From Warsaw with Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance

From Warsaw with Love traces how Polish intelligence officers formed an alliance with the CIA during the final years of the Cold War. The narrative spans decades and multiple continents, including the Balkans, Iranian nuclear research facilities, and North Korean embassy grounds. The story begins in 1990 when six US officers become trapped in Iraq with sensitive intelligence during the coalition effort to reverse Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. The CIA turns to Poland—a former Cold War adversary known for skilled intelligence operatives—for assistance. Shortly after Poland's first democratic election since the 1930s, the new Solidarity government sends a veteran ex-Communist spy to rescue the Americans. Pomfret documents this 1990 crisis in Iraq as the opening of a broader intelligence partnership. A CIA director later described the US-Poland relationship as "one of the two foremost intelligence relationships that the United States has ever had." The book examines the CIA's black site program that detained suspected terrorists in Poland following 9/11 and Polish involvement in the search for Osama bin Laden. Written in the tradition of espionage literature, the account presents a complex narrative of moral ambiguity where distinctions between right and wrong are unclear. As US relations with Russia and China grow more adversarial, Pomfret reflects on how these historical events underscore the value of international alliances.