"Lech Walesa, the former Polish president who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, may have worked for the country’s Soviet-era secret police, the dreaded and feared SB. That bombshell exploded in Poland in February as headlines of his possible involvement scrolled at the bottom of TV screens and were splashed all over newspaper front pages. You couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing about the allegations", writes AFP Warsaw bureau chief Michel Viatteau.

"Investigators from the state-run National Remembrance Institute discovered numerous documents at the home of the former communist interior minister, the late General Czesław Kiszczak. The institute is tasked with investigating and exposing the crimes committed during Poland’s Nazi occupation and Communist past. Various government officials claim this evidence indicates that, for 27 years, until just recently in fact, Poland was being run by the heirs and affiliates of the Soviet-era Communist regime -- in secret. These communists had supposedly obtained incriminating documents about legitimate government officials and had used them to blackmail these officials for years. Indeed, the communists had supposedly been pulling the strings behind the scenes all along."

"I’ve been a journalist for 40 years. I have seen my share of wars and dirty tricks. But still, I bore this news with a heavy heart."