Ryszard Kukliński

Ryszard Jerzy Kukliński
Colonel Ryszard Kukliński
Born	(1930-06-13)June 13, 1930 Warsaw, Poland
Died	February 11, 2004(2004-02-11) (aged 73) Tampa, Florida, U.S.
Allegiance	Poland
Service/branch	Polish People's Army
Rank	Colonel

Ryszard Jerzy Kukliński (June 13, 1930 – February 11, 2004) was a Polish colonel and Cold War spy for NATO. He passed top secret Warsaw Pact documents to the CIA between 1972 and 1981. The former United States National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzeziński described him as "the first Polish officer in NATO."

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 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 a foreign "MAF" from a Communist country, and requested 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.