Background 123

Helsinki was a major turning point in the Cold War. Criticized by many as the selling of Eastern Europe to the Soviets through the reaffirmation of Yalta, the 1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) gained something enigmatic and invaluable for the West—it created a spark of resistance. By 1976, a number of organizations began to spring up across Eastern Europe in line with the CSCE human rights provision. This was especially evident in Poland, which had a strong resistance base following the strikes by the Gdańsk shipyard workers in 1970 that ended in a violent military crackdown, but forced significant regime concessions.338 _{The Helsinki accords} allowed Polish opposition to form the Workers’ Defense Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników – KOR) and the Movement for Defense of Human and Civic Rights (Ruch Obrony Praw Człowieka i Obywatela - ROPCiO), organizations that “gave rise to the idea of an independent trade union to defend the rights of workers.”339

The Catholic Church also played a key role in the Polish resistance movement. While KOR and ROPCiO provided the structural base for the formation of Solidarity in 1980, the strength of will to challenge the existing regime, as well as the underground networks to sustain the dissident movement in its darkest hours, had their origins in 1978, with the election of Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II. In June 1979, John Paul returned to Poland and, while speaking to crowds numbering in the millions, challenged the fundamental premise of communism and reaffirmed the idea of human and spiritual freedom in the Polish narrative and the necessity to maintain trust and faith, and “not be defeated.” The Polish regime propaganda and censorship efforts failed, and

338 _{Libcom, “1970–1971: Uprising in Poland,” https://libcom.org/history/1970-71-uprising-poland.} 339 _{Gates, From the Shadows, 85–87.}

only highlighted the crude efforts to misrepresent the dramatic events unfolding before their very eyes.340

Solidarity formed in August 1980, arising out of growing strikes at the Gdańsk shipyards that expanded to support mines, factories, and businesses across the country. The movement, organized under the Interfactory Strike Committee (Międzyzakładowy Komitet Strajkowy, MKS), issued a list of 21 demands including the acceptance of free trade unions independent of the Communist Party; freedom of speech, the press, and publication; access to mass media; the release of all political prisoners; and the selection of management independent of communist party affiliation.341 _{The possibility of} nationwide work stoppages forced the regime to accept the demands and triggered the resignation of Edward Gierek as party chairman, who was replaced by Stanislaw Kania on 6 September 1980.342 _{From the perspective of the USSR, the path Poland was taking} resembled the Czechoslovakian reform movements in 1968. The entire Soviet system was in danger. By mid-September, growing concern of a Soviet military intervention began to emerge. A military intervention was supposedly planned for 5 December and several accounts indicate that preemptive signaling by the Carter Administration and Kania’s pleas for more time convinced the Warsaw Pact leadership to delay the invasion.343

340 _{Peggy Noonan, “We Want God,” Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2005, http://online.wsj.com/news/}

articles/SB122479408458463941.

341 _{UNESCO, “Twenty-One Demands, Gdañsk, August 1980. The birth of the SOLIDARITY trades}

union – a massive social movement,” 2003.

342 _{Gates, From the Shadows, 163.}

343 _{Observation of unscheduled large-scale Soviet military exercises on the East German-Polish border}

beginning on 30 November, (Gates, From the Shadows, 166.) and information received from a high- ranking CIA source in the Polish general staff indicated that a Warsaw Pact intervention was imminent. (Malcolm Byrne, “New Evidence on the Polish Crisis 1980-1982,” Cold War International History

Project: Cold War Flashpoints, Issue 11, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington,

D.C., Winter 1998.) The U.S. administration approved Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) recommendations to raise NATO’s alert posture, activate the war-time headquarters, and implement other high visibility measures such as the increase of war reserve munitions, all as a signal to the Soviet Union. Brzezinski, Carter’s Nationals Security Adviser, drafted a hotline message warning of “very grave

consequences to U.S.-Soviet relations” in the event of a Soviet invasion. A Soviet intervention was, in fact, planned for 5 December, and included 18 Warsaw Pact divisions, with an additional nine Soviet divisions scheduled to arrive within days. Kania was attending a Warsaw Pact summit in Moscow on the day of the scheduled intervention, and managed to convince the Soviet leadership to delay the intervention by promising to stop concessions to Solidarity and regain control. Following these events, the United States initiated “clandestine activities” in support of dissident Poles. (Gates, From the Shadows, 167–168.)

