JAN CWIKLINSKI --

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200070007-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 25, 1999
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: January 21, 1954
• Content Type: PREL

1. - S4
CPYRGHT A.AP.c JAN 21
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75- 9R00020
07-9
Vul!~
Attorney General, Herbert Brownell, Jr., announced today that Jan
Cwiklinski, the former Captain of the Polish liner, Batory, who defected in
the United Kingdom on July 20 of last year, is coming to the United States
as a temporary visitor. The alien is sailing on the S. S. Mauretania,
which arrives in New York on the 26th of this month. His entry is being
authorized under the discretionary powers granted to the Attorney General
under the Immigration and Nationality Act. While here, Cwiklinski will
make a lecture tour under the sponsorship of the Polish American Congress,
a patriotic organization with headquarters in Chicago. His first appear-
ance will be in Chicago on February 7th. Subsequently, he will speak to
members of the Polish American Congress in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania
and to Polish Americans in Orchard bake, Michigan.
Capt. Cwiklinski left his ship in England on July 20, 1953 when he
requested and was granted political asylum by the British. He stated that,
at that time, he feared arrest if he returned to Poland. Capt. Cwiklinski
has been Captain of the Batory since 1947, when she was returned to civilian
service by the Poles. It was on this vessel that Gerhart Eisler fled from
the United States in 1949 as a stowaway to escape imprisonment following
his conviction for false swearing.
When World War II broke out Captain Cwiklinski was commanding the
Polish cargo vessel the SS Warsawa. He was sent to Dunkirk to load ammunition
for trans-shipment to Poland, but was forced to deliver his cargo at Brest
when Poland was occupied by the Germans. For a time he carried escaping
Polish refugees from Athens to Marseilles. In 1940 he went to Holland for
the Ministry of War Transport to pick up a ship which was just being completed.
He was interned in Holland when the Germans over ran the country. After the
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200070007-9
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200070007-9
-2-
Jan CWIKLINSKI - continued
CPYRGHT
war he was awarded the OBE for his services to the allies.
Captain Cwiklinski has described the Batory as a "floating nest of
Communist political officers - ready to inform on anyone and everyone".
He himself was suspect because of his friendliness to English speaking
passengers; during three and one-half years he carried sixty-five thousand
Americans across the Atlantic. Captain Cwiklinski has stated that his crew
was purged repeatedly of politically unreliable elements who were replaced
by card carrying members of the Communist Party. Despite such precautions,
over one hundred men from the Batory have jumped ship in free ports rather
than return to their Communist dominated homeland.
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200070007-9