Secret police-style questions from nomenklatura-owned newspaper

One of my colleagues recently received a set of weird questions from Zycie Warszawy, a Warsaw paper whose owner was a member of the communist nomenklatura under the Soviet occupation. They're legitimate questions, I suppose, but item number 1 looks like it came from an old secret police manual. Here it is, for curiosity's sake:

Dear Sir,

I would appreciate if you answered the following questions:

1. Is prof. Michael Waller your friend . . .? Do you exchange information concerning Polish secret police? If so, how often?

2. Was Waller's publication "Poland's Soviet ambassador to the USA?"
inspired by you? Have you consulted with him when preparing the text?

3. Szlajfer officialy denied your claims he had been a communist secret police collaborator. He told the parliamentary foreign affairs commission that he was checked several times by the ministry of foreign affairs. Do you think he was a communist secret police collaborator?

Sincerely

Pawel Szaniawski
"Zycie Warszawy" daily
Dom Prasowy Sp. z o.o
Phone: +48 22 334 89 10
Mobile: +48 604 590 560
Al. Jana Paw³a II 80
00-175 Warszawa
Poland
www.zw.com.pl
pszaniawski@zw.com.

Why the secret collaborator archives are important today

It's important to establish exactly who did what - and who didn't - in Poland under Soviet domination, because the Russians have the archives on the collaborators and those archives present the former KGB the opportunity for blackmail and other forms of coercion. A Polish parliamentary investigation confirmed this problem shortly after Poland's independence from Moscow.

Since many of the known files contain inaccuracies and even falsehoods, it is crucial to learn fiction from fact in the event that multiple copies of some of the files exist.

Because of the Russian intelligence dimension and the fact that Moscow's offensive espionage operations are as aggresive as they ever were during the Cold War, the issue affects not only Poland but its strategic diplomatic partners and its new military allies.

Inasmuch as the innocent deserve exoneration from false information in the archives, the guilty must not be able to hide under the guises of secrecy or indignation.

This writer wrote about the problem in his book, Secret Empire: The KGB In Russia Today (Westview, 1994):

In addition to all the KGB First Chief Directorate archives and many CPSU International Department documents, Moscow retains immense files from the internal informant and agent networks and human assets of the Communist parties and secret services of the former Warsaw Pact states.

A Polish parliamentary investigation found that throughout Central and Eastern Europe, security and intelligence service documents were destroyed at about the same time in 1989, as if coordinated from above. The documents were surreptitiously microfilmed or otherwise copied prior to being destroyed, and evidence suggests that the copies and many original files were shipped to the Soviet Union. A Czechoslovak parliamentary commission also found that many documents were copied by unknown agents prior to being destroyed.

The Soviets maintained a central database of dissidents and other 'enemies' within all Warsaw Pact member states. . . .

The SVR [Russian External Intelligence Service, the re-named KGB First Chief Directorate] has indicated that it will not cooperate with former Warsaw Pact countries to help uncover the communist agents and spies, suggesting that it plans to maintain those networks. . . . In response to a journalist's question about this issue, [SVR Director Yevgeny] Primakov responded, 'The intelligence service does not intend to provide former socialist countries with lists of its agents who worked there.'

. . . . Russia also continued to use the intelligence services of former Warsaw Pact nations and other allies. Bonn formally notified President Lech Walesa's Polish government that its intelligence organs - largely unreformed and outside civil control - were still operating against Germany.

For some reason, we are to believe that this was never a problem as Poland made its transition back toward the West, that we should ignore potential Russian threats to Poland's sovereignty and NATO's own internal security, and that those who raise concerns today are acting like "Soviets."

Polish parliament approves Szlajfer as ambassador to US

The Polish parliament approved Henryk Szlajfer as the country's next ambassador to the United States, though our sources in Warsaw say there was much talking about this blog on the sidelines of the parliamentary floor.

Best wishes to Polish-American relations.

Poland sowed seeds for current controversy more than a decade ago

The Polish government sowed the seeds of the current secret police controversy in the early 1990s, when it quashed attempts to screen Soviet-era secret police agents and informants and break up Soviet-sponsored networks inside Poland.

