Our new NATO friends

Thomas Friedman, writing in the New York Times of March 16, suggested
that Clinton’s “lackadaisical response” to China’s pilfering of U.S.
nuclear secrets is nothing to lose sleep over. According to Friedman, we
should not worry about China’s nuclear buildup because we have new
allies to defend us: Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. These
countries are now in the NATO alliance.

Friedman supposes that Beijing is trembling.

But does the entry of Poland and other East European states into NATO
mean that these countries are genuinely on our side?

Andrzej Suda, a Polish immigrant living in Southern California,
disagrees with Friedman’s assessment. According to Suda, Poland is still
controlled by the same old gang. The changes in Eastern Europe are not
to be trusted. Poland and Russia are collaborating, one with the other,
to undermine the United States. Poland’s democracy, he claims, is
controlled by secret communist agents.

In his analysis Suda agrees with Dr. Wojcieck Myslecki, former
managing director of Warsaw’s Technical University, who told me in 1990
that Solidarity had fallen under secret police control. Like Myslecki,
Suda is one who sees through the deceptive liberalization and
democratization in Poland. “Look at what happened to Farmers’
Solidarity,” says Suda. “It was a genuine grass roots organization.”

As it happened, the Polish secret police could not allow Farmers’
Solidarity to survive under Warsaw’s controlled democracy. Therefore, in
short order, Farmers’ Solidarity was afflicted with a rash of mysterious
deaths, accidents and arrests — until that organization ceased to
matter. This, says Suda, is one piece in a larger puzzle — a puzzle
that overtook Suda’s personal life.

A few years ago Mr. Suda became entangled in a web of intrigue. He
discovered that his live-in girlfriend — a Polish national — was
involved with other men. But not just any men. Suda alleges that she was
seducing those with access to highly sensitive, security-related
information. It also appeared that she was involved in a criminal scheme
to acquire large sums through insurance fraud.

Insurance fraud and espionage together?

“Americans don’t understand,” explains Suda. “They don’t use common
sense to analyze what the Russian mob, or East European mob really is.
If all property, except personal property, belongs to the state, and
somebody is stealing on a grand scale, it means they are stealing from
the state. Imagine a Russian mobster stealing large sums under
communism. No way! This is impossible, because we are talking about a
police state, with total surveillance. Those who oppose this state
either end up in Siberia or six feet underground.

“Imagine the next day after the collapse of communism,” Suda
suggests. “The whole world suddenly has [a] big problem with [the]
Russian mob, with thousands of sophisticated, experienced criminals
running around. Look at the Smushkevich brothers in San Diego, working
to steal $2 billion. Now it is proven they were high ranking KGB
officers. With Polish mob it is the same. Poland is lesser brother of
Soviet Union. They cooperate closely, even today.'”

Thirteen members of the Smushkevich crime syndicate were charged by
the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Michael Smushkevich was
sentenced to 21 years in prison and was force to pay $50 million. Some
officials believe the Smushkevich organization smuggled $50 to $80
million in profits to a foreign country. According to the U.S.
Department of Justice, East European organized crime in California is
involved in extortion, narcotics, murder, auto theft, and loan sharking,
as well as insurance and credit card fraud.

“Organized crime,” explains Suda, “is [the] best way for making money
to support intelligence operations, and for meeting government expenses.
Instead of making money in trade it’s better to go to another country,
pretend to be an independent criminal, and steal tremendous amounts of
money.

“I was speaking with this officer from [a] police intelligence unit,
and he couldn’t understand why these guys were so hard to catch. I said,
‘Listen, an East European criminal knows as much about police work as
you do, or maybe more, because he is a trained security officer. So he
is prepared for his job as much as you are. This is not some little
dirty crook trying his luck. You’re dealing with a professional.'”

Mr. Suda’s argument is logical. Espionage and economic sabotage are
difficult crimes to detect, and more difficult to prove. “I came from
Poland in 1985,” relates Suda. “Unfortunately I used my college contacts
to stay in America. I used the sister of a friend from college. I didn’t
think they were involved in UB [Polish KGB] activities. But now I’m sure
they were. It was through her I met my girlfriend, who I found out was
simply a spy. When you are boyfriend of such a girl you are, at first,
unpleasantly surprised when you discover something going on. But
immediately I understand that she’s fooling around, not with her
type of man, which is handsome or rich, but she is involved with
middle-aged men; for example, a federal agent or a military contractor,
etc. So his profession plays a crucial role.”

Suda found love letters written by his girlfriend to a DEA agent.
“These letters,” explains Suda, “when shown to U.S. military personnel,
were recognized as trap letters used by KGB since the Korean War. These
letters use sophisticated psychological hooks.”

Suda is describing a method for recruiting spies known as the “honey
trap.”

