Cold War NATO files rule out Martial Law intervention

The NATO documents – which cover the years 1980-1984 – are the successive files which Poland, as a NATO member since 1999, has managed to obtain which relate to the Cold War period.

The release of the documents comes some ten years earlier than expected, as classified NATO files usually have a 30-year restriction placed on them.

Five years ago, the archives of the Warsaw Pact, NATO’s adversary during the Cold War, were made public, while two years later the CIA declassified almost 1,500 pages of documents drawn up thanks to reports sent by Ryszard Kuklinski, a Polish colonel and spy who passed on secret documents throughout the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s to the USA.

The move to declassify the documents was granted after a formal application made by the Polish government in Warsaw last December was submitted to NATO for the release of material relating to the imposition of Martial Law.

The files show that although NATO had far-reaching contingency plans if the Soviets were to have invaded Poland in 1981, the Alliance was not prepared to launch a counter-strike during the imposition of Martial Law.

While in Brussels, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski commented on the documents’ details by saying “NATO was not ready to take the risk to help Poles fighting for freedom.”

Sikorski added that “I have read the document, but I cannot provide a commentary – let us leave that to the historians.” (jb)

Source: IAR