Touring Communist Poland: British Defence Attachés in Search of Secrets, 1980–1987

Abstract

This article explores problems of collecting intelligence in Poland by British defence attachés. In the 1980s, the last decade of the Cold War, tours of Poland by the British defence attaché staff turned out to be an essential method of collecting military intelligence about the Polish Army and Soviet forces in Poland. Annual reports of British attachés in Warsaw were declassified for every year of the 1980s except 1988 and 1989. Most of their content was made available, with the exception of some parts related to equipment and coordination of tours with North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners. The reports provided a detailed picture of the British Section’s knowledge about the Polish armed forces whose military capabilities it sought to assess.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The National Archives, Kew (TNA), Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 28/4493, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1981, 21 January 1982; on the origins of the British service attaché see Lothar W. Hilbert, “The Early Years of the Military attaché Service in British Diplomacy,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 37, No. 152 (1959), pp. 164–171.

2 Tom Bower, The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War 1935–90 (London: Mandarin, 1996), pp. 255–257, 350; Mark Urban, UK Eyes Alpha: The Inside Story of British Intelligence (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), p. 100; “Pole is Convicted as Spy for British,” New York Times, 16 June 1968.

3 https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf; TNA, FCO 28/7405, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1985, 6 February 1986.

4 TNA, FCO 28/7405, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1985, 6 February 1986. For more on the exchange of visits of ships see liaison officer of the Polish Navy, Commander Rałał Witkowski, Na lądzie i morzu. Zapiski ze służby w Marynarce Wojennej 1953–1988 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo „Czuwajmy”, 1998).

5 TNA, FCO 28/10075, Job Description. Defence and Air Attaché, Warsaw, 14 November 1990. For results of earlier collecting of intelligence on the Polish military, see Ministry of Defence (DEFE) 60/132, British Intelligence Survey. Poland, Part IX: Defence Plans, March 1954; on DIS’ role, see Pete Davies, “Estimating Soviet Power. The Creation of the British Defence Intelligence Staff 1960–65,” Intelligence and National Security, No. 6 (2011), pp. 818–841; John N. L. Morrison, “Intelligence in the Cold War,” Cold War History, No. 4 (2014), pp. 575–591.

6 Jacek Tebinka, Kanada i Szczecin 1945–1990: W cieniu granicy (Szczecin–Warszawa: IPN, 2021), pp. 51–55; Tony Geraghty, BRIXMIS: The Untold Exploits of Britain’s Most Daring Cold War Spy Mission (London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1997); see also the memoirs of General Peter Williams, “BRIXMIS in the 1980s: The Cold War’s ‘Great Gamer’: Memories of Liaising with the Soviet Army in East Germany,” www.php.isn.ethz.ch

7 TNA, FCO 28/10075, Job Description. Defence and Air Attaché, Warsaw, 14 November 1990. The document is from 1990, but most of the points related to the requirements the attaché had to meet are from the 1980s; Geraghty, BRIXMIS, pp. 316–318.

8 Jacek Tebinka, “Brytyjczycy o groźbie radzieckiej interwencji w Polsce w październiku 1956 r.,” in Nieco inne spojrzenie 1956, edited by Jerzy Kochanowski and Joachim von Puttkamer (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Neriton, 2016), pp. 365–372. On 8 May 1956, at the time of political thaw in Poland, the authorities there abolished police checkpoints on exit roads from major cities. Earlier, this control system helped to facilitate tracking of the movements of Western diplomats and provoked their constant complaints.

9 Williams, “BRIXMIS in the 1980s,” p. 34.

10 TNA, FCO 28/4153, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1979, 16 January 1980. A section called “The NATO Scene in Warsaw” is classified.

