Filed at 7:16 p.m. ET

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- A Polish army officer who spied on his country for the CIA during the communist era and later fled to the United States has died, the U.S. government said Wednesday. He was 73.

Col. Ryszard Kuklinski had a stroke on Feb. 5 and died late Tuesday, longtime friend Jozef Szaniawski said.

Szaniawski said Kuklinski died at a military hospital in Tampa, Fla. U.S. officials confirmed Kuklinski died in Florida, but would not say where. Kuklinksi's family lived in hiding for years because of threats on his life, and both of his sons were killed in mysterious accidents after the end of communism.

CIA Director George Tenet hailed Kuklinski as ``a true hero of the Cold War,'' and former President Lech Walesa said he had ``achieved great things'' despite being seen as a traitor by some of his countrymen.

Kuklinski was born June 13, 1930, in Warsaw and served as a liaison officer between the Polish military and the Soviet Army from 1976-81.

From behind the Iron Curtain, he passed some 35,000 pages of Warsaw Pact secrets to the CIA, telling them about the communist government's plan to impose martial law in 1981 and launch a bloody crackdown on the pro-democracy Solidarity movement.

Some Poles still regard Kuklinski as a traitor, while others hail him as a hero.

``He was a spy for the right cause. He achieved great things,'' said Walesa, who founded Solidarity. ``Few people would have the courage to do this -- he risked his life. These were special times.''

Walesa, however, refused to pardon Kuklinski when he was president from 1990-95.

Kuklinski fled the country weeks before martial law was imposed in December 1981, and the government seized his house and other property.

``This passionate and courageous man helped keep the Cold War from becoming hot, providing the CIA with precious information upon which so many critical national security decisions rested,'' Tenet said Wednesday in a written statement. ``He did so for the noblest of reasons -- to advance the sacred causes of liberty and peace in his homeland and throughout the world.''

Kuklinski was sentenced to death by Poland's former communist government in 1984. He visited his homeland for the first time since fleeing in May 1998, months after a court cleared him of the treason charges.

Kuklinski repeatedly said he wanted to return to live in Poland after the fall of communism in 1989.

He is survived by his wife Joanna, who lived with him in Washington, and his grandson Michal.

``It is in great measure due to the bravery and sacrifice of Col. Kuklinski that his own native Poland, and the other once-captive nations of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, are now free,'' Tenet said.

Kuklinski is survived by his wife Joanna and his grandson Michal.

One of Kuklinski's sons died in the United States in a car crash, the other in a sailing mishap. Unexplained questions surround both deaths, and many Poles believe they were carried out by agents of the Soviet secret police, the KGB.