This blogger wrote about the problem in the Wall Street Journal Europe on January 10, 1994, arguing that NATO should wait for formerly communist countries to carry out lustration before fully admitting them into the alliance, and to help them along the way. Despite Poland's extraordinary staunchness as a NATO ally, the op-ed piece has held up well over time, and there is still concern about how the Russians might try to use old Soviet and communist agent networks inside Poland to subvert both Polish sovereignty and the NATO alliance as a whole. The text of the op-ed follows:


"Delay NATO Expansion - But for the Right Reason"
by J. Michael Waller
Wall Street Journal Europe, January 10, 1994

The former Warsaw Pact states are justifiably pursuing the right goal of full NATO membership, but for the wrong reasons. Similarly, the Clinton administration is taking the correct approach by delaying that goal, but for entirely the wrong reasons.

Rather than basing his caution on fears of provoking elements in Russia - an excuse that always has been used to justify a weak foreign policy - President Clinton should justify a delay in expanding NATO by setting down a precondition that only the Czechs, as summit hosts, seem willing to meet to a significant degree.

That precondition should be what the Czechs call lustration, a proces of breaking up operational networks of the former communist system and helping create public confidence in new democratic institutions.

Democratic elections and market reforms were not enough to eradicate totalitarian structures. From Warsaw to Vladivostok, former communists have sought to entrench themselves and their friends - successfully in most cases - by taking advantage of the political, administrative, economic, industrial, judicial, military, police and other systems under their influence or control. Only by lustration can true democrats hope to break the stranglehold so that legitimate structures and processes can develop.

Lustration is the first line of self-defense for any formerly communist country which wishes to become fully sovereign.

The Czechs, as the only nation that has made serious attempts at lustration, have not encountered the specter of resurgent communism. Poland, despite having a law on lustration, has not taken the process very far. Polish President Lech Walesa's recent warning of a communist resurgence in his country reflects the failure, and is anything but a reassurance that Poland will be a reliable NATO partner in the near future.

Furthermore, the possibility that entrenched and networked elements of the old regimes could be used by Moscow to undermine reform is not farfetched, especially when one considers the sad fates of some of the former Soviet republics. The former KGB maintains the old agent networks and archives that the Warsaw Pact internal security services once operated.

Western counterintelligence occasionally reports that networks from former East Bloc services continue to act as surrogates for the unreformed Russian spy agencies. According to the Rev. Joachim Gauck, chief of the German government commission handling the Stasi archives, Moscow preserved what it called the Interlinked System for Recognizing Enemies, which coordinated the internal security and political police forces of all Warsaw Pact states. Its huge database has not been transferred to the Russian state commissions which handle former Soviet Communist Party archives, nor to the post-communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe.

Instead, Russian External Intelligence Service chief Yevgeny Primakov announced that Moscow would keep the archives. Not long after assuming his post he said, "The intelligence service does not intend to provide former socialist countries with lists of agents who worked there." Russia under Boris Yeltsin has therefore chosen nto to contribute to freedom in Central and Eastern Europe, but instead has preserved its potential to subvert and undermine the region. The havoc a Zhirinovsky - himself a creature of the KGB - could wreak on Europe with such networks at his disposal is cause for great concern.

Polish journalist Josef Darski, writing in the journal Uncaptive Minds, has noted that his country's new security officials from the beginning were "decidedly opposed to the dismissal of former secret collaborators and even known KGB agents." Warsaw's reluctance has been reflected throughout the region. Challenging the entrenched networks has reaped few rewards for political leaders courageous enough to try - in no small part because the West has not actively supported them.

Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis was the first, finding to his horror that leaders of his own party worked for the KGB. He persevered nonetheless. There was no rush from the West to help him succeed. When reformist Bulgarian Prime Minister Filip Dimitrov tried to rid his country of KGB agents by introducing lustration, his government collapsed. Yet the West barely noticed. Lustration in both countries stopped cold.

Lustration is not a witch hunt as former communists insist, but an application of principles employed by the Allies in postwar Germany and Japan to assure the integrity of the new democratic governments and institutions against entrenched Nazis and militarists. Fully consistent with liberal democracy, it is a guarantee of national sovereignty and of the security of the alliance overall.

NATO membership will do nothing to protect Central and Eastern Europe from internal unconventional attack via the old KGB and other Soviet-era networks. Nor will new NATO members enhance the overall security of the alliance if they cannot or will not render those networks ineffective.

Therefore, it is senseless to admit formerly communist countries into the alliance until they take measures to defend themselves internally. This means not only lustration, but the complete dissolution of remaining and unreformable security and military intelligence services, and the creation of entirely new services in partnership with Western allies.