11 TNA, FCO 28/5610, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1982, 9 February 1983; FCO 28/7405, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1985, 6 February 1986; FCO 28/8543, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1987, 2 March 1988. The part titled “Equipment” is classified. On BRIXMIS equipment (e.g., scanners and diamond scrapers for removing samples of armor), see Steve Gibson, BRIXMIS: The Last Cold War Mission (Stroud, UK: The History Press, 2018), pp. 231–235.

12 TNA, FCO 28/4153, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1979, 16 January 1980.

13 TNA, FCO 28/4153, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1979, Polish Armed Forces, 16 January 1980. Several years earlier, the British assessed the Polish Navy as the most highly trained of Soviet Satellite’s navies, TNA, Cabinet Office (CAB) 158/6, JIC(66)1/16, Periodical Intelligence Summary for NATO Commands, 15 XII 1966.

14 TNA, FCO 28/4153, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1979, Polish Armed Forces, 16 January 1980; Valedictory Report—Defence Attaché Warsaw, 4 June 1980; on the weakness of Polish military forces see Jarosław Pałka, Polskie wojska operacyjne w Układzie Warszawskim (Warszawa: IPN, 2022), pp. 155–160.

15 TNA, FCO 28/4153, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1979, Polish Armed Forces, 16 January 1980; FCO 28/8543, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1987, 2 March 1988.

16 TNA, FO 371/188780, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1965, 6 December 1965. In this report, see pictures of Soviet forces equipment: the Mangrove aircraft (Yak-27R), the Fishbed-F aircraft (MiG-21), the Hook helicopter (Mi-6), the Tall King radar (P-14), and the Fan Song E missile control radar (SNR-75).

17 TNA, FCO 28/4493, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1981, 21 January 1982. See Valedictory Report from Warsaw by British Defence Attaché in TNA, DEFE 63/77, Air Intelligence Review, Winter 1980/81, Vol. 8, No. 6.

18 Monika Komaniecka, Pod obserwacją i na podsłuchu. Rzeczowe środki pracy operacyjnej aparatu bezpieczeństwa w województwie krakowskim w latach 1945–1990 (Kraków: IPN, 2014), pp. 171–181; Patryk Pleskot, Dyplomata, czyli szpieg? Działalność służb kontrwywiadowczych PRL wobec zachodnich placówek dyplomatycznych w Warszawie (1956–1989), część I: Generalia (Warszawa: IPN, 2013), pp. 131–152; Archiwum Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej w Gdańsku, IPN Gd 003/62, t. 1, Sprawa obiektowa kryptonim “Tarcza.”

19 TNA, FCO 28/4515, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1980, 28 January 1981; FCO 28/8543, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1987, 2 March 1988.

20 TNA, FCO 28/4515, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1980, 28 January 1981. BRIXMIS also received in the late 1980s a prototype thermal imaging video camera and night vision goggles allowing one to drive a car with the lights off. Williams, “BRIXMIS in the 1980s,” p. 25.

21 TNA, FCO 28/4515, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1980, 28 January 1981.

22 Jarosław Kończak, Od Tele-Echa do Polskiego Zoo: Ewolucja programu TVP (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Akademickie i Profesjonalne 2008), pp. 143–144, 226.

23 TNA, FCO 28/4515, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1980, 28 January 1981.

24 Jacek Tebinka, “Polityka rządu Margaret Thatcher wobec Polski w latach 1979–1989,” in Świat wobec “Solidarności” 1980–1989, edited by Paweł Jaworski, Łukasz Kamiński (Warszawa: IPN 2013), pp. 288–307; Robert Ledger, “From Solidarity to ‘Shock Therapy’: British Foreign Policy Towards Poland Under the Thatcher Government, 1980–1990,” Contemporary British History, No. 1 (2016), pp. 99–103; Daniel J. Lahey, “The Thatcher Government’s Response to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, 1979–1980,” Cold War History, No. 1 (2013), pp. 21–42.

