A Polish Spy and a New Warning

The International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. linked up with Poland a couple of years ago to help create a spy museum dedicated to Col. Ryszard Kuklinski, an officer in then-communist Poland in the 1970s. This is a snapshot of the museum. It moved me to tears - millions of victims of communism from so many countries. The museum is located underground in a building that survived WWII! The questions (reflecting today) at the end of the tour are worth listening to:

Kuklinski rose through the ranks to top leadership, which gave him access to top-secret documents. It was then that he discovered that a massive invasion was being planned by Russia into Western Europe, using Poland as Ground Zero.

Kuklinski decided that, to save Poland and stop a third world war, he had to get the Americans involved, the only ones he said were capable of stopping Russia. He passed almost 40,000 pages of documents over nine years to the US, risking his life and never telling anyone, not even his family. It became apparent that a mole was burrowed in the ranks, and he requested immediate extraction for himself, his wife and two teenage sons. It was a harrowing escape, but they made it to the U.S., where he lived until he died in 2004. Their location was not revealed, though apparently somewhere in Florida after being moved from D.C.

His two sons both died under mysterious circumstances. He was tried in Poland and found guilty in absentia by the still communist court. Soon after, the Russians were then defeated, Poland was free, and the country joined NATO.

I read Benjamin Weiser's excellent book, A Secret Life, and wrote a post on Kuklinski here some years ago but was prompted to revisit this story now because, by chance, I came across the movie called Jack Strong (Kuklinski's alias) the other night. My initial discovery of this remarkable man resulted from researching my Polish roots after a cousin told me our grandparents on my mother's side escaped from Russia-occupied Poland to the US. My dad's parents escaped from Ukraine.

Poland has been in the news again this week. They are warning that they see signs that Russia is signaling possible movement once again, and they are preparing accordingly:

"Russia’s threat of 'consequences'" against Britain and a stark warning from a senior Polish defense official are intensifying concerns that Moscow could seek to test NATO directly as the war in Ukraine continues.

"Polish Deputy Defense Minister Cezary Tomczyk said his country is actively preparing for the possibility of conflict, telling Super Express in an interview published Aug. 17: "We are preparing for war, hoping that it never happens.

"The Polish Embassy in Washington told Fox News Digital that Warsaw’s accelerated defense preparations are intended to deter potential aggression rather than signal that conflict is inevitable." Fox News Aug. 19, 2026

Poland just celebrated the dedication of a new statue of the Virgin Mary—182 feet tall, the largest in all of Europe. Why now, and how is this significant in these new headlines? The Fatima apparitions, approved by the Catholic Church, where the Virgin warned of Russia spreading her errors, are firm in their minds. The statue was blessed on August 15, 2026.

Also in researching my Polish heritage, I found the Pope John Paul II documentary called Witness to Hope. I learned so much about what the world went through, including my ancestors, and how the Pope and President Reagan (as well as President Jimmy Carter before that) stopped this new Russian escalation. Here is the movie trailer:

Pope John Paul II (now a saint) believed the Virgin Mary protected him from the attempt on his life, with the bullet just inches from his heart. He placed it in her crown at the Fatima Shrine.

A Pope, a President, and a Polish spy together stopped WWIII. Let's hope Poland's new warnings are heeded.