Was Nobel-winning icon a paid informant for Polish regime?

[bemildred]

WARSAW, Poland -- Recently seized documents show that Poland's former president and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa was a paid informant for the communist-era secret security service from 1970-76, the head of Poland's history institute said Thursday.

Walesa, the icon of Poland's successful struggle to topple communism and the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has previously acknowledged signing a commitment to be an informant, but has insisted he never acted on it. In 2000 he was cleared by a special court, which said it found no evidence of collaboration.

The head of the state National Remembrance Institute, Lukasz Kaminski, said that documents seized this week from the home of the last communist interior minister, the late Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak, include a commitment to provide information that is signed with Walesa's name and codename, "Bolek." There are also pages of reports and receipts for money, signed "Bolek."

Walesa, 72, in a written message from Venezuela where he is traveling, suggested the papers are fake.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/documents-show-lech-walesa-collaborated-with-regime-polish-official-says/

[MisterP]

1. Kundera, too; lots of fingers in each pie

[bemildred]

2. That was one of Solshenitzen's points, we are all complicit.

I know I am. I worked in defense for 17 years, plus I'm an older high-status white male, among other things.

But on the other hand I would never rat someone out, or take advantage, unless they were really asking for it.


You have to be corrupt to survive in a corrupt system.

So generally I try to be more about reform and less about retribution.

In order not to perpetuate the negativity.

But Lech has the habit or running his mouth about other people, so he gets to be noticed.

[MisterP]

3. yeah, Walesa doesn't want women to vote no more

even Pilsudski didn't go that far, and he was Franco before Franco