With so much time squandered since the 1989 revolutions, these processes are likely to come about only if the West offers leadership and a strong incentive. Admission must be made on a case-by-case basis. This way the West can help Central and Eastern Europe make a clean break with the Soviet past, and create the necessary conditions for the struggling democracies there to become reliable NATO partners and true allies.

Precedent: US reportedly rejected Polish diplomat in 1990s for secret police ties

Defenders of alleged former secret police collaborators imply that the US is unconcerned with such issues, even if the individuals may have had ties to the Soviet occupation. A letter circulating on the SIEC e-list states that the US rejected a Polish diplomat's credentials a decade ago on the grounds that he had been tied to the Soviet-era secret police. The text of the letter follows:

"The issue of Henryk Szlajfer as ambassador has precedent. Around 1995, Poland opened General Consulate in Los Angeles and President Walesa came in to officially open it. However, Polish Consul General was rejected by the US government due to his suspected secret police ties. His visa was refused. He used to be the head of the American Center at Jagiellonian University. The Consulate was opened without Consul General. I hope Poland will not face a similar situation now."

Note: Other sources say the date was around 1990-91.

Ambassador Rey 'meant to say' no Szlajfer probe is warranted

President Clinton's former ambassador to Poland, Nicholas Rey, denies in harsh terms our Friday the 13th report that he agreed that the Szlajfer "case needs to be researched thoroughly."

Rey says in an e-mail circulated over the weekend, "Nothing could be further from the truth. I find the blog a despicable effort at character assassination reminiscent of the techniques used in the Soviet era. My comment in the Gazeta was merely meant to say: do not believe this bzdura [absurdity] until you check the facts, certainly not that an 'investigation' in any official sense was warranted."

That's quite a bit of backtracking. While accusing this blog and its partner of "Soviet" behavior, he doesn't deny he said what we reported him as saying, and he doesn't allege that we innacurately presented his quote, which was: "The case needs to be researched thoroughly, of course, and see what Szlajfer has to say."

Instead, he indicates - inaccurately - that this blog was calling for an "official" investigation. He concludes in his note by saying such a probe is "unwarranted," which has been his consistent position since the 1990s.

Gazeta Wyborcza editor credited Trotskyism for allowing him to remain Communist

Did Henryk Szlajfer belong to a Trotskyist Communist group when he was a "dissident"?

Gazeta Wyborcza didn't like this blogger's reference to the "Commandos," a Marxist group that Szlajfer joined as a young political activist, as embracing of Red Army founder Leon Trotsky's brand of Marxism-Leninism.

Was Gazeta Wyborcza being objective in its criticism? Or was it trying to kill the messenger to cover up skeletons in its own closet?

The leader of the "Commandos" was Szlajfer's longtime friend Adam Michnik, founder and editor of Gazeta Wyborcza.

Michnik himself described, in 1988, his and the Commandos' identification with Trotskyism. He wrote that he and his "dissident" friends were indeed Communists, but that they didn't like the Soviet model. Trotskyism allowed him, Szlajfer and the others to rebel against Moscow while remaining un-democratic and hostile to the West.

Here are Michnik's words translated into English, with the original Polish wording retained in brackets:

"this was the moment [1968] when this small, rebellious group of Communists, dissidents, suddenly seized the national banner. . . . And I shall not hide that we had something in common with Trotskyism, but not with Zionism [i nie będę ukrywał, że coś mieliśmy wspólnego z trockizmem, ale z syjonizmem nic]. . . . What was attractive in their [Trotskyist] thinking for us? It was that thanks to Trotskyism one could be an anti-Soviet rebel but simultaneously remain a Communist-Marxist [Co było dla nas atrakcyjne w ich (trockistów) myśleniu? To, że dzięki trockizmowi można było być zbuntowanym, antysowieckim, a jednocześnie być komunistą-marksistą].”

Source: “Pewien polski etos…. Rozmowa Dany Cohn-Bendita z Adamem Michnikiem,” Kontakt (Vanves), no. 6 (June 1988): p. 46-48. (Bold emphasis added.)

Former US Ambassador Rey agrees: Szlajfer case 'needs to be researched thoroughly'

Commenting on this blogger's report on the Henryk Szlajfer case and the evidence indicating Soviet-era collaboration with the Polish KGB, former US Ambassador to Poland Nicholas Rey told Gazeta Wyborcza, "the case needs to be researched thoroughly."

