information was absolutely essential."

In the fast-paced movie by director Wladyslaw Pasikowski, Kukliński emerges as a man of courage and conscience: Raised in the best tradition of Poland's military, he comes to the conclusion that the communist-era army does not serve Poland's best interests, and that Moscow is ready to sacrifice Poland in a major conflict with the West. As a talented army strategist, he decides to risk his life to avert the threat and help democracy through espionage.

The tension mounts until the dramatic scene of the Kukliński family's passage into the West. Years later, after Poland has become a free country, he is shown telling American officials in Washington that the ordeal he endured — life in exile, the mysterious death of a son — was worth it.

Poland's Presidents after the fall of communism refused to bestow state honors on Kukliński, questioning his loyalty to Poland. But Kukliński's ashes were ultimately laid to rest in 2004 in Warsaw's historic Powązki military cemetery.

Kukliński's role was less ambiguous to the Americans. When he died in Florida in February 2004, aged 73, then-CIA director George Tenet hailed him as a "true hero" and a "passionate and courageous man (who) helped keep the Cold War from becoming hot."

To young Poles, born under democracy, the movie is revealing, with its well-reconstructed atmosphere of Poland under communism.

"I have not heard much about Kukliński, but I see that he was a real hero who prevented a nuclear conflict," said Ewa Kalinska, 26, after a per-screening of the movie this week. "And I liked the movie. It's really a thrilling spy story."

The cast is international, with popular Polish film actor Marcin Dorociński as a convincing Kukliński; Russia's Oleg Maslennikov as a Soviet Warsaw Pact commander; and American actor Patrick Wilson speaking remarkably good Polish as Kukliński's CIA handler.
The movie will be screened this month in Britain and Ireland, and talks are underway on distribution in the U.S and other countries.

In 1984, Poland's military court sentenced Kukliński to death for desertion and treason. His house and property were seized. The family lived under an assumed identity in the U.S. for years.

During that period, Kukliński's younger son died in a sailing accident, and the older one was killed by a car some time after Kukliński told the Americans he had no regrets. Unexplained questions surround the deaths that came a year apart. Many Poles believe they were acts of revenge by Moscow, although there is no evidence to suggest that.

Surrounded by bodyguards, Kukliński visited democratic Poland in 1998, just months after a court cleared him of treason charges. On that visit he expressed his anguish that many Poles considered him a traitor.

"Not only the loss of both my sons but also the injustice and unfair opinions in my home country hurt me most, but I never had doubt that I have made the right choice," Kukliński said on that visit. "If I were to live again, I would do the same thing."