POLES CHARGE U.S. DIPLOMAT SPIED, CLAIM FILM IS PROOF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201590002-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 23, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201590002-6 STAT
WASHINGTON POST
23 April 1987
Poles Charge U.S. Diplomat
Spied, Claim Film Is Proof
1
By Jackson Diehl
Washington Post Foreign Service
WARSAW, April 22-The Polish
government today accused a U.S.
diplomat stationed here of spying
and said his activity was evidence of
aggressive American espionage in
Soviet Bloc countries.
Government spokesman Jerzy
Urban said that Albert Mueller, a
second secretary in the political
section of the U.S. Embassy, had
been "caught red-handed" Saturday
night as he met with a contact to
deliver spying equipment, money
and instructions.
Urban said Mueller was detained
by police until he was identified as a
diplomat, then released to Amer-
ican officials. The Polish Foreign
Ministry delivered a protest note to
U.S. officials here Monday about
Mueller's alleged activity but did
not formally expel him, Urban said.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman said
Mueller had left the country Sun-
day.
The incident, which Urban de-
scribed as a setback in U.S.-Polish
relations, came at a time when the
Reagan administration has focused
attention on alleged spying by So-
viet agents at the U.S. Embassy in
Moscow. It also coincided with the
Polish government's reaction to
revelations by a high-level defector,
Ryszard Kuldinski, who it says supplied the
CIA with an inside account of preparations
for martial law in 1981.
In a prepared statement at his weekly
news conference, Urban connected the spy-
ing accusation to both incidents, accusing
Washington of "spymania." .
"The United States maintains in the so-
cialist countries, including Poland, numer-
ous intelligence teams and recruits new
Kuklinskis," he said.
"The Polish counterintelligence service
had long, before established the full list of
members of the intelligence unit at the U.S.
Embassy in Warsaw," he added, "and has
noted that their number has markedly in-
creased recently."
-40-. an -elaborate presentation, Urban
showed western and Polish journalists a film
that he said showed Mueller meeting with a
contact in a wooded area in Warsaw.
The film also showed Mueller being in-
terrogated, and journalists were offered
copies of spying instructions said to have
been seized by police.
U.S. officials here said they would not
comment on Urban's charges.
But a spokesman said U.S. charge d'af-
faires John Davis had delivered a protest to
the Foreign Ministry, saying police had de-
tained Mueller for 61/2 hours in violation of
his diplomatic immunity.
[In Washington, White House spokesman
Marlin Fitzwater said, "As far as I know
he's not a spy."]
The treatment of Mueller's case by the
government of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski is
similar to that given last June to another
American diplomat, Stephen Mull, who was
accused on state television of spying but not
expelled.
Mull left the country.
In May 1985 Warsaw expelled two U.S.
diplomats, and the Reagan administration
responded by ordering four Polish officials
to leave the United States.
Urban said the new incident had "im-
paired" a trend of improving relations be-
tween the United States and Poland.
Despite such steps as the lifting of long-
standing economic sanctions against War-
saw by the Reagan administration in Feb-
ruary, Urban said "the substance of Polish-
American relations remains sensitive and
fragile after a period of total impasse."
Urban said Mueller had gathered infor-
mation both on military subjects and the
domestic opposition. He cited military ques.
tions Mueller allegedly pursued with Polish
contacts and listed a series of "secret"
meetings he said the diplomat had had with
prominent opposition activists and intellec.
tuals.
One of the activists named by Urban,
Janusz Onyszkiewicz, denied that he had had
clandestine meetings with Mueller.
Instead, Onyszkiewicz, the spokesman of
the banned trade union Solidarity, said the
times and places cited by Urban corre-
sponded to American diplomatic receptions
he had attended.
ALBERT MUELLER
... leaves Poland after detention
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201590002-6