During the 1980s a group in Poland that Lech Walesa led, called "Solidarity," was apparently secretly supported by the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] of the Republican Reagan administration. As the Chair and Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]'s Transnational Threats Project, Seth G. Jones, recalled in his 2018 book, A Covert Action: Reagan, The CIA, and The Cold War Struggle in Poland:
"Reagan acted deliberately...One of the...decisions was to sign a presidential finding on November 4, 1982, which approved a CIA covert action program to provide money and other...assistance to Solidarity. The program was named `QRHELPFUL.'...It required the CIA to recruit assets, establish a covert network, and aid a resistance movement...
"...QRHELPFUL was one of the United States' most successful covert action programs, yet also one of its least known...The CIA provided money and resources to organize demonstrations, print opposition material, and conduct radio and video transmissions that boosted opposition support and morale...QRHELPFUL was also cost-effective; the total bill amounted to less than $20 million (or roughly $40 million in today's dollars)...The CIA helped Solidarity survive...
"...There has been little written publicly about the CIA's covert action program in Poland...Most...American historians assume Reagan's actions ended with economic sanctions..." (end of part 1)
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