From Warsaw with Love

Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance

By: John Pomfret

Narrated by: Donald Corren

Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

From the award-winning and acclaimed author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, From Warsaw with Love tells the epic story of how Polish intelligence officers forged an alliance with the CIA in the twilight of the Cold War. In 1990, soon after the Polish people voted in their first democratic election since the 1930s, the young Polish government sent a veteran spy, who’d battled the West for decades, to rescue six American officers trapped in Baghdad. As the US cobbled together a coalition to undo Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the CIA asked the Polish government for help. The American officers held valuable intelligence that, if discovered by Saddam, could have spelled ruin for Desert Storm.

John Pomfret’s gripping account of the cliff-hanger in Iraq is just the beginning of a saga about intelligence cooperation between Poland and America, cooperation that a CIA director would describe as “one of the two foremost intelligence relationships that the United States has ever had”. Poland’s ex-communist spies snooped for America from Havana to Moscow, Pyongyang to Tehran. Pomfret also reveals shocking details about the CIA’s “black site” program that held suspected terrorists in Poland after 9/11 as well the role of Polish spies in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

As the US teeters on the edge of a new cold war with Russia and China, Pomfret explores these little-known events as a reminder of the challenges and importance of alliances in a dangerous world.

Contributor Bio(s): John Pomfret, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, served as a correspondent for the Washington Post for two decades, covering wars, revolutions, and China. His most recent book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, won the Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations. The recipient of numerous journalism awards, he lives with his wife and three children in Berkeley, CA.

©2021 John Pomfret (P)2021 Recorded Books

Superb - All Americans should know about its recent and colonial history if strayegic partnership with the USA

I enjoy historical non fiction books, and found From Warsaw with Love full of information and facts that surprised and enlightened me. A must read.

Great book

Really enjoyed this book. Narrator is wonderful. Can’t wait to read more books by John Pomfret.

Fascinating

Great book, growing up in Poland there was so much kept from us, propaganda, omission and straight lies. It was great to revisit the history from this perspective, I never knew how intertwined our spy services were. I highly recommend this story, it doesn't matter whether you are familiar with it or will you be learning about it for the first time, it is very well explained, easy to follow and well written.

Great story and good listen

The story and book were both great until in the last chapter the author reveals himself to be a foaming at the mouth liberal and begins ranting against conservative politics/politicians.

A Fantastic Story

As I read/listened to the book, I found myself wishing that my Father was alive to read the book. He was from a prominent Krakow family, and had served in WWII. In the IS he was an academic and Aerospace executive. This book reads like the spy novel it is. Incredibly well researched. Astounding in the tales it tells.

Spy Thriller++

Spy thriller as history? History as spy thriller? Either way Pomfret’s magnificent book “From Warsaw with Love” channels a satisfying blend of Ian Fleming and Bob Woodward to create a page turner that educates while it entertains. This meticulously researched story about pre-and-post-Cold-War Polish espionage - and its critical role in Poland’s perilous navigation from the Soviet to the American sphere of influence - does not disappoint.

The book covers a time period in Poland from 1977 to 2020, – from Brezhnev-era espionage in the late 1970s and the rise of Solidarity in Poland in the mid-1980s, through the epochal events in Eastern Europe of 1989, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Poland’s role in the American response, through the Clinton years, 9/11, and the disastrous second Iraq war, up to the present day ascendancy of right-wing ethno-nationalism in Poland, Russia and the USA. The heart of tale takes place during the pivotal years immediately before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, centering on the gripping rescue mission led by Polish spy Gromoslaw Czempinski (a real world James Bond) to extricate from Iraq six US officers with key military intelligence during the early days of Operation Desert Storm.

But “From Warsaw with Love” is much more than an edge-of-your-seat spy-vs-spy yarn – it recapitulates a key period of recent history from the realpolitik vantage point of the international intelligence community – deftly weaving together multiple stories of the spies and spy agencies in both the USA and Poland as they traverse the chaotic geopolitical vacuum created by the evaporation of the USSR, and the end of the Cold War stasis that had defined geopolitics for over forty years. What emerges is a picture not only of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also the collapse of American statecraft absent a well-defined mission.

Donald Corren adroitly narrates this very human spy story that will keep you compulsively listening long into the wee hours of the morning.