POLAND'S MAN IN PLAYA DEL RAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000707380019-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 12, 2011
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: July 13, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/12: CIA-RDP90-00552R000707380019-8
TILL s APP'` E
1lE1111 S'. T EK
13 July 1981
AP AP New York Times
Secret sharers: Bell (left), Zacharski and Wesolowska, Hughes radar headquarters
Poland's Man in Playa Del Ray
William Holden Bell, a middle-aged NEWSWEEK has learned, for example, that
engineer for the Hughes Aircraft the Soviets have targeted the super-secret
Co., had a money problem. He had just stealth-bomber program as their next major
emerged from a messy divorce and married espionage objective, prompting efforts to
a Pan Am stewardess 25 years his junior. tighten U.S. security procedures for all de-
He wasn't a flashy type, but he did buy an fense installations involved in the project.
expensive new car, began to travel more But in this new era of industrial spies,
and he especially wanted $12,000 for a many of them motivated by money rather
down payment on a condominium situated than an ideological commitment to com-
on an ocean bluff in Playa Del Ray, Calif. munism, few high-tech companies are safe:
That was a few years ago-and Bell chose With more communist diplomats, students
to avoid a bank in relieving his financial and trade groups in the United States than
pressures. Instead, the congenial 29-year ever before, the FBI alerted defense con-
veteran of one of the nation's largest de- tractors to be on the lookout for anyone
fense contractors wagered his career and who seems interested in more than a plant
reputation by agreeing to sell secrets to a tour. "In the last decade," says Edward
spy for the Polish Government.- O'Malley, the FBI's assistant director for
Bell lost his-bet: last week FBI agents intelligence, "the threat has. increased
arrested him and Marian W. Zacharski, 29, substantially."
BertHMMWOm.w.-41 ck St,
delivered rolls of film to Polish agents who
identified themselves with the code phrase,
"Aren't you a friend of Marian's?" It was
agreed that Bell would be paid $3,000 a
month in U.S. currency and a lump sum of
$60,000 a year, plus travel expenses. In ex-
change, Bell was told what documents the
Polish agents wanted-and Bell furnished
them in two trips to Austria in 1980 and one
to Switzerland last April. For his trouble,
Bell says he received a total of 5110,000,
mostly in $ 100bills and gold coins.
FBI officials 'suspected Zacharski of be-
ing a Polish spy almost from the moment he
arrived in the United States in 1977. They
also knew in early 1979 that classified radar
documents at Hughes were being transmit-
ted to Polish agents. But Bell escaped notice
by making most of his drops in Europe.
Finally, a "sensitive source" tipped the FBI
to the scheme, and agents confronted Bell
on June 23. He immediately confessed and
a Polish national recently named president William Bell serves as a reminder of how agreed to cooperate.
of the Polish American Machinery Corp., serious that threat has become. Bell joined . 'No Problem': To snare Zacharski, FBI
an Illinois-based firm 90 per cent owned by Hughes in 1952, passed the extensive back- agents wired Bell with a recording device,
the Polish Government. As the two men ground checks that gave him access to clas- and last week the two men held their final
were arraigned on espionage charges in a sified material and became project manager meeting, talking about new secret docu-
Los Angeles courtroom, U.S. officials were for Hughes's radar-systems group in 1976. ments to be filmed and Bell's request that he
beginning to realize that. Bell's betrayal In late 1977 or early 1978, according to' be paid in cash rather than gold. "No prob-
had caused some serious damage. Al- affidavits filed in court last week, Bell met lem," Zacharski replied. Hours later both
though Bell did not have access to "top Zacharski at the condominium complex men were arrested-just two weeks before
secret" company documents, he admitted where both men lived quiet lives with their Zacharski was to moveto Illinois to head his he delivered "secret" information that in- families. They became friends, tennis part- company's U.S. operation:
cluded photographed documents of some ners and confidants; when Bell mentioned After an arraignment last week on
of Hughes's newest weapons and radar sys- his money problems; Zacharski offered charges that the two men conspired to gath-
terns to Polish agents. Officials assumed help-in exchange. for the right Hughes er and deliver information to aid foreign
the information already had been passed to documents. Nearly a year after their first governments, Bell was released on $50,000
the Soviet Union, causing what one official meeting, Bell. delivered some unclassified bond. Zacharski was held without bail: of-
called a "very serious" breach in national documents for $5,000. A few weeks later a cials feared that he might flee to the nearest
security. . - $7,000 payment was made-and Bell real- Polish Consulate, ruining their hopes of
The episode is the latest in what U.S. ized that he had compromised himself and convicting him of espionage and then ar-.
officials call a concerted, Soviet-inspired would have to deliver "secret" documents ranging a prisoner swap for Alicja Weso..
effort to pirate U.S. military and techno- to satisfy his new benefactor. . lowska, a former United Nations employee '
logical secrets from American industry.* Theoperation quickly became the stuff of convicted in Poland in 1980ofspyingforthe
*In a somewhat similar case fouryears ago, Christopher a B-movie thriller. Zacharski furnished Bell West. Both men could besentenced to life in
Boyce, a young clerk for TRW, Inc., in Redondo Beach, with sophisticated spy gear, including spe- prison ifconvicted, but with Wesolowskaas
Calif., was convicted of using his security clearance to
obtain secret documents on s proposed satellite system that cial film and a motion-picture camera capa- the new wild card William Bell may be the
would haveenabled U.S. agents tocommunicate with each bleof taking single-frame exposures. In No-. only one to ever serve time.
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