South Bend, December 13, 1981
Martial Law in Poland
Today after midnight, police commandos raided the main offices of the free trade union Solidarity in Warsaw, Gdansk and other Polish cities and arrested its leader. At the same time, martial law was imposed in Poland. The military is standing by on alert, news communications were cut off as well as borders and airports closed. Any stir of freedom is being crushed with brutal force. The West is confronted this morning by a number of pressing questions: Will there be an uprising in Poland? Will Solidarity, which has 9.5 million members, be able to stand its ground? Will the troops of the East Bloc countries invade Poland if the Communist regime should lose ground? Which measures should the West take against these events in the East?
December 20, 1981
Worse than Suspected
During the past week, military dictatorship has descended upon Poland. From the few reports that reached the West, one could get a rough idea of what has happened. The military and special police units cracked down with the sort of brutality one had thought would belong to the past. Where there was a strike in a factory or resistance put up, tanks moved in. There were casualties and many wounded. Lech Walesa remains under house arrest. Thousands of people fled abroad.
A convoy from the Netherlands, which had returned from a relief mission bringing food to Poland, told of violent excesses against civilians, wherever a group of people gathered. What is happening in Poland is worse than one could have suspected. As winter is approaching, there is a shortage of coal and food. What will happen with the thousands of dissidents who have been arrested? Touching scenes have occurred in Chicago, whenever it was possible to get, still in the last minute, family members out of Poland.
December 21, 1981
The Second Poland
About 10 million people of Polish descent live in America, primarily in the Chicago area. In these days of affliction of the old home country, the second Poland is getting attention. What is happening in Poland, is here not taken indifferently? Moved by reports of atrocities, terror and famine, people are prompted to act. In a blizzard and biting frost at 10 below zero Fahrenheit, thousands of people in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs went on the streets to show their compassion for the suffering Poland.
The Polish Ambassador in Washington Romuald Spasowski, an experienced career diplomat, resigned in protest and asked for political asylum. At his resignation Spasowski gave a stirring appeal to the Press Corps in Washington, saying: “This is the most flagrant and brutal violation of human rights, which makes a mockery of the Polish signature put on the final act of the Helsinki accords.”
Addendum
[President Reagan who was convinced that Moscow was jointly responsible for the events in Poland, immediately announced a number of sanctions against the Soviet Union. But they met with fierce criticism in Western Europe so that they threatened more to split the Western Alliance than to unite it for a common response. Most contentious was to boycott the Siberian natural gas pipeline, which was already under construction and would have supplied Western Europe with additional energy. British, German and Italian companies had already signed binding contracts to deliver building materials for the West Siberian Gas Pipeline. Stopping the delivery would have brought financial losses and inevitably led to layoffs. Margaret Thatcher argued that the sanctions did not make much sense because they would have been more damaging to the West than the East. The dispute over which measures should be taken against the East went on for some time. See Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, pp. 252-54.]