Ambassador Rey cautioned that he thought Gazeta Wyborcza shouldn't be making such a big deal about the issue, because it is from a just one person's blog (this blogger concurs!). He added that he thought Szlajfer was treated "absolutely unfairly." However, his words showed agreement that the concerns raised in the blog needed to be fully investigated.

Rey served as President Bill Clinton's ambassador to Warsaw in the 1990s. In his words to Gazeta Wyborcza, translated back to English from Polish, he stated, "We should not overestimate the article of Mr. Waller. This is not a text from the New York Times. The case needs to be researched thoroughly, of course, and see what Szlajfer has to say. However, this article is not an objective historical testimony. It is a political game. Szlajfer was treated absolutely unfairly."

The former US diplomat criticized this blogger for having argued that Poland should lustrate its government and military of former Soviet secret police and intelligence collaborators prior to entering NATO.

Szlajfer denies he was a secret police collaborator. His response to the blog article appears below.

Szlajfer denies he was secret police collaborator

Henryk Szlajfer, director of the America Department at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a reported top candidate to become Poland’s next ambassador to the United States, denies that he was a “TW” – a former secret collaborator with the Soviet-era political police. His denial ran in the Warsaw newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza on 8 May 2005.

In the piece, he assailed the April 30 report in my FourthWorldWar blog that the official microfilmed index from the Polish secret police contained his name as a collaborator and that his uncle and namesake was killed by Polish anti-communists as a member of the Polish Stalinist NKVD legion. Szlajfer issued a detailed rebuttal, which appears translated below. To clarify his line of argument, this blogger has inserted comments that appear between brackets [ ], with lengthier commentary added between brackets and in italics.

Here is a brief glossary of some of the terms Szlajfer uses in his piece. “SB” stands for “Sluzba Bezpieczentswa,” the Security Service that was the Polish KGB. “TW” means secret police collaborator. “Commandos” refers to a dissident Marxist faction led by Adam Michnik – founder and editor of Gazeta Wyborcza - that opposed the pro-Moscow regime from the left, and which I had labeled “Trotskyist.” A translation of Szlajfer’s essay follows:

“I Was Not a TW”
By Henryk Szlajfer, Gazeta Wyborcza, Sunday, 8 May 2005

“M. Waller from a little American institute has launched a double accusation against me. First, he has not excluded that I can be a Soviet agent (see the title of his blog “Poland’s Soviet ambasador [sic] to the USA?”) and, second, he reported that while I was an oppositionist with the commando group (1966-1968), I became a collaborator of the SB. He has also added that I never proclaimed that 'the accusations against . . . [me] are false.'

“M. Waller is wrong on each count.

“As far as the first question is concerned, pressed by the Polish journalist, M. Waller assured the Gazeta of May 4: 'I’m not saying that Szlajfer collaborated with the Soviets.' Beautiful. So was the title of the blog entry proposed then by aliens from space? If I were to take advantage of the method preferred by Waller, I could ask: ‘Is a Soviet "political technologist" operating in a Washington institute?’

“And now, let’s move to the second problem, which is much more serious. According to Waller, the SB materials prove that the accusation is true. A proof? And that is where the convoluted argument starts. The American reader of the blog is convinced that Waller is very well informed. After all, he writes that the materials “point out” and “verify.” However, as far as the Polish reader is concerned, who is well-tuned to the matters of lustration, Waller declares to him [the Gazeta reporter] that what he has actually seen was “a catalogue of microfilmed files.” In other words, he has seen an enlarged version of ‘Wildstein’s list.’ He is also concerned about the lack of “house cleaning,” which translates – a procedure to vet [procedury sprawdzania – procedures of checking]. Waller is mistaken. This sort of a procedure to vet are obligatory and they also concern the element of lustration (point 11 of the Questionnaire of Personal/Individual Security) from 1998-1999.”

[Blogger’s note: Szlajfer does not tell us if he personally underwent any vetting procedure. He does not explain that if he had already been vetted, why the results had not been published in an easily accessible form. He doesn’t even say if they were published at all, as is a common custom for exculpation from allegations of collaboration. He mentions a questionnaire (Ankieta Bezpieczenstwa Osobowego), which means that he had to fill something out. Was the statement voluntary? How was it verified? Why is everything such a big secret in Poland, where it’s still a crime to publish the identities of former communist collaborators?]

