David Dastych Dead at 69

...He came into my life looking for his military brother and hero Major John Hasek in 2005. Maj. Hasek had been killed in Bosnia and it was difficult finding the words to explain to David Dastych that Maj. Hasek, who had survived VietNam, had died while reporting on the war in Yugoslavia for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and other news agencies. From that very first email, David Dastych remained my friend.

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In time, the celebrated Warsaw-based journalist and ‘The Spy Who Never Came in from the Cold’ was to honour Canada Free Press (CFP) with his columns on international affairs. David “Mariusz” Dastych survived many tragedies, not the least of which was the “sudden and mysterious death” of his -24-year-old son Olaf, in December, 1996. Just two years prior, David had broken his vertebral column in the French mountains. As he had survived two attempts on his life in the 1980s and ‘90s as a CIA agent, he jokingly said nobody tried to kill him anymore because “I was not a worthwhile target”. Told by doctors he would never walk again, he refused to give up up and took his first faltering steps three years after the accident. On Feb. 28, 1990 Dastych walked back to freedom from a Communist prison, having had his 8-year sentence reduced to five years by a Military Tribunal. He had been imprisoned by the KGB as a CIA operative. In Poland where he tried to support an extended family by running an international media agency, Dastych was never down about anything and was always there with a word of encouragement for everyone else. Sad news reached me on Canada’s East Coast last night that David Dastych is dead at age 69. The last time I talked to David he had called me on his cell phone full of joy to be returning home from hospital to his wife, Sophie and pets, Atos and Mickey. I worry how Sophie will fare without her beloved husband and don’t know how to reach her. (Sophie cannot speak English and I know no Polish). The last word in this obit, I hoped I would never have to write, belongs to David who wrote in the telling of son Olaf’s death in 2006, how proud he was of a small memorial created for Olaf by his Professor David T.H. Weir and friends: “When you come to Bradford, you will see the small memorial that we have created to remember him. It is a small tree now but will grow straight and strong. When you come to Bradford, you will know that, as Olaf’s parents, you are among friends.” “Thank you, Professor Weir. Thank you all of Olaf’s friends. I shall come to Bradford in the footsteps of my late son. I will also try to find out when and where my unknown, ruthless enemies eventually poisoned him. They never forget, these hoodlums on Earth. But I, Olaf’s mourning father, I will always remember.” Rest in peace, David. You leave this world a lonelier place.