Famed Polish writer was communist-era spy -- paper

WARSAW, May 22 (Reuters) Ryszard Kapuscinski, the late Polish writer often tipped for the Nobel prize, spied for the state's communist-era regime while producing chronicles of world trouble spots that made him famous, a paper said.

The revelations by the Polish weekly Newsweek yesterday about Kapuscinski, who died in January aged 74, follow a string of media publications revealing prominent figures to have been communist-era agents.

From 1959 to 1981, when Poland was ruled by the Soviet-backed communist regime, Kapuscinski covered the globe's poorest and most dangerous places as a correspondent for the state-run Polish news agency PAP.

The author of ''Emperor'', an account of the downfall of Ethiopia's Haile Selassie and ''Shah of Shahs'', on the overthrow of Iran's Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, travelled across Africa and South America at the time of his alleged collaboration.

Newsweek published extracts of Kapuscinski's files held by the Polish Remembrance Institute which expose him as an agent for the communist secret police in the years 1967-1972.

At that time it was almost impossible to leave the country without signing a document to cooperate with the regime.

''During his cooperation he has demonstrated a lot of willingness but he has not supplied any significant documents,'' Newsweek quoted extracts from Kapuscinski's file as saying.

The secret police recruited Kapuscinski, often tipped for the Nobel prize but never successful, in the mid-1960s and his collaboration ended around 1972, the paper said.

''No US reporter had to work with the CIA in order to be allowed to leave the country,'' said Ernest Skalski, a long-time friend and fellow reporter.

''But Kapuscinski had to ... If he didn't agree he wouldn't have written his books. There would be no Kapuscinski.'' A campaign to weed out communist-era spies from public life has been launched since staunch anti-communists Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland's prime minister, and his twin brother Lech, the president, took power.

REUTERS SM VV0945