Week 5 [16.05-22.05.2016] Polish Bond - Marian Zacharski

Furious car chases, beautiful women, state secrets worth billions of dollars and a superspy story during the Cold War.  Sounds like another James Bond movie scenario? In fact, you should not be thinking of fiction. Now- make sure no one is following  you, shut the curtains and get water run as I’m about to tell you the story of Zacharski, Marian Zacharski. 

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Personal background:

Marian Zacharski was born on the 15^th of August, 1951 in Gdynia, Poland.  He was raised in a very patriotic and intellectual family. He’s father Czesław was a veteran of the Polish “Home Army” (AK), who among his many war experiences counted being imprisoned by Gestapo in the infamous “Pawiak” prison and participation in the Warsaw Uprising alongside his brother. After the war he graduated from the Polytechnic of Gdańsk. His mother was born in the home of WWI veterans and decided to devote herself completely to raising Marian. It was the parents, who instilled in him his deep love for the fatherland, regardless of its current regime. They also understood the power of knowledge and invested little money they had into Zacharski’s education, especially private lessons of foreign languages, including English. This allowed their son to graduate from a prestigious high school and later on the faculty of law at the University of Warsaw. A soon-to-be spy proved himself to be an immensely intelligent and fast-learning student, but he also soon discovered that the world of academia was never going to fulfil his life-long ambitions of living a dynamic, passionate life full of adventure and meaning. 

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From salesmanship to espionage:

Zacharski figured out that if he ever was to reach his goals he had to find a way to bypass the regime’s limitations. Knowing nothing about mechanical tools he decided to apply for a job at Metalexport- a company selling them internationally. This would allow our spy to travel freely across the iron curtain and do business around the world. After weeks of waiting for a response, he discovered that his father knew the deputy CEO of the firm. Soon he was ready to begin his work. Shortly afterwards he received a mysterious phone call. The person who reached out to him claimed to be making the contact on behalf of the ministry of industry and said nothing apart from the address of the café where he wanted to meet and told him not to worry about how they would recognise each other as “even though you don’t know me yet, I know you perfectly well”. Marian couldn’t decide whether he should turn up, but his curiosity prevailed. The meeting was short-- after exchanging courtesy sentences the man introduced himself as an officer of the Polish Intelligence who wants Zacharski to join the structures. Perfect English and a perfect cover offered by his job made him a very valuable asset. An asset too ambitious to refuse a challenge. 

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Beginnings of a double life

Zacharski turned out not only to be a great salesman, but also a great leader and organiser; this allowed him to climb a ladder extremely fast and by 1975, after just two years of work he became the head of the organisation for the whole Western Europe. So when Metalexport decided to expand into the American market he was a natural choice to be in the vanguard. He left his wife and a newly-born daughter at home and left for Chicago where he started to build POLAMCO. It soon turned out to be a spy’s heaven. Travelling across the whole country allowed him to meet people from the American military industry, who tempted by the price found Polish tools to be a perfect way to save their money. Being in charge of the business on the western coast he moved with his family to Los Angeles, where he started to make business with people from the Silicon Valley, and the aircraft industry. 

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Gaining information

Though Zacharski made interesting contacts all over the country, his most valuable asset turned out to live just around the corner. Soon after they moved in, his wife insisted they throw a party for the neighbours. One of their guests was William Bell an engineer working for the Hughes Aircraft Corporation- a major military contractor. Zacharski decided to make friends. Soon he gained his trust and discovered that Bell works on classified projects, feels unappreciated by his company and could really use some extra money. By that time he also noticed that his bags tend to go “missing” for hours at the airport and that sometimes he’s being followed. He had to be careful, but he decided to make a move. After one game of tennis he offered his new friend in need a loan, but Bell –as expected- was too proud to accept. Zacharski offered then him a job “for the Polish industry”, which would be based on sharing useful information. Bell, even though he perfectly knew what “the Polish industry” was, gratefully accepted. The game began.  At the beginning Bell started to share his company’s latest small research pieces, but he soon started to feel more and more comfortable with his new “work” : Zacharski proved to be a perfect handler and gained his complete trust. He started to bring in classified information concerning projects which were to be implemented within next 5-10 years. Some of those top-secret solutions like radars, which detect “invisible” planes, guided air-to-air missiles and costal defence installations are still the backbone of the American army today! Bell also turned out to have an outstanding memory. The pieces of information and blueprints he could smuggle home with him he would examine very carefully at work and draw them for the Polish spy back home. Zacharski’s supervisors could not believe that he managed to gain information no spy before did. Some of the solutions he sent to Poland were so innovative that the biggest problem our intelligence had was to find engineers in Eastern Europe who would be able to understand them. Others delivered, for instance, a formula for M1 Abrams tank’s armour, which is today still one of the biggest secrets of the American military industry.  