Politburo minutes from the time period, however, indicate that the invasion plans and corresponding preparations were likely an elaborate deception operation (maskirovka) designed to pressure the Polish government into harsher control measures.344

In early spring, 1981, the situation in Poland began to deteriorate again, with Solidarity continuing to extract concessions from the regime, especially on issues of security service repression and political prisoners.345 _{CIA assessments of the situation} indicated a serious dilemma for the Soviet Union. CIA Director William Casey wrote to the President:

If they go [invade], they will get economic chaos arising from the debt, a slowdown of the whole Polish work force and millions of Poles conducting a guerrilla war against them. If they don’t, they are open to the West and a political force which could unravel their entire system. Before sending divisions in, they will move heaven and earth to get the Poles to crack down on themselves.346

The assessment was accurate, and the Soviets determined that the price to pay for a military intervention was too high. The decision was the death knell for the Soviet Union. Solidarity continued its peaceful strikes and intensified pressure on the regime through early December 1981. The Soviets rejected proposed policies of Polish “national reconciliation” and forced a resolution. Communist Party Chairman Kania was replaced by Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski, who assumed both of the top posts in Poland. On 13 December, amid the threat of a general strike, martial law was declared.347

The declaration of martial law on December 13, 1981 was the impetus for initiating a comprehensive overt and covert program to challenge the Soviet Union in Poland. Solidarity was outlawed, nearly 6,000 leaders within the movement were detained, with hundreds charged with “treason, subversion and counterrevolution,” and

344 _{Wilfried Loth, “The Soviet Nonintervention in Poland, 1980/81,” Lelewel-Gespräche, Historisches}

Institut der Universität Duisburg-Essen, June 2012.

345 _{Ibid., 231.} 346 _{Ibid., 232.} 347 _{Ibid., 232–237.}

Polish resistance was driven underground and on the verge of collapse.348 _{Prior to the} declaration of martial law, Solidarity operated openly for nearly 16 months, becoming ingrained in the Polish national narrative. The crackdown was an opportunity for the U.S. to exploit the massive resentment growing within Polish society and help bring the Catholic Church into “direct conflict with the Polish Regime.”349

On June 7, 1982, Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II met for the first time in the Vatican Library. Both men shared a common vision that rejected the communist dominance in Eastern Europe imposed by the 1945 Yalta accord. The extent of the collaboration between the Catholic Church and the United States Government over Poland remains unknown; however, at a minimum, the exchange of intelligence did take place. The Catholic Church would go on to play a critical role in the mitigation of violent repression by the Polish government and fostering eventual dialogue with Solidarity. On the local level, Catholic institutions would serve as vital hubs of the Polish underground movement.350

The hesitation of the Soviet and Polish regimes to use the Red Army to crush unrest, as they did in East Germany and Hungary in the 1950s and Czechoslovakia in 1968, exposed a critical vulnerability inside the Iron Curtain. For the United States, the concept to exploit this vulnerability was simple. If Solidarity could be kept alive and nurtured through both covert and overt actions following the imposition of martial law, and the Communist PRL (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa) government gradually made to look impotent in the face of popular opposition, then Poland could be made to move Westward, if not torn away from the Soviet orbit entirely.351

348 _{Carl Bernstein, “Cover Story: The Holy Alliance,” Time, June 24, 2001, http://content.time.com/}

time/magazine/article/0,9171,159069,00.html.

349 _Ibid. 350 _Ibid. 351 _Ibid.