Intelligence Conference in Warsaw
Dear Bernie,
Just to let you know, earlier this month I was invited to Warsaw, Poland by their government's Office for War Veterans and Victims of Oppression. They had a conference on Intelligence during the Second World War to mark the findings of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee on World War II Intelligence Co-Operation. I gave a paper on British counter-espionage and double cross.
I'm just letting you know this because I know you are a firm believer in opening up archives and getting the truth out there. In this case the British government allowed a team of researchers to go through the archives to find surviving correspondence from the Polish Intelligence services based in London during the war. They have published their findings in two volumes (the first 1000 pages in length). Its title is something catchy like: Intelligence Co-Operation Between Poland and Great Britain During World War II.
Of course much of the research is on Enigma and how the Poles supplied their scientific findings on code breaking to the French and Brits in 1939 just before the outbreak of war. There is also excellent material on intelligence gathering on an almost global level. One part I found surprising is a Pole was sent to report the death camps to the British and American governments and to ask for help. By this point the Poles had quite an accurate picture of the number of people being moved. The Poles wanted them to confront the Nazis and threaten them with extermination if they did not stop the mass murders. They at least wanted the railway lines to be bombed to slow the flow of deportees. It is absolutely amazing how much our governments had the evidence in front of them, but appeared not to react - mostly because what they were being told was on such an unbelievable scale, it was unfathomable to them.
The whole experience was very interesting. There were a lot of war veterans there: half think we should have followed on and attacked Stalin in 1945; the other half point out that there would have been nothing left of Poland at all had the conflict continued.
Anyway .. that's all for now. Hope you are well and Raleigh is prospering.
Terry