26.05.2005 

Part V: Polish Intelligence 1989-2005
Interfering with Political Processes

An extremely high involvement into internal political processes of Poland is a distinctive feature of activity of Polish special services after 1989.
The history of the "Office of State Protection " (Urzad Ochrony Panstwa - UOP), from the moment of its formation in 1990 and until disbandment in 2002 constitutes a sequence of scandals caused by constant attempts of organization's leaders to meddle in political matters.
Primarily these were attempts to use archives of former Communist security service SB for discrediting of political opponents of the ruling coalition. The scenario of such provocations based on usage of old documents, is simple: UOP representatives passed to the press documented evidence  - sometimes truthful, but mostly fabricated, about contacts of certain opposition representatives with Communist secret service. Such publications could cost some people their political careers. According to the statements of some former officers of SB, last chief of this organization general Henryk Dankowski gave in June, 1989 a direct order on destruction of the files on outstanding Polish politicians of that period. But later it became obvious that not all the files were destroyed. However, officers of UOP, having an exuberant imagination mostly had no need in all the files….

Discrediting the Prime Minister

The loudest political scandal around of the publication of archived SB materials took place in December, 1995. Andrzej Milczanowski – the Minister of Internal Affairs at that time, accused the Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy, present leader of SLD, in connections with the Russian intelligence. The charges became the main reason of Oleksa`s resignation in January, 1996. The documents on Oleksa`s contacts with Russians was handed to the Minister of Internal Affairs by the chief of UOP at that time Gromoslaw Czempinski. In his turn, Czempinski received them from the high-ranking intelligence officer Marian Zacharski (His name was mentioned in the second part of this series – he was arrested in 1981 in the USA, and returned to Poland in 1985). Zacharski claimed that certain Polish agent of KGB under a nickname "Olin" for 11 years (1981-1992) kept intelligence contact with the first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Warsaw Vladimir Alganov. Later in 1992 the contact was "inherited" by other Russian diplomat, Georgiy Yakimishin. Zacharski asserted, that Jozef Oleksy was the "Olin". In this connection also it was marked, that Yakimishin left the Polish capital immediately after the publication in local press of the information on his contacts with the agent.
The Polish Office of Public Prosecutor as nonconvincing found the arguments of Zacharski, Czempinski and Milczanowski. The charges against Oleksy were  recognized as unreasonable for UOP and the Ministry of Internal Affairs could not prove him being the agent "Olin". Yet, they received what they desired – Oleksy left his post. And those, responcible for that were not punished despite of proving the charges being wrong. On the contrary, after his defeat at the elections, before leaving his post Lech Walesa signed the decree promoting them!, Zacharski was appointed to the chief of Department of intelligence in UOP. However, he remaind at this post for a very limited time, because of the American State Department pressure. He was  dismissed because the USA naturally did not wish to see the person condemned in the past for espionage against America as the head of an allied intelligence structure.
Similar scandal has burst oin a threshold of presidential elections of 2000. Both nominees Walesa and Kwasniewski, used their connections in UOP to receive discrediting information on the opponent. As the result, materials about cooperation of both politicians with SB were published. The end of this scandal was similar to the previous -  the information was declared as incorrect by judicial authorities. Kwasniewski was elected for the second presidential term.

The new wave of the charges based on UOP materials, came a year later, during the preparations to the elections to the Sejm. Prime Minister from "Solidarity Electoral Action" (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarnosc - AWS) Jerzy Buzek used his Minister Coordinator of Secret Services Janusz Palubicki to get the archived documents discrediting his of political opponents.

Return to the Political Control?

Besides trading in discrediting materials, UOP actively engaged in physical infiltration to various political structures, contrary to proclaimed in 1990, at the creation of the organization principle of abandoning the Soviet methods of political control. The proofs of such UOP activity were found in 1997 in the safe of colonel Lesiak.  They were the documents containing results of secret surveillance over politicians the right camp. The last scandal of such scale burst in April, 2004. However, this time not the civil special services - successors of UOP were in the center of it, but the Polish military intelligence (WSI). It was revealed that agents of WSI worked under various covers  in the administration of the Prime Minister Miller. After the publication of this information in the press, representatives of the Prime Ministers office demanded to start reformation of the military intelligence following the model of UOP reform. But two weeks later, on May 2, 2004, Miller appeared to be involved in another corruption scandal and was compelled to resign.
The question on reform of military intelligence  was suspended. The new Prime Minister Belka preferred a long and difficult process of personnel "cleaning" in WSI (see the fourth part of the article).
Presently one can only hope, that staff renovation in the intelligence community of Poland, which was started by Belka will continue even after the parliamentary elections of 2005. Hopefully, the new generation of the Polish intelligence officers, which grew up in democratic Poland, will be less prone to corruption, which has struck former employees SB and WSW (military intelligence of Communist Poland).

Read about the activity of special services of Russia and Ukraine in territory of Poland in the next part of the article.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

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