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Counter-intelligence

But the story wasn’t idyllic and Americans were not stupid enough not to suspect what Zacharski might’ve been doing. After all he came from a hostile country and had surprisingly many friends and business partners in the strategic industry. The problem was they couldn’t find any proof. They hired one of the most gorgeous flight attendants to seduce Marian.  She invited him to dinner but as soon as they started talking, she started crying and confessed she was recruited by the FBI.  She fell in love with him and she’d rather die than spy on him. So he was followed everywhere by the FBI agents. Zacharski very quickly noticed that and decided to make fun of them. On certain days of the week, he’d always stop in one of the bookshops, he’d go around the shelves, pick up random books and pretend to make marks in them, later on he’d put them randomly back. The FBI thought this might be his way of communication and decided not to take any chances. This way Zacharski would have them spend hundreds of hours going page by page, searching for a code which did not exist. He also liked to lose his tail, just for fun while driving a car. He’d drive normally and all of the sudden he would change lanes, make rapid turns or suddenly cross the street after the red light kicked in. That way he had his surprised followers cause at least 3 accidents. To top that, he would sometimes approach the secret agents just to say hello or offer them drinks or ice cream on hot days.  No need to say they started to feel rather stupid and humiliated. 

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Cover blown

Every spy has to finally get caught. After working for such a long time mainly with Bell, the FBI was already sure that they follow a spy. The intensity of contacts with Bell, despite best efforts couldn’t have been hidden and his access to information made it pretty obvious he was a source, but still they didn’t even have a trace of evidence. The Polish intelligence knew about it and decided to assign a new handler to Bell before it was too late.  All under cover of Zacharski changing his duties in POLAMCO, what would force him to move to Chicago. The Los Angeles FBI started to freak out. They’ve been on the case for years now and the spy was about to get away! They decided to go all in and create a provocation. They knew if they succeed they’d be heroes, if they failed, they might’ve been facing prison. They arrested Bell and started to pressure him. Using any shreds of information they had, they wanted to make an impression they knew everything about his activity. For a confession they promised him a lower sentence and Bell broke. He only later recalled how they stared at him in disbelief as he was explaining  his activity and how terrified they were he would not sign his testimony, but he did. On the 28^th of June, 1981 FBI agents knocked on the door of Zacharski’s home and arrested him just as he was about to move out.

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Happy ending?

Zacharski was quickly sentenced to life in a process with huge media cover. Nobody In the US could believe the scale of his espionage. Only the information they knew he had stolen was estimated to be worth  billions of dollars and it’s safe to assume at least the other half remains unknown. The loud process meant he couldn’t really hope for a quick exchange for American spies caught in Eastern Europe. He had to spend four years in prison until the Polish and American governments finally reached an agreement. He and 3 lesser spies were exchanged for 25(!) uncovered Western spies on the famous spy bridge in Berlin. In reward Zacharski was put in charge of PEWEX, where he worked until the fall of the communism. After 1989 he became the head of the Polish Office of State Protection. Now he spends his days writing books and meeting fans.

Questions:
1) Have you ever heard of Marian Zacharski?
2) What do you think of his achievements ?
3) What’s your take on espionage in general?