“And, in general, I could stop here. However, I will not. There is also the matter of, as Waller claims, my silence regarding the accusations.

“When in 1987 an underground Polish translation of P. Lendvai’s Antisemitism without Jews appeared (English edition in 1971), I read in it that I operated in the milieu of the ‘commandoes’ as a collaborator of the UB. My reaction was instantaneous. . . .”

[At this point, Szlajfer boasts how he objected in the leftist underground press and how someone else very unfavorably reviewed the book in an underground leftist periodical, Krytyka. All the titles he mentions, Tygodnik, Mazowsze and Krytyka, were controlled by his more-leftist-than-the-regime friends. Then Szlajfer compares this blogger to the Soviets, as follows.]

“The conclusion? Waller simply failed to do his homework. To dot an ‘i’ in the ‘commando’ milieu, which was described by Waller in outright classical Soviet-speak ('Trotskyite “dissident” faction'), there was no TW. This is not only wishful thinking. Quoting the findings of Professor Andrzej Friszke, a member of the Collegium of the Institute of National Remembrance, Professor Andrzej Paczkowski proclaimed on the pages of Gazeta on January 17, 2005: ‘At the KOR center [the Committee to Defend Workers] there were no TW [secret collaborators]. They were at the edges [of KOR]. The ‘commando’ milieu was similarly hermetic. There were no TW there either.”

[Blogger’s comment: Friszke is considered an apologist for numerous Marxist and leftist “dissidents” and collaborators with the regime, and has shown no identification with countrymen who opposed ALL the communists instead of just the ruling party. He is reportedly the only one who is permitted access to KOR and “commando” secret police files, and as such, virtually monopolized the topic in post-Soviet Poland. Paczkowski was his boss and sponsor. Paczkowski himself was accused of being a TW, but he was cleared. It is uncertain how solid the case was against him but it looks like the secret police targeted him for recruitment and he maneuvered long enough for them to let him off the hook. Non-leftist historians have not been able to research the KOR and commando files.]

“Let me return to the article [which Szlajfer wrote in his own defense for the underground leftist Krytyka in 1987]. I consider it necessary to recall it so that there would be no impression created that I have been silent about this painful matter and that I remain silent.

“That article was an attempt to come to terms not only with ideological illusions of a 20-year old. It was first of all an answer to the question: ‘what happened to me after I crossed the threshold of prison?’ And something bad happened, when there was lack of previous jail experience, pride, psychological exhaustion, isolation cells and ‘tiger’ tactics [sudden interrogations by the SB], and a very skilled game by the SB which wielded, among other things, case files and falsified secret letters from fellow prisoners – all that finally led to confession. Here is no place for lengthy quotes. Let me just give you one: ‘I saw how people received my attitude during the interrogation and in court. They did not care – and they were correct not to – that there was neither contrition nor a plea for a lesser sentence nor admission of guilt. It only mattered that when I stood before the court I did not say: “I withdraw all my confessions, and that’s it.” All that mattered was that in the hands of the prosecutor and the SB the differences became tools of manipulation.’ This is what happened nearly 40 years ago. However, the most important border was not crossed [i.e., he did not become a TW]. Therefore I was able to write about my attitude in an underground newspaper which grew out of, among other things, the rebellion of the ‘commandos.’”

Scholar adds to questions about Szlajfer

A prominent Washington academic specialist on Poland has criticized this blogger for questions of tone and balance in his April 30 article about Henryk Szlajfer, but he calls the blogger an "impeccable source" nevertheless.

Michael Szporer, in his SIEC e-bulletin, says that the criticism of Szlajfer is valid. His comments follow:

"A more serious question is how well-suited is Mr. Szlajfer's appointment in the current political climate in Washington?

"Or what might happen if the next Polish government, likely to consist of center-right PiS and PO, will extend lustration to ambassadorial and other high-profile appointments?

"Will Mr. Szlajfer's appointment facilitate, or further complicate a relationship that is dangerously becoming unclear, muddled by the visa and military aid complications, and now the new VAT requirements, which could stifle US investment in Poland?

"Will Poland under the new ambassador achieve greater visibility in Washington, or will its concerns find their way to the back burner straining the relationship between Poland and US even further?

