Poland Claims CIA Mole Warned U.S. of Plans to Impose Martial Law in 1981

WARSAW —  Poland said Wednesday that a CIA spy in the Polish general command told U.S. officials of plans to impose martial law a month before it began in 1981, and it interpreted Washington’s silence after the leak was discovered as a “reticent go-ahead” for the crackdown.

Government spokesman Jerzy Urban said the United States was aware of the threat of a Soviet invasion to crush opposition led by the independent Solidarity trade union and that Washington instead allowed Poland to impose martial law.

In Washington, the State Department denied the Polish report, calling it “a self-serving attempt to lay the blame for martial law in Poland somewhere else than where it belongs, that is, with the Polish government.”

“The U.S. government obtained conflicting reports from various sources about possible steps that the Soviet government or the Polish government might take against Solidarity and the Polish people,” a State Department spokesman said.

“We were well aware of the possibility of imposition of martial law but had no definitive information as to whether or when such a step might actually be taken,” the spokesman said, reading from a prepared statement.

Urban identified the CIA spy in the top command of the Polish military as Wladyslaw Kuklinski, a colonel responsible for the “general conception” of the martial law crackdown.

The Washington Post, which identified Kuklinski in a story Wednesday, said Kuklinski was removed from Poland by the United States in November after a Soviet official told Polish leaders that plans for the crackdown had been leaked to the West.

Kuklinski and his family live in the United States under new identities, the Post report said.

Newsweek magazine first reported that the CIA had an agent in the top-levels of the Polish military. That report, in December, 1982, did not identify the agent by name.