POLISH BANKER GIVING AGENTS 'EXTRAORDINARY' INFORMATION

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00552R000606760003-5
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
September 2, 2010
Sequence Number: 
3
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
October 23, 1982
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00552R000606760003-5.pdf63.51 KB
Body: 
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 :CIA-RDP90-0 THE t,'ASHI~IG?0~ POST 23 October 1982 ~?olish Banker Giving Agents `Extraordinary' Information By Thomas O'Toole washtn(rwn Post Sistt Wr14r Poland's top-ranking hanker in North America defected to the Unit- ed States almost three months ago, bringing with him what one source described as "extraordinary" infor- mation about East European intel- ligence. Sources said that CIA and FBI agents still are interviewing Andrzej Treumann, who came to New York three years ago to open the North American office of Bank Handlowy, the foreign trade bank handling most of Poland's S26 billion debt to western banks and governments. Treumann had been responsible for negotiating the new schedule of Polish payments on the debt" "A'hile he was a banker and not a spy, Treumann apparently had been used quite often by Polish and East European Intelligence agencies," one source said. "We are getting extraor- dinarily high quality information about East bloc intelligence methods from him." Said to be in his early 40s, 'j'reu- mann, his wife and daughter now are in the Washington area where he has been talking freely with CIA and FBI agents about what Polish. intel- ligence sought from him and what he gave them. Sources said they did not know Treumann's reason for defecting, although one source hinted that he sought political asylum here because of the crackdown on the Polish peo- ple by the Polish military govern- ment. Several high ranking Poles have defected to the United States since martial law was declared in Poland, including Ambassador to the United States Romuald Spasowski and Ambassador to Japan Zdzislaw Rurarz. The New York Times said yester- day that Treumann stopped going to his Park Avenue office late in Ju}y and that he and his family vacated their Queens apartment early in Au- gust Report8 also begaa circxilating in the New York banking comrnu? pity that he had vanished, although he told friends he was going back to Poland in August In late August, the Times re- portsd, Treurnann's bank mailed a one-sentence notice to U.S. banks saying Treumann "terminated his activities as our representative in the United States." The telephone in T~eumann's apartment was an- swered by a man with an East European accent who said: "Mr. Treumann doesn't live here any more. Good night" Before opening Bank Handlowy's Nea York office, Treuanann had been a senior offiaal of the bank ~ in Warsaw where he was the equivalent of a senior vice president of an American bank and where he helped arrange some of the biggest western Loans to Poland in the 1970s. Poland stall owes 526 billion to the West, induding 51.6 billion to the U.S. government and 51.4 billion to U.S. banks. Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 :CIA-RDP90-005528000606760003-5