Fred Kovaleski was born October 8, 1924, in Maynard, Massachusetts, and grew up in Hamtramck, Michigan.
Hamtramck was majority ethnically Polish at the time, and both of Kovaleski's parents had immigrated from Poland.
[1] He enrolled at the College of William & Mary on a tennis scholarship, but enlisted in the United States Army as an air cadet in 1942.
Kovaleski was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency, with international travel providing him a cover for performing espionage.
His son, Serge F. Kovaleski, also graduated from William & Mary, and works as an investigative reporter for The New York Times, where he has won a Pulitzer Prize.