25 TNA, DEFE 13/2059, MOD to FCO 18 November 1985.

26 TNA, FCO 28/4515, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1980, 28 January 1981; https://www.altinget.dk/navnenyt/doedsfald-oberst-holger-joergensen-94

27 Andrzej Paczkowski, The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), pp. 405–411; TNA, CAB 185/27, JIC(80) 34th Meeting, 4 September 1980; FCO 28/371, FCO minutes, 14 September 1979.

28 TNA, FCO 28/4515, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1980, 28 January 1981.

29 TNA, FCO 28/4515, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1980, 28 January 1981; K.R.C. Pridham to Lord Carrington, 30 January 1981.

30 TNA, CAB 185/27, JIC(80) 47th Meeting, 4 December 1980; Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), pp. 251–253; Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (New York: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 517–531.

31 TNA, FCO 28/4515, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1980, 28 January 1981; FCO 28/5610, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1982, 9 February 1983. According to the Polish–Soviet agreement of 27 November 1971, the Polish Security Service was to exchange information with the State Committee for Security in order to ensure the safety of Soviet military units in Poland. See Archiwum Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej w Gdańsku, IPN Gd 003/62 t. 1, Sprawa obiektowa kryptonim “Tarcza.”

32 Michael S. Goodman, “The Dog That Didn’t Bark: The Joint Intelligence Committee and Warning of Aggression,” Cold War History, No. 4 (2007), pp. 541–551; Jacek Tebinka, “Polityka Wielkiej Brytanii wobec wprowadzenia stanu wojennego w Polsce,” in Świat wobec stanu wojennego, edited by Łukasz Kamiński (Katowice: Śląskie Centrum Wolności i Solidarności, 2021), pp. 190–209.

33 TNA, FCO 28/4493, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1981, 21 January 1982; FCO 28/5610, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1982, 9 February 1983; Documents on British Policy Overseas, Ser. III, Vol. X: The Polish Crisis and Relations with Eastern Europe, 1979–1982, edited by I. Tombs and R. Smith (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 300–301, 349–353; Geraghty, BRIXMIS, p. 317.

34 The Polish Crisis and Relations with Eastern Europe, 1979–1982, pp. 277–278; TNA, PREM 19/561, Warsaw to London, 15 December 1981; FCO 28/4984, Warsaw to MOD, 8 January 1982.

35 TNA, FCO 28/4493, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1981, 21 January 1982; FCO 28/5610, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1982, 9 February 1983; Anthony Kemp-Welch, Poland under Communism: A Cold War History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 327–331.

36 TNA, FCO 28/5654, C.M. James to FCO: 3, 4 March and 25 March 1983, minutes by A. Carter, 3 March 1983.

37 TNA, CAB 186/37, JIC(84)8, The Increasing Conventional Capability of Warsaw Pact Ground Forces Facing the Central Region of Europe, 30 July 1984.

38 TNA, FCO 28/8543, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1987, 2 March 1988; Pałka, Polskie wojska operacyjne w Układzie Warszawskim, pp. 228–235.

39 TNA, FCO 28/7907, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1986, 30 January 1987.

40 TNA, FCO 28/8543, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1987. Annex D: The Soviet Military Presence in Poland, 2 March 1988.

41 TNA, FCO 28/8543, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1987, 2 March 1988; Pałka, Polskie wojska operacyjne w Układzie Warszawskim, pp. 311–314.

42 Pałka, Polskie wojska operacyjne w Układzie Warszawskim, pp. 187–193, 235–255; TNA, FCO 28/4515, Defence Attaché Annual Report for 1980, 28 January 1981.

43 Pleskot, Dyplomata, czyli szpieg?, pp. 404–405.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jacek Tebinka

Jacek Tebinka is a Professor in the Instytut Politologii at the University of Gdańsk and was a Visiting Professor, Chair of Polish History and Culture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the coauthor of Poland in the British Strategy of Supporting the Resistance Movement and History of the Polish Section of Special Operations Management (SOE). The author can be contacted at [email protected].