"Poland has not vetted its diplomatic corps, nor has it thoroughly reformed its Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1989, as other countries that rejoined Europe have, notably Lithuania. What Warsaw has not understood is that what it imagines as passable or appropriate in Warsaw does not necessarily serve Poland's interests abroad. It is another reason for improving the channels between Warsaw and Washington by establishing an Institute [forum for exchange of ideas as well as a training center], and soliciting advice from Polonia.

"Washington is not in the business of selecting foreign ambassadors. More importantly, who should be ambassador is not a question of right political affiliation, liberal or conservative, or background. Few in Washington would deny that ambassador Jerzy Kozminski was a hallmark of Polish diplomacy, even though he had no ties to the opposition. Ambassador Kozminski amply demonstrates that Poland has competent individuals, on both the left and the right, to serve her well in a key post like Washington. These concerns demonstrate that Washington is not beyond understanding the "nuances" of Poland's internal politics or has forgotten its recent history. Warsaw should taylor its diplomats destined for Washington to Washington--and not to its whims.

"Mr. Szlajfer's nomination has surfaced some time ago, following the resignation by the former foreign minister and presidential candidate Andrzej Olechowski. It demonstrates a close association of certain elements of Freedom Union with president Aleksander Kwasniewski's circle. There is nothing wrong with forging a new left in Poland under the banner of a Democratic Party, which, given the pendulum swings of Polish politics, may take power down the road if the expected to win center-right coalition fails to deliver. However, it is not wise to assume Washington will gloss it over and all will be well."

Michael Szporer

Polish 'spy list' more popular on Internet than sex

A leaked index of more than 240,000 Polish citizens who reputedly spied for the Soviet occupation's secret police has outstripped sex as the hottest search item on the Internet in Poland, according to Agence France Presse on February 6.

"This thing is huge. We have recorded around 100,000 Internet searches a day for the list, which is 10 times the number looking for sex," Piotr Tchorzewski of Poland's biggest Internet portal Onet, told the Warsaw paper Rzeczpospolita.

According to AFP, the list "contains in alphabetical order the names of alleged agents and collaborators of the communist-ero secret service, mixed together with the names of those who were allegedly spied on.

"On Onet's web portal, it tops the list of search items, and visitors are referred to 650,000 links for the controversial collection of names that has pushed the attorney general to launch legal proceedings and Prime Minister Marek Belka to express concern for the safety of active intelligence agents whose names 'might' be on the list.

Journalist Bronislaw Wildstein discovered the list and "secretly copied it," according to AFP.

Text of interview with Newsweek on Polish secret police

The following is the text of an online interview that Polish Newsweek correspondent Pawel Szaniawski conducted with this blogger on May 6, 2005. The interview, in the form of a set of written questions, concerned our April 30 post about Henryk Szlajfer, a possible candidate for Polish ambassador to the United States, and a secret police record indicating that he might have been an agent. The text of the interview follows:

Newsweek: Some accusations appeared that your blog post was not uncalculated, coming in time for the long weekend in Poland and just before the current Marek Belka government is expected to hand in its resignation. What is more, you admited to "Gazeta Wyborcza" that you had the materials about Szlajfer for a long time. Why you decided to publish them at this particular moment?

Waller: The blog is so obscure that I had no idea the story would provoke any interest in Poland. If I had "calculated" the story, I would have written it for a magazine or newspaper. I do not follow the Polish press, Polish politics or the Polish holiday calendar. My interest in the Szlajfer case is part of a larger interest in the residue of the secret police of the former Soviet bloc. I have been collecting material from the Soviet-era archives from a number of countries and writing about them for 15 years. Once in a while when somebody’s name comes up in current events, my colleagues and I will exchange information to see what there might be. This was the case with Mr. Szlajfer’s name.

Newsweek: "Gazeta wyborcza" quotes high ranking White House servant who claims that your article is a nonsense and it is an attempt to ovethrow Szlajfer's candidature. Are you trying to play such role?

Waller: No. Mr. Szlajfer and those like him can end the controversy by claiming "victim of Communism" status and disclosing what is in the secret police files. This is a matter of transparency and accountability, not simply the mistakes people made in the past. If people avoid exonerating or explaining themselves when they have the chance, they simply keep alive the unpleasant questions that will cloud their names and damage their effectiveness. People can be very understanding, myself included. However, if the individuals in question get indignant and denounce the questions without answering them, it’s clear they have something to hide.