“Those letters were probably worked out by experienced professors of
psychology who were experts in sexuality,” speculates Suda. “The target
is a specific group of men.”

I asked Suda about a politician that his girlfriend was involved
with. “Oh yes,” he said, “if you’re a spy you can use military
technology, you can use federal agents, and you can use politicians to
influence the political scene. I don’t know how successful she was with
our local congressman; but the fact is, without any questions he got her
a green card when she was about to be deported.”

Mr. Suda has extensive documentation showing irregularities in his
girlfriend’s immigration documents. He also has a letter sent by the
congressman’s office, filled with praise for the girlfriend.

In the midst of this, Suda’s health began to fail.

“At first I thought it was an ordinary illness,” says Suda, “But
later I suspected some kind of poison. So I started to go to doctors,
and eventually ended up at the UCSD poison center. I took tests. They
said that they could not give a definitive answer, but they told me —
on the record and with witnesses present — that my symptoms were
consistent with poisoning by ricin toxin. This is a popular KGB poison.
The guy at UCSD said, ‘Maybe at the CIA they have a test for this.’

“I stopped living with my girlfriend,” says Suda, “and within two
weeks my health improved.”
Ricin is a protein. It leaves no residual in the human body. Your body
digests it like any other protein, only it has a different chemical
structure. Consequently, it slowly destroys your glands. Ricin is not a
poison you can get off the street. Only a few countries in the world are
making it.

“What was the motive to poison me?” asks Suda. “I didn’t believe she
could make money off my death. But then I started to think about life
insurance. My girlfriend had been to see an insurance guy and, surprise,
I was lucky enough to trace where she went. It was a place where an
insurance agent had just been fired for dirty tricks. The funny thing
is, this insurance agent was also Polish. And then I started to think
about insurance and the medical field where Poles are working, and
that’s how I began to piece it together. It looks like you’ve got teams
of people: one in the medical field, the other in the insurance field,
creating policies for people who are dying. My case was different
because she wanted to get rid of me. Instead of waiting for me to die
she wanted to help the process along. In this particular scheme we are
talking about an investment of $150 a month that can bring you $1
million.”

Returning to the subject of the girlfriend’s many lovers: “Let’s
start with DEA — Drug Enforcement Administration,” says Suda. “One of
the patients in the doctor’s office (where my girlfriend worked) was a
very high-level undercover DEA agent. He was so important, that after
working in Venezuela he came back to Los Angeles and changed his face.
Definitely they were lovers. He came to the house twice a week to take
her out. I complained to DEA about it. They ran some kind of mock
investigation. They sent investigators from Washington, D.C., to
interview me. After that he stopped seeing her, and they didn’t dig any
further. They evidently didn’t want to know what was behind this case.

“Another patient of the same doctor was a very high level missile
specialist. He was working on Tomahawk and Stinger missiles. He was very
involved with my girlfriend. He was in our house often. And then there
was a private investigator who used to be a postal inspector. He was a
specialist in child pornography. But this guy was working as a
contractor, freelance, for U.S. Air Force intelligence in the Las Vegas
area. He would go to Las Vegas once a month,” says Suda.

Mr. Suda’s story is a complex one, involving the FBI, the local
police, the DEA and the Office of the Inspector General. Is he a
credible witness? Does his extensive documentation prove anything?

According to one government official who worked with Suda, “Proof is
a tough word, and espionage is a difficult crime to prove.” What Mr.
Suda has shown us, at the very least, is a number of suspicious
incidents which beg to be investigated.

In this context, Joseph D. Douglass, Jr. (a defense analyst) has
written an excellent book on Soviet Bloc involvement in organized crime
and drug trafficking. The book is called “Red Cocaine: The Drugging of
America.” Suda’s story — which most Americans would dismiss as paranoia
— fits with what Douglass suggests is a long range Kremlin strategy of
subversion.
“Americans don’t understand how much they are losing,” says Suda, “The
issue is not only that people are getting killed, but that America is
being robbed.”

I asked Mr. Suda about Poland’s new membership in NATO. “Well,” he
replied. “Don’t believe in your new friends. They are fake friends. The
same is happening with Russia. You are sharing high-end technology with
Moscow and they are turning it around into weapons. They obviously
haven’t changed. I hope this country will wake up before it’s too late.”

Given the present military involvement of NATO in Yugoslavia, and the
revived Cold War with Russia and China, the loyalty of our new NATO
allies is a crucial question. Are they genuinely committed to NATO?
Would they switch their support to Russia if the crisis in the Balkans
deepens?

Those like Thomas Friedman, who assume Poland will counterbalance the
growth of China’s nuclear power, better think twice. Our new alliance
with Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic may not be what it appears.