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FOR POLISH EYES ONLY Cold War records reveal that a suspected British spy named James Bond, like his literary namesake, worked at the British embassy in Poland in the 1960s when the country was still a Soviet satellite state. But some Poles suspect it was just a pseudonym and the work of British spies playing pranks on their Polish counterparts. —REUTERS
WARSAW – Poles were moved and moved by the news that a suspected British agent named James Bond was in Her Majesty’s secret service in the country in the 1960s, after the Institute of National Memory (IPN) published about him on social media.
According to the institute’s archive, James Bond arrived in Poland on February 18, 1964 and was officially employed as an archivist for the Military Attaché at the British Embassy. It soon caught the attention of Polish counterintelligence officers.
“We know that he was in Poland … in 1964 and 1965,” Marzena Kruk, director of the IPN archive, told Reuters.
“He traveled a bit in Poland … he liked women, just like his literary namesake, but there is not a word about Martini,” he said, referring to the fictional character’s favorite drink. “However, there is information that he liked Polish beer.”
Under surveillance
Bond was under strict surveillance and visited the Bialystok and Olsztyn regions in northeastern Poland to try to “penetrate military installations” in the Soviet satellite state, according to the files.
However, it was discovered that he had not made contact with Polish citizens, which would have had serious consequences for any Pole suspected of working with agents on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
British agent 007 created by author Ian Fleming hit the big screen in 1962 when actor Sean Connery played the character in the film “Dr. No, ”leading some to suspect that British spies may have been joking with their Polish counterparts with their choice of pseudonym.
“Maybe it was a bit of fun with the Polish counterintelligence, maybe he had a sense of humor,” Kruk said.
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