Kukliński was born in Warsaw to a working-class family with strong Catholic and socialist traditions. During
World War II, his father became a member of the
Polish resistance movement; he was captured by the
Gestapo, and subsequently died in the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After the war, Kukliński began a successful career in the
Polish People's Army. In 1964, he began work in Polish
espionage and
counterintelligence operations. In 1968, he took part in preparations for the
Warsaw Pact's
invasion of Czechoslovakia. Disturbed by the invasion, and by the brutal crushing of the parallel
Polish 1970 protests, in 1972, Kukliński sent a letter to the
US embassy in Bonn describing himself as an army officer from a Communist country and requesting a secret meeting. In 1994, Kukliński said that his awareness of the "unambiguously offensive" nature of Soviet military plans was an important factor in his decision to communicate the details of those plans to the United States, adding that "Our front could only be a sacrifice of Polish blood at the altar of the Red Empire". Kukliński was also concerned that his homeland would be turned into a nuclear wasteland as the Warsaw Pact's superiority in conventional forces would mean NATO would respond to military action with
tactical nuclear weapons. Between 1972 and 1981, he passed 35,000 pages of mostly
Soviet secret documents to the CIA. The documents described Moscow's strategic plans regarding the use of
nuclear weapons, technical data about the
T-72 tank and
9K31 Strela-1 missiles, the whereabouts of Soviet
anti-aircraft bases in Poland and East Germany, the methods used by the Soviets to avoid
spy satellite detection of their military hardware, plans for the imposition of
martial law in Poland, and many other matters. of Colonel Kukliński He was the first foreign recipient of the
Distinguished Intelligence Medal.
Escape to the United States Facing imminent danger of discovery from a denunciation by a secret Communist collaborator known only by his alias "Prorok", Kukliński, his wife and two sons were spirited out of Poland by the CIA shortly before the imposition of martial law in December 1981. Though Kukliński and his family successfully defected, his past may have followed him to the United States as both of his sons later died in separate incidents. The older, Waldemar, was run over by a truck without a licence plate in August 1994 on the grounds of an American university. It has been suggested that his younger son, Bogdan Kukliński, drowned on December 31, 1993, when his yacht capsized on a quiet sea. The weekly "Wprost" however suggests in a 2009 issue, citing three independent and undisclosed sources, that the younger son, Bogdan, is probably still alive under the witness protection program. According to the author of the article, Leszek Szymowski, he was not murdered by the KGB. Ryszard Kukliński did not claim that they were assassinated, but never rejected such a possibility either. On May 23, 1984, Kukliński was
sentenced to death,
in absentia, by a
military court in Warsaw. After the
fall of communism, the sentence was changed to 25 years. In 1995, the court revoked the sentence and said that Kukliński was acting under special circumstances and Kukliński visited Poland again in April 1998.
Death Kukliński died from a stroke at the age of 73 in
Tampa, Florida, February 11, 2004. His funeral mass was held at
Fort Myer with CIA honors on March 30, 2004. His remains were transported to Poland and on June 19, 2004, Kukliński was buried in the row of honour in the
Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, along with the remains of his son Waldemar. in Warsaw ==Legacy==