Ryszard Kuklinski

Ryszard Kuklinski was a Polish colonel and a Cold War spy for NATO. He was posthumously promoted to the rank of brigadier general by Polish President Andrzej Duda. Kuklinski passed top secret Soviet documents to the CIA between 1972 and 1981, including the Soviet plans for the invasion of Western Europe. He was the first foreign recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. He escaped to the United States with his family shortly before the imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981. He faced imminent danger of discovery from a secret Communist collaborator. He was sentenced to death in absentia by a military court in Poland, but he was later rehabilitated after the fall of communism. He died of a stroke in 2004 in Tampa, Florida. He is regarded as a hero by many in Poland and the United States, but also as a traitor by some of his former colleagues and opponents.