Will a book about to be published by historians Slawomir Cenckiewicz and Piotr Gontarczyk - “Secret services and Lech Walesa. A Contribution to the Biography” shed some new light on the past of the legendary Solidarity leader?
The publication is said to aim to answer the question if the former Polish democratic opposition leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner and President Lech Walesa co-operated with the Communist Secret Services (SB) under the nickname “Bolek” and informed on his colleagues from the Gdansk Shipyard in 1970s, reports the Radio Information Agency (IAR).
Rzeczpospolita broadsheet presents the main theses of the publication. The newspaper reveals that the documents studied by historians from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) - the publisher of the book - include Walesa’s personal details form drawn up by SB when the Solidarity leader was arrested during the Martial Law in Poland. The document says that SB enrolled Lech Walesa as a collaborator on December 29, 1970.
“In the period between 1970 and 1972, he revealed a lot of information regarding harmful activities of shipyard workers”, says the document, as reported by Rzeczpospolita.
The daily also quotes a note drawn up by a secret services officer in 1978, which says that Walesa received money for the information disclosed to the SB. The book also accuses Lech Walesa that in 1992 and 1993, when he was President, he demanded the Ministry of the Interior to grant him access to his personal files gathered by SB. Some fragments of his files were never returned back to the Ministry, the authors of the book claim.
Deputy Head of the publisher, the Institute of National Remembrance, Maria Dmochowska has distanced herself from the decision to go ahead with the publication of the controversial book by IPN historians Slawomir Cenckiewicz and Piotr Gontarczyk. The newspaper has found out that it is likely that Maria Dmochowska may be dismissed from the position today, as a result.
After the newspaper’s publication, Lech Walesa denied on TVN24 television in the afternoon that he had removed sections of his personal files maintained by the Communist services. The former President said that the SB might have forged documents against him to discredit him after his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Also the former Head of the Agency for State Protection (UOP), General Gromoslaw Czempinski denied on TVN24 that Lech Walesa could operate as agent Bolek. He said, “Bolek might have been a fictitious figure”. Former UOP head also told the television he knew that forgery of documents against the opposition, perhaps including Walesa, was common practice among the Communist secret services in Poland.
Rzeczpospolita informs that the first copies of the book “Secret services and Lech Walesa. A Contribution to the Biography” will be available today and the official premiere of the publication is scheduled for June 23.
Walesa featured as "Bolek" in 1992 on the so-called Macierewicz's List of secret collaborators with the Communist regime in Poland. In 2002 it was ruled that the former president was not, in fact, a secret agent for the communists.
Lech Walesa was the co-founder of the Solidarity trade union, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and served as President of Poland from 1990 to 1995. He is one of the few Poles known all around the world. (mj)