"From Warsaw With Love" By John Pomfret

Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in January 2023. In 1990, as the United States cobbles together a coalition to undo Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, six US officers are trapped in Iraq with intelligence that could ruin Operation Desert Storm, if it falls into the wrong hands. Desperate, the CIA asks Poland - a longtime Cold War foe, famed for its excellent spies - for help. In his latest book, From Warsaw With Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance, John Pomfret offers a gripping account of the beginning of the intelligence cooperation between Poland and the United States. Pomfret uncovers new details about the CIA’s black site program that held suspected terrorists in Poland after 9/11, as well as the role of Polish spies in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. John Pomfret is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, served as a correspondent for the Washington Post for two decades, covering wars, revolutions, and China. His previous book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, won the Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations.