Marian Zacharski
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Marian Zacharski (born 1951 in
Gdynia Gdynia ( ; ; german: Gdingen (currently), (1939–1945); csb, Gdiniô, , , ) is a city in northern Poland and a seaport on the Baltic Sea coast. With a population of 243,918, it is the List of cities in Poland, 12th-largest city in Poland and ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
; raised in nearby
Sopot Sopot is a seaside resort city in Pomerelia on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in northern Poland, with a population of approximately 40,000. It is located in Pomeranian Voivodeship, and has the status of the county, being the smallest city ...
), is a former Polish intelligence officer, arrested in 1981 and convicted of espionage against the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. After four years in prison, he was exchanged for American agents on Berlin's famous
Glienicke Bridge The Glienicke Bridge (german: Glienicker Brücke, ) is a bridge across the Havel River in Germany, connecting the Wannsee district of Berlin with the Brandenburg capital Potsdam. It is named after nearby Glienicke Palace. The current bridge, the ...
. Arguably, he was one of the most famous officers of the Polish intelligence service. In 1996, prosecutors in
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
charged him with ''flagrant mismanagement'' at the
Pewex Pewex () (short for ''Przedsiębiorstwo Eksportu Wewnętrznego'' – Internal Export Company) was a chain of hard-currency shops founded in 1972, during the Communist era in Poland that accepted payment only in United States dollars and other h ...
company, and
Gorzów Wielkopolski Gorzów Wielkopolski (; german: Landsberg an der Warthe) often abbreviated to Gorzów Wlkp. or simply Gorzów, is a city in western Poland, on the Warta river. It is the second largest city in the Lubusz Voivodeship with 120,087 inhabitants (Decemb ...
police want to question him about illegal car trading.


Espionage

Zacharski was president of the ''Polish American Machinery Corporation'' (''POLAMCO'') and lived in the United States from about 1977 until 1981. Acting as the commercial representative, he was at the same time an officer of the Polish intelligence service. In June 1981 William Holden Bell, project manager of the Radar Systems Group at Hughes Aircraft in El Segundo, California, and Zacharski, were arraigned on espionage charges. For the apprehension of Marian Zacharski credit belongs to a Polish diplomat Jerzy Koryciński at the United Nations who blew the whistle, while asking for political asylum in the US. Under disguise of business activities, and over the period of several months, Zacharski developed a relationship with Bell. According to a court affidavit filed by the bureau, he had paid Bell about $110,000 in cash and $60,000 in gold coins, to photograph highly classified documents detailing Hughes Aircraft radar and weapons systems. Furthermore, Zacharski won access to material on the then-new Patriot and Phoenix missiles, the enhanced version of the Hawk air-to-air missile, radar instrumentation for the F-15 fighter, F-16, "stealth radar" for the B-1 and Stealth bomber, an experimental radar system being tested by the U.S. Navy, submarine sonar, and the
M1 Abrams The M1 Abrams is a third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense (now General Dynamics Land Systems) and named for General Creighton Abrams. Conceived for modern armored ground warfare and now one of the heaviest ta ...
tank. According to Kenneth Kaiser, an agency counterintelligence supervisor in Chicago, Poland was particularly active in industrial espionage. ''While the Soviet KGB got all the press, Polish intelligence was perhaps superior. They, however, could not care less about military intelligence; they wanted economic and scientific secrets. Their objective was to short-circuit development costs and undersell us and, as the Zacharski case suggests, they were good at finding friends in the right places''. Zacharski disclosed the activities of a Russian spy in Poland who under code name "Olin" (known as affair of Olin - Polish Security Services and Oleksy Case Olingate) cooperated with one of the best connected KGB agents and the most powerful Russian spies
Vladimir Alganov Vladimir Petrovich Alganov (russian: Владимир Петрович Алганов; born 22 October 1952 in Leningrad) is a Russian spy. He was Soviet KGB officer in Warsaw, Poland in the 1980s and Russian SVR officer in the same city in the 19 ...
and another Russian diplomat, Georgiy Yakimishin. This consequently resulted in the fall of Polish government under Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy. In June 1996 Marian Zacharski left Poland for Switzerland and is currently living in
Kreuzlingen Kreuzlingen is a municipality in the district of Kreuzlingen in the canton of Thurgau in north-eastern Switzerland. It is the seat of the district and is the second-largest city of the canton, after Frauenfeld, with a population of about 22,000. ...
. Currently Wojciech Bockenheim from the Polish TV station
TVN TVN may refer to: * TVN (Australian TV channel), a former horse racing channel * Televisión Nacional de Chile, a public broadcaster * TVN (Indonesia), a former television station; predecessor of Rajawali Televisi * TVN (Norway), or TVNorge, a comm ...
produced six TV movies entitled ''Szpieg'' ("Spy") "in search of Marian Zacharski", which is dedicated to disclosing some of the activities of Zacharski.


