The CIA Book Club: The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War

Poles had killed Poles, a shocking fact in a country still traumatized by the war, and however much the secret police and the censors worked to suppress it, the Lenin yard would not forget. The secret police once threatened to have her daughter gang-raped if she didn’t sign a document agreeing to cooperate. Abbott Washburn, executive vice president of the Crusade for Freedom, recalled the August 1951 balloon operation in ‘Freedom Crusade Sends Nine Million Balloon Messages’, Chronicle-Express, 20 September 1951. Several key opposition figures were released towards the end of 1982, including Lech Wałęsa, in November, but others including Michnik and Kuroń remained in jail.