POLAND: THE RESISTANCE

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Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00845R000200910001-5
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RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
June 17, 2010
Sequence Number: 
1
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
January 4, 1982
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00845R000200910001-5.pdf115.75 KB
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/17 :CIA-RDP90-008458000200910001-5 ART I CL~: APPEA_R.ED O;d PAGE heavy snowfall covered Poland last week, but could not bury a Christmas i of black despair. The crowded churches rang more with sorrow than joy, and Arch- ~ bishop Jozef Glemp spoke out for "the families who havebeen harmed, disappoint- ed, imprisoned, slandered without good j reason." In many homes, Christmas dinner was a leftover memory of past happy feasts, and the place that Poles traditionally leave at the table for a wandering stranger was reserved this year in honor of imprisoned workers. The candles that twinkled from windows served not asdecorations-but as silent symbols of resistance. j The government of Gen. Wojciech Jaru- i zelski continued its mailed-fist purge of Pol- ish reform and Polish reformers. The first massive military sweep sent thousands of workers, intellectuals and priests to freez- '. i It persists against tjie crackdown--with sacpport from Reagan, who also lays down a challenge to Moscow ing makeshift detention camps. In Gdansk, ~ birthplace of Solidarity and a seedbed of I resistance, tear-gas attacks broke up street I marches by as many as 40,000 workers and students. Last week the government forces concentrated on clearing out the biggest remaining pockets ofprotest.Buttheresist- ancelived on in workers who only pretend- j ed to work, in farmers who held back their produce-and in the hearts of all.who ever ~ made common cause with Solidarity. It added up to a tide that might not overflow into the streets-but could well drown the struggling economy. "When the country was first sealed off, people were scazed and passive," said Andrzej Swaetek, a spokes- man for Solidarity in Copenhagen. "But when they shook their first fear, they started to create resistance." And, he added: "Poles are very good at resistance." In Washington Ronald Reagan delivered NEWSWEII; l+ JANUARY 1982 window and asked Americans to light can- , dies as well to signal that "the light of i freedom is not going to be extingu:~hed." ~ Without waiting for support from the European allies, Reagan put such direct heat on Jaruzelski as he readily c:~uld. He suspended Polish fishing rights in Ameri- can waters, terminated Poland's civil-avi- ation privileges in Amer.'can skies alld cut off Polish access to the Export-Import Bank. Government-sponsored food aid to Poland from the United States will be re- stored,Reagan said, only if independ- entagencies such as the Red Cross are permitted to distribute the food in Poland. Poland can expect more U.S. economic aid if it relaxes its grip, he added-and even tougher measures if it doesn't. "If the outrages in Poland do not cease," the President declared, "we cannot and will not conduct busi- ness asusual with the perpetrators and those who aid and abet them. Makz no mistake: their crime will cost them dearly." Showdown: Reagan's tough words were also pointedly addressed to the Soviet Union. In a letter to Leonid Brezhnev, Reagan asserted-as he paraphrased it in his speech-that "if this [Polish] repression continues, the United States will have no choice but to take further concrete political and economic measures affecting our relationship." By holding Moscow directly responsible for Poland's tur- moil, Reagan publicly escalated the crisis in the Soviet bloc to a super- powershowdown over the "freedoms that the Polish people cherish." Though the President issued no im- mediate sanctions against the Soviet Union, White House advisers said Moscow should not regard Reagan's long ago stood at our threshold." He denied persistent reports of many more deaths than the seven admitted by the government, in- sisted that prisoners were being held in hu- maneconditions and stressed that "there is room for self-managing and really inde- pendent trade unions"-although he said nothing about Solidarity leader Lech Wa- lesa, who was held incommunicado for the second straight week. "Dear countrymen; ' Jaruzelski said, "I cannot today wish you a merry and prosperous Christmas. This year's holiday is modest. But it is safe. JOHN BRECHER with JORGEN PEDERSF.N in Warsaw, DOUGLAS ST 12~GLIiV in Bonn, SCOTT SULLIYAN in Paris, JOH!S wALCOTr in Washington, SETH btYDAKS in London, DANIELA PETROPF in Rome and burmu reports words as rhetoric but as a portent of ? j reprisals to come. li Brezhnev quickly answered Rea- gan's letter with one of his own. The contents of the letter were not disclosed, but publicly Moscow denied Reagan's charges of Soviet interference in ?Poland, characterizing .them as "slander." Then I Pravda came back with an extraordtna a Christmas message to Americans that was ht or tat: a word article claiming to ! heavily weighted with indignation over a etat a -ear a ort--co a name: "Polish Government [that] wages war edsox- edcap-to overt row t e un- against its own people." In a husky voice, ganan, zec os ova an o is ommu- Reagan told of his emotional meeting with ms regimes. Romuald Spasowski, the Polish ambassa- '-~ aw; Jaruzelski himself replied dor who had defected to the United States a directly to his critics for the first time, insist- few days earlier (page l6). At Spasowski's ~~g in a conciliatory Christmas Eve speech request, Reagan ordered a candle lit for that martial law is "decidedly a lesser evil Poland on Christmas Eve in a White House than the fratricidal conflict which not sn ' Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/17 :CIA-RDP90-008458000200910001-5