Discovery

According to current official statements and interviews he was discovered only because of a so-called Farewell list. Sometimes it is called
Farewell Dossier The Farewell Dossier was the collection of documents that Colonel Vladimir Vetrov, a KGB defector "en place" (code-named "Farewell"), gathered and gave to the Direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST) in 1981–82, during the Cold War. V ...
, in fact this was a list of agents sold or transferred for ideological reasons (probably both) by KGB Lieutenant
Vladimir Vetrov , nickname = , image = , caption = , allegiance = Soviet Union later France , service = KGB, DST , serviceyears = , rank = Lieutenant Colonel , operation = F ...
. By doing this and catching all from the list in one pack (in most cases without other evidence), the KGB had a clear trace that the source of the leak was Vetrov, and because French or other Western hemisphere countries did not even try to help him, Vetrov was sentenced to death and executed.


Popularity in Poland

On 15 August 1994, the Polish government announced Zacharski's appointment as head of civilian intelligence in the Polish Office of State Protection, but the United States and
Jan Nowak-Jeziorański Jan Nowak-Jeziorański (; 2 October 1914 – 20 January 2005) was a Polish journalist, writer, politician, social worker and patriot. He served during the Second World War as one of the most notable resistance fighters of the Home Army. He is b ...
protested and Zacharski never assumed the position. In a poll from that time that asked "Which colonel better served Poland?", Zacharski or
Ryszard Kukliński Ryszard Jerzy Kukliński (June 13, 1930February 11, 2004) was a Polish colonel and Cold War spy for NATO. He was posthumously promoted to the rank of brigadier general by Polish President Andrzej Duda. Kukliński passed top secret Soviet documen ...
, who spied for the United States, 52% responded "neither", 17% said Zacharski, and 7% responded Kukliński.NIKA, "OBOP: Zacharski Would Have Been a Bad Intelligence Chief,"
Życie Warszawy ''Życie Warszawy'' (meaning ''Life of Warsaw'' in English) is a Polish language newspaper published in Warsaw. History and profile ''Życie Warszawy'' was founded in 1944 as an initiative of Polish Workers' Party. The paper is published by Grem ...
, 15 September 1994, p. 2.
In addition, 22% said Zacharski was fit to head Polish intelligence, and 22% disagreed.


References


External links


Part V: Polish Intelligence 1989-2005 Interfering with Political Processes
* ttp://halldor2.blogspot.com/2004/11/what-is-kgb-interested-in.html What Is The KGB Interested In?br>The Spy, directed by Wojciech Bockenheim
(polish). * ttp://www.videofact.com/english/agents_their_en.html Their agents and double agentsbr>Our agents and double agents
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20061206214245/http://www.axisglobe.com/polish119.htm The Polish Political Circusbr>Espionage casesCloak and Dagger
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zacharski, Marian Polish spies Polish intelligence officers (1943–1990) Living people 1951 births People convicted of spying for the Polish People's Republic People from Gdynia