The General's President

by John Dalmas

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Wojciech Jaruzelski's grandfather was killed in 1920 fighting the Red Army, and his father died in a Soviet prison camp during the Second World War. Wojciech himself, a student at the elite Jesuit lycee in Warsaw, was arrested by the Soviets at age sixteen and imprisoned in labour camps, first in Kazakhstan where he worked as a coal miner, then in Siberia where he laboured cutting trees. In Siberia he was afflicted by snowblindness which permanently damaged his vision....

  From: "Wojciech Jaruzelski," pp 235-241, IN Heads of Government of the Twentieth Century, Ploughshare Books, London, AD 2001

  ***

  On Air Force One, crossing to Norway, the president spent much of the time practicing his Polish with John Zale. Especially reading it aloud, getting more thoroughly at home with the Polish orthography. He'd played at learning the language since first he'd known that Zale was fluent in it, but had never before taken it on as a project. Its many cognates with Russian made it far easier for Haugen than it would otherwise have been, the grammars were very similar, and his pronunciations had become quite good, quite Polish, with not much trace of American or Russian influence. But his conversational ability—particularly his recognition vocabulary—didn't extend much beyond small talk.

  Their first day in Europe, Arne and Lois Haugen spent in Norway. It was an official state visit, a "working" visit, not a sentimental trip to the parish where his father had grown up. They'd visited there several times before, had met his old-country relatives while Arne was still a young man, hiked the mountain ridge where his father had raced slalom as a teenager, when slalom meant skiing down a winding trail through the forest, dodging trees. Real slalom, Arne thought of it.

  Haugen's talks with the king, the prime minister, and the minister of foreign affairs, were formalities. His short, televised speech before the storting was memorable in only two respects: It was only the second ever delivered in Norwegian by the head of a non-Scandinavian state, the first having been by Willi Brandt, years before; and it was widely approved by the people of Norway, watching in their living rooms.

  By agreement, it was not telecast outside Norway. The president had insisted on that. It was a later speech that he wanted to receive international media attention, though of course he didn't say so.

  The second day was spent in Helsinki, where he spoke with the President of Finland, his prime minister and foreign minister. As in Norway, Haugen was already familiar with his ancestral district, Pori, and his short televised speech in Finnish to the Eduskunta, was the major event of his visit.

  His third day, in Sweden, differed mainly in that the Swedish minister of defense sat in secretly on Haugen's talk with the foreign minister and prime minister. It was deemed appropriate that he address the Riksdag briefly, as he had the Norwegian and Finnish parliaments. This time his wife stood beside him and also spoke, both in Swedish.

  When Arne Haugen went to bed that third night, it was with relief; the preliminary stops were over. There was a lot to do back in Washington. But the Scandinavian visits had been vital stage setting. Tomorrow he'd accomplish more; hopefully a lot more.

  ***

  The next morning before dawn, the presidential party flew out of Stockholm's Bromma Airfield in a thin, dry snowfall, in a chartered SAS 727. An hour later they landed at Warsaw, 470 miles south.

  ***

  They emerged from the armored limousines before an imposing stone building. The late autumn sunshine was thin and weak, the wintry breeze out of the east. Out of Russia, thought the president, then inwardly grinned at himself. Haugen, that's pretty dramatic for an old cedar savage.

  The honor guard, in heavy green greatcoats, stood at present arms, forming a precise human corridor bastioned with rifles. Among the party climbing the entrance steps were the American president, his ambassador to Poland, the ambassador's interpreter, and John Zale.

  Of the Poles who'd met them at the airport, three had introduced themselves as Foreign Ministry officials. They had been friendly but nervous—concerned, Haugen supposed, for his safety. The KGB and the GRU would both have agents in Poland, and just now the Russians seemed highly unpredictable. The Secret Service had argued strenuously against his coming, fearing that the KGB might try to kill him to embarrass the Kremlin, or that the Kremlin might try to kill him to embarrass the Poles.

  The CIA had been considerably less concerned. They had a lot of respect for the Polish secret police, who made life highly uncertain for Soviet agents. When they caught one, he was more likely never to be seen again than be deported, and Warsaw, they said, would be no more dangerous for the president than any other European capital.

  What had really upset the Secret Service was the president's decision to leave his agents on the plane in Warsaw. He would let the Poles protect him. Gil Rogers, special agent in charge of this trip, had been grim to the verge of rudeness. Haugen let him be; he'd come more and more to admire his single-minded "keepers."

