Despite the 2000 ruling of a special
lustration court affirming his innocence, for many years there have been allegations that Wałęsa was an informant of the
Security Service of the Polish People's Republic (Służba Bezpieczeństwa or SB), the Communist security services, in his twenties. In his 2002 book titled
The Polish Revolution: Solidarity, British historian
Timothy Garton Ash writes that Wałęsa, while vehemently denying being a regular Security Service informer, admitted that he had "signed something" under interrogation in the 1970s. In 2008, a book written by historians
Sławomir Cenckiewicz and
Piotr Gontarczyk titled
SB a Lech Wałęsa. Przyczynek do biografii (
SB and Lech Wałęsa. Contribution to biography) purported to show that Wałęsa, codenamed
Bolek, had been an operative for the security services from 1970 to 1976. In 2017, a handwriting study ordered by the government-controlled
Institute of National Remembrance (INR), stated that signatures on several documents from the 1970s belonged to Wałęsa. The exact nature of Wałęsa's relationship with Security Service continues to be a source of scholarly debate among historians. In 2018 INR Court Case against Wałęsa was dismissed, as the investigation concluded: "The reason for discontinuing the investigation was the finding that the above-mentioned act had not been committed," the release stated, which would indicate that Wałęsa could be innocent. Anti-Communists
Piotr Naimski, one of the first members of the Workers' Defense Committee that led to the
Solidarity trade union, and
Antoni Macierewicz, Wałęsa's former
Interior Minister, testified against him in the closed vetting trial. Naimski, who said he testified with a "heavy heart", expressed his disappointment that Wałęsa "made a mistake by not going openly to the public, and he has missed an important chance". A parliamentary committee later concluded Wałęsa had not signed an agreement with the secret police. this court ruling did not convince many Poles. Five months later, Kaczyński failed to invite Wałęsa to the commemoration service at
Katyn, which almost certainly saved Wałęsa's life because the
presidential plane crashed, killing all on board. In August 2010, Wałęsa lost a libel case against Krzysztof Wyszkowski, his former fellow activist, who also publicly accused Wałęsa of being a Communist agent in 1970s.
SB and Lech Wałęsa. A contribution to biography (2008) The most comprehensive analysis of Wałęsa's possible collaboration with secret police was provided in a 2008 book ''
(SB and Lech Wałęsa. Contribution to biography''). The book was written by two historians from the Institute of National Remembrance,
Sławomir Cenckiewicz and
Piotr Gontarczyk, and included documents from the archives of the secret police that were inherited by the institute. Among the documents were registration cards, memos, notes from the secret police, and reports from the informant. The book's authors argue that Wałęsa, working under the code name
Bolek, was a secret police informant from 1970 (after being released from jail) until 1976 (before he was fired from the shipyard). According to the authors, "he wrote reports and informed on more than 20 people and some of them were persecuted by the Communist police. He identified people and eavesdropped on his colleagues at work while they were listening to
Radio Free Europe for example". The book describes the fate of seven of his alleged victims; information regarding others was destroyed or stolen from the files. The authors also claim that during his 1990–1995 presidency, Wałęsa used his office to destroy the evidence of his collaboration with the secret police by removing incriminating documents from the archives. Wałęsa vowed to sue the authors but never did.
Kiszczak archives On 18 February 2016, the government-affiliated INR in Warsaw announced it had seized a package of original documents that allegedly proved Wałęsa was a paid
Security Service informant. The documents' authenticity was confirmed by an archival expert, but the prosecutors demanded a
handwriting examination. Eventually, the requested examination concluded that the documents were authentic, which suggest he was a paid informant. The sealed dossier also contained a letter, hand-written by Kiszczak in April 1996, in which he informs the Director of the Polish Central Archives of Modern Records (
Archiwum Akt Nowych) about the accompanying files documenting the collaboration of Wałęsa with the Polish Security Service and asks him not to publish this information until five years after Wałęsa's death. In his letter, Kiszczak said he kept the documents out of reach: before the
1989 revolution, trying to protect Wałęsa's reputation; and afterwards to make sure they did not disappear or were used for political reasons. However, according to Polish law, all documents of the political police must be handed in to the state.
Wałęsa's response For years, Wałęsa vehemently denied collaborating with the
Polish Security Service and dismissed the incriminating files as forgeries created by the Security Service to compromise him. Wałęsa also denies that during his presidency he removed documents incriminating him from the archives. Wałęsa's interior minister Andrzej Milczanowski denied the cover-up and said he "had full legal rights to make those documents available to President Wałęsa" and that "no original documents were removed from the file", which contained only photocopies. Wałęsa has offered conflicting statements regarding the authenticity of the documents. to escape from the secret police. Wałęsa said, "It is also the truth that I had not left that clash completely pure. They gave me a condition: sign! And then I signed." However, in his later years Wałęsa said all the documents are forgeries and told the
BBC in 2008, "you will not find any signature of mine agreeing to collaborate anywhere". Wałęsa threatened to leave Poland if historians continue to question his past. He said that before revealing such information "a historian must decide whether this serves Poland". After the accusations against him resurfaced with the discovery of the Kiszczak dossier on 16 February 2016, Wałęsa called the files "lies, slander and forgeries", He said of the Polish public, which was about to believe in the allegations, "you have betrayed me, not me you", On 20 February 2016, Wałęsa wrote in his blog that a secret police officer had begged him to sign the financial documents in the 1970s because the officer had lost money entrusted to him to purchase a vehicle. Wałęsa appealed to the officer to step forward and clear him of the accusations. ==Personal life==