Governments that choose to post such people to Washington should not try to hide the facts, particularly when the information is on an official record. If an ambassador does have such a past, it should be disclosed fully and explained, pre-empting any controversy and satisfying legitimate questions.

I don’t believe Gazeta wyborcza cited a White House "servant" by name, and I have not read the article, so I cannot judge the validity of its report. Even so, different officials focus on different issues. What might be of concern to a diplomat or trade official might not be of concern to a security-oriented official, and vice-versa.

Newsweek: You have written that: "American officials are concerned that, with the communist-era secret police archives moved to Moscow, the Russian intelligence services are able to compromise the integrity of democratic Poland and, consequently, NATO itself." You also quote "a Washington source with close ties to the State Department and White House. "It would further undermine confidence in Poland's commitment to remain independent from Moscow." Do you agree with this statement?
Waller: I agree with what I wrote on the blog. I am doubtful that former collaborators with the Polish Communist secret police are free from being blackmailed by the Russians, who almost certainly have their files. It stands to reason that Moscow will try mightily to manipulate Polish officials who could be susceptible to blackmail. Consequently, those officials could compromise Poland’s commitment to remain independent from Moscow. Since collaboration was on such a large scale, and since the former Communists in Poland have shown little if any contrition for their past collaboration and even less interest in bringing the truth to light, it is reasonable as a friend of Poland for me to be concerned about its leaders’ commitment to keep the country independent from Russia.

Newsweek: Do you think Szlajfer - as a Polish ambassador in Washington - can complicate a Polish-US relationship and prolong visa restrictions on Polish citizens or other delicate issues?

Waller: I believe that any Polish ambassador to Washington would unnecessarily complicate our countries’ relations if he had an unresolved or hidden history as an alleged agent of the Communist secret police. It is difficult to see how Americans would view such an individual as a credible representative of a truly democratic Poland.

Newsweek: Do you think candidates for Polish ambassadors should be officially checked (by the court?) concerning their possible collaboration with communist secret police?

Waller: It is not my place to tell Poland how it should screen its own diplomats. However, it is hard to see how a court that dismisses official microfilm evidence on politicians [as with the case of President Aleksandr Kwaśniewski, a former communist whose Soviet-era file indicated he was a secret police collaborator] would be a credible venue for screening ambassadors, and to my knowledge many of the foreign ministry records have been destroyed. I think it is very unfortunate that Poland has chosen to cover up the Soviet-era crimes of its officials by rejecting the lustration process that other former Soviet colonies have carried out.

Newsweek: What materials except for Wildstein's List and "sources close to the White House" do you have?

Waller: Nice try.

[End of text.]

Indignance from Polish press signals deeper problem

The response was surprising to last week's post about a possible top candidate for Poland's next ambassador to Washington.

It was surprising, first, because of the big deal the Polish media has made about it: breathless front-page stories in Warsaw based on a single posting in this obscure little blog.

The other surprise is much more serious - and disturbing. Most of the Polish journalists who called me about the story were defensive or outright hostile.

Not hostile to President Kwaśniewski or his reputed candidate to be Poland's next ambassador to Washington, both of whom, the archives show, were agents of the communist secret police.

The Polish press seems outright indignant that I should ask questions about the ambassador-in-waiting. Most Polish reporters make it clear by their questions that they don't like people to go around asking such things.

That's too bad. It shows that, just like the politicians, many of Poland's best journalists would rather see the issue of collaboration with the Soviet occupation swept under the rug. That's not a good sign. It indicates that not all is well in the Polish press corps, and that the journalism profession in Warsaw deserves special scrutiny for its own conveniently forgotten past.

The post that started it all: Poland's Soviet ambassador to the USA?

The following is the post on the FourthWorldWar blog that started the controversy:

Is the Polish government readying to appoint an alleged communist secret police collaborator as its representative in Washington?

That’s what sources close to the White House are worried about. And they say it’s the last thing that Polish-American relations need right now.

Tough jobs await the next Polish ambassador here. One of them is to convince Washington that the Polish government has purged itself of Soviet-era operatives and spies – something that President Aleksandr Kwaśniewski has set a bad example at doing. That long-awaited housecleaning is one of several quietly understood but publicly unspoken necessities for the U.S. to consider lifting visa restrictions on Polish citizens.

