United States and Eastern Bloc Exchange Alleged Spies in Deal Involving 29 People

Marian Zacharski (born in Gdynia, Poland in 1951, raised in nearby Sopot), was a Polish Intelligence officer arrested in 1981 and convicted of espionage against the United States.

After four years in prison, he was exchanged for American agents on Berlin's famous Glienicke Bridge. Arguably, he was one of the most famous agents of the Polish intelligence service. In 1996, prosecutors in Warsaw charged him with flagrant mismanagement at the Pewex company, and Gorzów Wielkopolski police want to question him about illegal car trading.

The case of Marian and his friend is just the latest example of what the FBI calls "technology transfer"—the continuing effort by foreign countries, particularly the Soviet Union, to grab American technical know-how in whatever way they can. The methods, says FBI Spokesman Roger Young, "range from the legal and overt to the covert and illegal. Sometimes they are crude to the point of a car pulling up to a technological trade show and just loading up with free literature."