  Besides the Foreign Ministry officials who'd met them, there were ten Poles who had not been introduced; they didn't have to be. Despite the cold, they wore jackets instead of coats, open jackets, and they looked about continually. The president suspected that, despite their considerable size, their agility and reflexes would be excellent. And there were no crowds to hide a gunman, either at the airport or at the government square, only men armed and uniformed, in little groups at a distance.

  Inside the massive building, two other men, deputy ministers, met the presidential party. After introductions, they marched through a rotunda, immaculate and impressive but rather cheerless, and down a wide hall to an office. A working office, large, and with broad windows facing south. Presumably, Haugen thought, for the winter sun.

  Two men stood waiting. The older man with the thick glasses was the premier himself, General Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski. He was about Haugen's age, and when they shook hands, his grip was hard. The younger man, his age perhaps thirty, would be the premier's interpreter.

  "Mr. President, we are honored to have you." Jaruzelski said it in accented English, perhaps learned for the occasion.

  Haugen answered in Polish. "General, I am honored to be your guest."

  The premier's eyes, small behind thick lenses, examined Arne Haugen. "I have been told you speak our language, Mr. President." Jaruzelski said this in Polish, and the ambassador's interpreter, forewarned of the president's limitations, translated for him.

  "A little," Haugen replied, again in Polish. "Mostly I must depend on Ambassador Tyler's interpreter, Mr. Marovich. I speak rather much Russian, but have only recently begun to learn Polish." He indicated John Zale. "My secretary, Mr. Zale, has been teaching me. We have looked forward to being here."

  Jaruzelski's voice was dry. "I will try to be a better host to you than your President Reagan was to me. He refused to see or speak with me when I visited your country. Some of the time he did not even honor us with an ambassador. He made my position more difficult here in dealing with elements who wished to Sovietize us."

  As the interpreter repeated the premier's words in English, Ambassador Tyler's expression turned disapproving.

  "I am not Ronald Reagan," Haugen replied, in English now. "And while I do not apologize for him, he was poorly advised."

  He undertook Polish again: "It is easy to be poorly advised in foreign affairs. So while I always listen to my foreign ministry, I also went secretly for advice to one of your own countrymen. You know him: Karol Wojtyla."

  The ambassador's interpreter was startled at the reference to Karol Wojtyla. The president had talked with the Pope? He was sure the State Department didn't know about that. Certainly the ambassador didn't.

  Ambassador Tyler knew too little Polish to have followed Haugen's words, and sat waiting for someone to speak English.

  Haugen's Polish had already included several words that were properly Russian, though they'd been delivered with the Polish stress and accent. He continued now in English.

  "Wojtyla apprecia
tes the severe difficulties you contend with, here against the belly of the bear. And also your accomplishments in civil liberties, the further decentralization of government, the continued freedom of farmers from collectivization... All of it. I share his respect for you."

  The premier's eyebrows had lifted slightly at the name. "Ah yes," he said. "Karol Wojtyla. He did not trust me at first, and even now I am no favorite of his. But he recognizes our circumstances here, and gives me my due." He smiled a slight wry smile. "And we must understand his problems. It has to be burdensome, being infallible."

  Only now did Tyler show dawning awareness that they were talking about the Pope.

  Jaruzelski gestured at a chair. "Let us sit. At our ages, standing is harder than walking, and sitting is better than either.

  "You are a wonder to the world, you know," Jaruzelski added when they had settled into chairs. "An American dictator!" He watched closely for Haugen's reaction to the word; there was none. "Yet apparently the most democratic of dictators. And the story of your youth spent in the forest: It seems not to be propaganda after all. When I shook your hand I knew it; such a hand could only come from a boyhood with the ax or plow. Early, when the bones are still growing."

  The Pope had not prepared the president for this exposure of personality by Jaruzelski; he was reputedly a cold man. Haugen grinned at him. "It's impossible for a political figure in America to sustain a false history," he said. "The newspapers and television would display its falsity for everyone to see. More than two hundred journalists with cameras descended on my home district within two days of my being named president. The cafe keeper in my village made his fortune from them. So many drove through the forest to visit my home farm that the moose and wolves fled into Canada."

