Sunday, October 31, 2010

GOLENIEWSKI, MICHAL

In 1961 Goleniewski, a senior Polish intelligence officer, defected to the Central Intelligence Agency, providing the most spectacular information. As a self-motivated spy, he had supplied information anonymously, and when he finally fled Poland with his girlfriend, he came with an impressive “meal ticket”
because he had knowledge of KGB operations as well as Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa (SB) activities. The key to his success had been his dual role as a KGB asset inside the SB, trusted implicitly by both. As a consequence of his information, several spies were arrested in the West, including the  Secret Intelligence Service turncoat  George Blake, and Harry Houghton, then working on highly classified submarine detection systems at the Royal Navy’s Underwater Weapons Research Establishment at Portland. Unfortunately Goleniewski’s value rapidly diminished upon his arrival in the United States in January 1961 with his demand to be known as the tsarevich, Prince Alexei Romanov, son of Tsar Nicholas II. Realizing his credibility would plummet if he were allowed to give evidence to the Senate’s Internal Security Subcommittee, as had been requested, the CIA humored his eccentricities and kept him away from Congress.