The Main Enemy by Milton Bearden (epub e reader txt) 📕

groups inside the Soviet Union, meanwhile, literature and other works funded by the CIA provided objective national histories. Over the years, the CIA had perfected the art of smuggling books to those groups. The agency seeded Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with copies of the Bible, The Gulag Archipelago, and other great works, sometimes in the form of tiny books that could easily be hidden from the authorities.

Émigré publishers in Paris and other Western cities, with the quiet backing of the CIA, had fervently kept alive dreams of freedom for Russia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. By the 1980s, some had added videos to their lineup, producing documentaries, music videos, and other programs that could be purchased in stores in Western Europe and then smuggled back into the East.

Many of the émigrés working with the CIA had turned gray-haired waiting, patiently, in exile. But now, suddenly, freedom had come. Overnight, their once banned publications could be purchased openly at newsstands in Prague, Warsaw, and Budapest.

By early 1990, the CIA realized that it was time to end its financial support for the émigrés. For the people in the agency who had provided the support for the émigré publishers, this would be a bittersweet parting. They would have to say good-bye to men and women who had endured through long, lean years when there was little evidence that their publications were having any impact.

For the Eastern Europeans, ending their secret relationships with the CIA was relatively easy. Many of them were already planning to move back home and set up shop as open and legitimate publishers. They no longer needed the agency.

It was harder for the émigrés from the Soviet Union, however. Revolution had not yet swept through Moscow. Even some officials in the CIA’s Propaganda and Political Action Staff, which handled the covert support for the expatriate publications, were reluctant to shut down the Soviet programs so quickly. The ideological battle against Communism had gone on for so long that it was difficult just to declare victory suddenly and turn out the lights. But the programs cost the CIA millions and the agency could no longer justify the expense.

Soon, CIA officers all over Western Europe were quietly seeking out their contacts with the émigré publishers, passing along the message many of them had been waiting forty years to hear: Time to go home.

Lisbon, March 1, 1990

Ryszard Tomaszewski, the Polish Rezident in Lisbon, had handled important American operations during his career in the Polish foreign intelligence service, which was precisely why John Palevich, the officer known as “Mr. Poland” within the DO, had identified him as the right man to approach to see if the Poles were ready for a new relationship with the CIA.

The sweeping changes across Eastern Europe in late 1989 had convinced the CIA—and officials in SE Division in particular—that it was time to establish contact with the intelligence services of the newly democratic governments just then breaking free of the Soviet orbit. Hungary had come first, with an initial meeting in Vienna between CIA and Hungarian intelligence officers. The CIA now wanted to build on its new ties with Budapest by developing liaison relationships in other capitals, including Warsaw and Prague.

An approach in Washington was ruled out, in part because that would force the CIA to include the FBI, and the agency wanted this contact to be unilateral—and discreet. A direct contact in Poland was also rejected, for fear of exposing CIA officers serving in the Warsaw Station if the approach was rebuffed.

Paul Redmond, the deputy chief of SE Division who was helping to coordinate the efforts to contact the Eastern Europeans, decided to try to use the Hungarian model with the Poles, contacting them through one of their foreign residencies on neutral ground.

But which one? The CIA had over the years obtained a wealth of detailed information about the Polish foreign intelligence service—Department I of the Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnetrzynych, Ministry of Internal Affairs—and so knew plenty about the personalities and backgrounds of many of the Polish officers serving around the world.

The Rezidents in Rome and Lisbon seemed like good candidates. The Rome Rezident had actually studied at Harvard and was quite familiar with Americans. But he was more likely to be under heavy surveillance from the local internal security service, and the CIA didn’t want any other country, even the Italians, to find out about the approach. So Palevich flew to Lisbon to personally knock on Ryszard Tomaszewski’s door.

But when Palevich went to the Polish embassy and introduced himself to Tomaszewski as a representative of the Director of Central Intelligence, the Polish intelligence officer immediately went on the defensive. Palevich told him that he had come with instructions to open an intelligence dialogue with the Polish service and that Tomaszewski had been selected as the intermediary to pass this message to Warsaw. Convinced this was some sort of American provocation, Tomaszewski maintained that he was a diplomat, a representative of the Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and thus was in no position to talk to Palevich about anything of the kind. It was clear that Tomaszewski had not yet received any guidance from the new government in Warsaw about whether to consider the Americans friends or adversaries.

Palevich realized that Tomaszewski suspected he was wearing a wire, making him even more guarded and tense. Getting nowhere with the Pole, Palevich tried a new tack. “Do you have a camera?” he asked.

Tomaszewski took a step backward, bristling, and almost shouted, “No! Why should I have a camera? I am a diplomat!”

In his most soothing voice, Palevich said, “Because you might want a copy of my passport, so that when you report this to the Center they will be able to do a proper trace to confirm my identity and affiliation. Now why don’t you at least photocopy this.” Palevich then handed the man his diplomatic passport, which contained his name and contact information, including his home address and telephone number in Maryland. Tomaszewski took the passport