Kwaśniewski’s reputed top choice to be Poland’s official face in Washington is Henryk Szlajfer. Szlajfer comes from the old Communist Party nobility whose parents and relatives staffed Stalin’s occupation government after the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1944.

The secret official microfilms of the Polish political police indicate that Szlajfer was working covertly for the Communists while operating among political dissidents. Szlajfer has not publicly commented on the matter.
"Poland has made so many gains that it’s hard to believe its leaders would send a former communist secret police agent as the country’s representative to America," says a Washington source with close ties to the State Department and White House. "It would further undermine confidence in Poland’s commitment to remain independent from Moscow."

American officials are concerned that, with the communist-era secret police archives moved to Moscow, the Russian intelligence services are able to compromise the integrity of democratic Poland and, consequently, NATO itself.

Here is what we find in the microfilmed archives: Two entries for "Szlajfer Henryk" are recorded on the so-called Wildstein’s List – IPN BU 644/596, KBW, akta osobowe; and IPN BU 001043/1706, Mikrofilmy MSW, jedynki MKF. The first entry denotes personal files and likely concerns Henryk Szlajfer, the ambassador-apparent’s uncle and namesake who was with Poland’s NKVD (KBW) and was believed killed by his pro-democratic countrymen at the dawn of the Soviet occupation in 1944.

The second entry regards the Henryk Szlajfer who might become Poland’s official representative in Washington. The "jedynki MKF" information denotes that Henryk Szlajfer was either a candidate for a secret agent or a secret agent.

"MKF" means that the material exists on microfilm only. It appears that the original paper file of Henryk Szlajfer, as with most of the Soviet occupation archives, was destroyed by the Communist secret police after being microfilmed. Former collaborators such as President Kwaśniewski have been able to escape culpability for their crimes, according to Polish courts, for lack of the original paper documents, which were either destroyed or transferred to Moscow during the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

Any official inquiry will have to base itself on analysis of the microfilm, which is preserved at the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw.

Szlajfer allegedly became an informer as a student leader in 1968, following his arrest during protests against the banning of a Romantic-era play, "The Forefathers’ Eve" by Adam Mickiewicz. The play contains anti-Russian (though not anti-Soviet) elements, but the regime considered anti-Russian themes to be politically and culturally subversive. Polish sources say that the secret police targeted Szlajfer that year during the regime’s "anti-Zionist campaign."

Though later identified with the Solidarity movement, Szlajfer participated Marxist "dissident" activity in the late 1950s through the mid-‘60s in high school and at the University of Warsaw. He participated in a Trotskyist "dissident" faction called "The Commandos" and led by Adam Michnik.

Szlajfer co-authored an obscure book on "monopoly capitalism" that was published in 1984 by a Marxist press in New York. He joined the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1989.

Sources close to the former Solidarity movement say that Szlajfer, a trained economist and sociologist, kept a low profile after 1968, both as a "dissident" and as a bureaucrat.

The microfilm file verifies what Paul Lendvai recorded in his 1971 book, Anti-Semitism Without Jews: Communist Eastern Europe (Doubleday). Lendvai’s contention, based upon information from other victims of the 1968 "anti-Zionist campaign."

Why this blog?

This blog is intended to help Poland's democratic people gain part of their history that the "former" communists stole from them after the country's liberation from Soviet rule.

Its purpose is to provide information on collaboration with the Soviet-controlled secret police.

The blog, named after the Polish-born founder of the Bolshevik secret police, was started on May 9, 2005, in response to the Warsaw newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, which attacked me for asking questions about Poland's collaborators with the former Soviet occupation regime.

Gazeta Wyborcza, the country's largest news daily which likes to call itself "the New York Times of Poland," is run by "former" communists, both of the Soviet and Trotskyite strains, and includes the daughter of the chief of the old party Central Committee propaganda unit. The former Trotskyites like to call themselves "dissidents," even though they were neither pro-democratic nor pro-western.

The paper objected to my raising the issue of the alleged collaborationist background of an individual expected to be named the next Polish ambassador to the United States.

The paper issued a bizarre, four-page attack on me and my small and obscure Fourth World War blog. In the midst of its objections, it failed to address the issue of how current Polish leaders in politics and diplomacy (and journalism?) collaborated with the communist secret police and have gotten away with it.

This blog is devoted to the search for the truth of secret collaboration under Nazi and Soviet rule.