POLISH BANKER GIVING AGENTS 'EXTRAORDINARY' INFORMATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606760003-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 23, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 :CIA-RDP90-0
THE t,'ASHI~IG?0~ POST
23 October 1982
~?olish Banker Giving Agents
`Extraordinary' Information
By Thomas O'Toole
washtn(rwn Post Sistt Wr14r
Poland's top-ranking hanker in
North America defected to the Unit-
ed States almost three months ago,
bringing with him what one source
described as "extraordinary" infor-
mation about East European intel-
ligence.
Sources said that CIA and FBI
agents still are interviewing Andrzej
Treumann, who came to New York
three years ago to open the North
American office of Bank Handlowy,
the foreign trade bank handling
most of Poland's S26 billion debt to
western banks and governments.
Treumann had been responsible for
negotiating the new schedule of
Polish payments on the debt"
"A'hile he was a banker and not a
spy, Treumann apparently had been
used quite often by Polish and East
European Intelligence agencies," one
source said. "We are getting extraor-
dinarily high quality information
about East bloc intelligence methods
from him."
Said to be in his early 40s, 'j'reu-
mann, his wife and daughter now are
in the Washington area where he has
been talking freely with CIA and
FBI agents about what Polish. intel-
ligence sought from him and what he
gave them.
Sources said they did not know
Treumann's reason for defecting,
although one source hinted that he
sought political asylum here because
of the crackdown on the Polish peo-
ple by the Polish military govern-
ment. Several high ranking Poles
have defected to the United States
since martial law was declared in
Poland, including Ambassador to the
United States Romuald Spasowski
and Ambassador to Japan Zdzislaw
Rurarz.
The New York Times said yester-
day that Treumann stopped going to
his Park Avenue office late in Ju}y
and that he and his family vacated
their Queens apartment early in Au-
gust Report8 also begaa circxilating
in the New York banking comrnu?
pity that he had vanished, although
he told friends he was going back to
Poland in August
In late August, the Times re-
portsd, Treurnann's bank mailed a
one-sentence notice to U.S. banks
saying Treumann "terminated his
activities as our representative in the
United States." The telephone in
T~eumann's apartment was an-
swered by a man with an East
European accent who said: "Mr.
Treumann doesn't live here any
more. Good night"
Before opening Bank Handlowy's
Nea York office, Treuanann had
been a senior offiaal of the bank ~ in
Warsaw where he was the equivalent
of a senior vice president of an
American bank and where he helped
arrange some of the biggest western
Loans to Poland in the 1970s.
Poland stall owes 526 billion to the
West, induding 51.6 billion to the
U.S. government and 51.4 billion to
U.S. banks.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 :CIA-RDP90-005528000606760003-5