Scanning Our Past: Spies, Brokers, and the State: Intelligence Operations and the Polish Computer Industry in the 1980s

Abstract

The USSR’s orchestration of the acquisition of the scientific and technological intelligence has been intensively researched by journalists and historians as one of the most distinctive phenomena of the Cold War <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[1]</xref> . While the KGB was the leader in the intelligence operations aimed at western research and development programs and facilities, its counterparts in the Warsaw Pact states were also deeply involved <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[2]</xref> . The most vivid example of the Polish contribution to penetrating the United States’ technological infrastructure was Marian Zacharski’s recruitment of William Holden Bell, an employee of Hughes Aircraft Company. Acquiring Bell’s knowledge of radar, missile guidance, and other military systems is regarded as one of the greatest achievements of Polish and Eastern Bloc spycraft during the Cold War <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[3]</xref> .