26. In November 1986, in what can indeed be best characterized as a raving diatribe, Arbatov analyzed a revealing Reagan speech to the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. The occasion was the thirtieth anniversary of the Soviet crushing of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, in which tens of thousands were killed by Red tanks. President Dwight Eisenhower had agonized that the United States could do nothing to support those Hungarians literally dying to be free. He decided not to intervene. Reagan, who admired Ike, lamented that America had “stood by, hands folded.” In a calmer moment, Arbatov said it was clear that if Reagan had been president in 1956, the United States would not have done nothing. He went further: “No matter how you look at it there is only one way to interpret all this,” insisted Arbatov. “U.S. policy is reverting not to 1956 but to 1918, when American troops participated in the ignominiously failed intervention in Soviet Russia.” Back then, Woodrow Wilson sent U.S. troops to try to unseat the Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war. That, assured Arbatov, was Reagan’s goal—to dislodge the Bolsheviks from power. The goal, he said, was to “conquer” the “empire of evil.” G. Arbatov, “Not Just for the Sake of It; On R. Reagan’s Speech,” Pravda, November 21, 1986, 4, published as “Arbatov Rebuttal to 18 Nov Reagan Speech,” in FBIS, FBIS, November 21, 1986, A4–5.
27. Reagan, said Ponomarev, would “wreck them by means of an arms race.” His “chief aim” against the Soviet Union and other socialist states remained to seek “every way possible to destroy socialism and exact social revenge in the world arena.” The Crusader, who did childish things like proclaim an official “Year of the Bible,” retained a religious devotion to “fighting communism on a ‘world scale.’” Manki Ponomarev, “The United States: Policy With No Future,” Krasnaya Zvezda, March 8, 1987, 3, published as “Army Paper on Links Between Reagan, ‘Truman Doctrine,’” in FBIS, March 13, 1987, A6–8.
source of media we had of what was going on in the free world. We learned who was being imprisoned and it helped in keeping the spirits of Poles up. I listened to them all the time.” 15. In the Face of Eviclass="underline" Reagan’s War in Word and Deed (American Vantage Films and Capital Films I, LLC, 2005).
16. The Walesa quote is from the proceedings of “The Failure of Communism: The Western Response,” a conference sponsored by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, November
15, 1989, in Munich Germany.
17. Interview with Lech Walesa, April 25, 2005.
18. Interview with Jan Winiecki, March 11, 2003.
19. Pipes, Vixi, 167, 183. Secretary of State Shultz in particular did not see the Poland situation through the same ideological lens as Reagan, Pipes, Clark, and others. Pipes notes that Shultz pushed to lift the sanctions on Poland and prodded Reagan to a more conciliatory position.
20. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, “Miracle of Solidarity Ended Communism,” Human Events, September 26, 2005, 9.
21. Bernstein and Politi, His Holiness, 260.
22. “President Reagan’s political support helped it survive martial law to become the decisive catalyst in the eventual chain reaction of communist collapse at the end of the 1980s.” James H. Billington, “The Foreign Policy of President Ronald Reagan,” Address to the International Republican Institute Freedom Dinner, Washington, DC, September 25, 1997, 2. 23. Arch Puddington, “Voices in the Wilderness: The Western Heroes of Eastern Europe,” Policy Review, Summer 1990, 34–35.
24. Piecuch was interviewed by Schweizer. Schweizer, Reagan’s War, 236. 25. Arch Puddington found that Poles liked Reagan’s vitality, sense of humor, and willingness to call a spade a spade. They admired his anti-Soviet rhetoric, particularly the “Evil Empire” speech. That explosive remark, as well as the president’s prediction that Communism would end up on the “ash heap of history,” thrilled Poles. Reagan had spoken their language. Bartak Kaminski, a Polish émigré teaching at the University of Maryland, explained that Reagan was the first world leader in the post-détente era who was willing to express ideas about the Soviets that were shared by most Poles. Kaminski pointed to the strong policy response to the declaration of martial law. He said that this was imperative in undermining the legitimacy of the Jaruzelski government. It stood in marked contrast to the shameful friendliness that the West and Nixon administration extended to the odious regime of Nicolai Ceausescu in Romania. In Romania, notes Kaminski, such accommodation had the effect of undercutting the opposition. Jerzy Warman, a student activist in Polish politics, agreed. Warman pointed to the Reagan defense buildup and aid to anti-Communist forces in the Third World, which he believed sent a signal to the entire Soviet bloc that the Communists “simply could not hope to win.” Puddington, 34–35.
Poles applauded Reagan’s verbal cruise missiles launched at Soviet Communism. “He was right, 100% right,” said Polish citizen Joseph Dudek of Reagan’s labeling the USSR an “Evil Empire.” “For the oppressed in Poland it was relief that someone had the courage to stand up for the right thing and name the Communist system as it really was….Most of the people in Poland were hoping he’d do something to expose Russia and the Communists and end it [Soviet domination of Poland]. They wanted him to fix the mistakes Churchill and Roosevelt made after World War II.” Dudek also pointed to Reagan’s “Tear-Down-This-Wall” speech. For Dudek and other Poles, Reagan’s Cold War candor was both a symbol and a weapon, and his choice phrases gave them hope. A native of Krakow who is careful to also emphasize the role of the Pope, Dudek says that Reagan was among the few outside of Poland who understood the Communists, and that his “confident speaking” gave the Solidarity leaders support. Dudek assures: “He was a part of keeping alive the hopes of Polish freedom.” He said Poles viewed Reagan as someone who would say almost anything in standing up to the Communists. Interview with Joseph Dudek.
Credit to Reagan also came from Boguslaw W. Winid. Winid has a doctorate in history from Warsaw University and served at the Polish Embassy in Washington, DC. He was a researcher at Warsaw University’s American Studies Center. Asked what role, if any, the United States played in Solidarity’s victory over Communism, Winid replied: “I think it played quite an important role. This was particularly true with President Ronald Reagan… who clearly defined the Soviet Union as an Evil Empire. And though many arguments have been made about the value of his approach, I believe it was important that he portrayed situations as right or wrong and not as a gray area. Moral issues were important in dealing with a country like the Soviet Union. Reagan’s hard approach toward the Soviet Union was very helpful from the Polish point of view and made him very popular in Poland.” Winid’s talk February 24, 1994, in Kenneth W. Thompson, ed., The Presidency and Governance in Poland: Yesterday and Today (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997), 115.
From inside the Polish Communist government that tried to smash Solidarity, General Kiszczak, who was Poland’s Interior Minister in the 1980s, later said: “The assistance from [the] American government for Solidarity was essential.” Kiszczak interviewed by Schweizer, Schweizer, Reagan’s War, 276.