  Jaruzelski laughed, taking his own interpreter by surprise, and a frown of annoyance crossed the ambassador's face. The president noticed.

  "Tell me, General Jaruzelski," Haugen went on, "how do you get along with Ambassador Tyler?"

  For a moment, Tyler's mouth fell open. He flushed. The general too was clearly taken by surprise. "Ambassador Tyler? I hardly know him; we have little contact. It would be helpful though if he spoke Polish.

  "I believe your State Department did not consider it important to have an ambassador here," he continued. "I believe Ambassador Tyler, through no fault of his own, is intended as a token—a symbol, rather than as an executor, of foreign policy." Jaruzelski eyed Haugen thoughtfully.

  "Hm-m." The president pursed his wide mouth. "Perhaps that foreign policy has changed.

  "General," he went on, shifting gears, "you agreed to let me address the Polish people on television, on the condition that my speech was not dangerous to the welfare of your country. I have it here to show you." Zale opened an attaché case and took out two thin sheaves of papers, handing one to the president and one to the premier. "It is in Polish," Haugen continued. "Mr. Zale assures me that I read it convincingly. Perhaps you and I can go over it together and determine whether changes need to be made."

  He turned to the ambassador. "Mr. Tyler, you might as well leave. This will take some time, and the speech is in Polish. Take Mr. Marovich if you'd like, to see you back to the embassy."

  Tyler flushed again, got up with a curt nod, and beckoning Marovich to follow, left the room.

  Once more Jaruzelski's eyebrows had raised a few millimeters. Now he leaned over the large print and began silently to read.

  ***

  The Sejm, the Polish parliament, was not in session, but a number of its members were in the chamber. The rest of the seats had been taken by the Polish and foreign press, representatives of labor and the Party, their wives, and the foreign diplomatic corps. There were no permanent facilities for televising, and cables snaked across the floor. Lights glared hotly at the rostrum, and dollies with camera booms stood strategically. The speech would be beamed not only over all of Poland, but upward to a satellite that would send it to most of the world.

  A world that was very interested in this unusual American president. A world hopeful and afraid, hopeful of someone who might make progress toward peace, afraid that Haugen instead simply marked the end of democracy or perhaps a policy of truculence.

  Jaruzelski introduced the president and first lady. Then the president stepped to the lectern, seated reading glasses on his broken nose, and looked out at the audience.

  "I am glad," he said in Polish, "to be in Poland, and to speak to the Polish people. A people I have long respected and admired."

  That was as far as be was willing to go in speaking Polish off the cuff. He looked down at his speech and began to read, hesitating occasionally at a pronunciation.

  "I especially respect your unusual accomplishment in retaining such a large degree of independence from foreign rule. You have faced severe problems, and your success is a result both of your great courage as a nation and the skill and patience of your government in dealing with foreign powers."

  No one in the audience failed to know who in particular the American president meant by "foreign powers." Not even Tyler, who was watching in his embassy office, with Marovich interpreting.

  "And in this world of ours," Haugen continued, "skill and patience are as important as courage. Courage without skill and patience can lead to destruction. Skill and patience without courage are fruitless.

  "One of the central realities that we must face, both Poles and Americans, is the Soviet Union. We must face it with courage, but we must also face it with patience, with wisdom and watchfulness."

  He glanced up at his audience, then back to his speech. "My own patience and desire for peace have been shown by American forebearance with Russian imperialism in southern Asia. For that matter, it seems that the Russians have greatly harmed their own cause by their imperialist assault on Iran. It is proving a pit of trouble for them, far worse than Afghanistan.

  "And their problems in Afghanistan were not truly solved by declaring it to be the Afghan SSR. Nor did the rest of the world consider it a Soviet domestic matter when the Red Army used poison gas against the mountain peoples there. It is especially interesting that they did this on the largest scale after they'd declared the Afghan people to be citizens of the Soviet Union.

  "We should not doubt for one minute that the Russian Empire is powerful and dangerous. But at the same time, the Kremlin is aware that America and its allies are also powerful."

  He let his gaze rest on his audience again before looking back at his speech. "Yet in this time of Soviet troubles at home and abroad, I have not considered an attack on the Soviet Union. Nor will I, even if the Soviet government collapses. Certainly not then.

  "Nor do we expect the Soviet Union to attack the West. Russia's ability to expand its empire is weakening under Kremlin mismanagement, and under the continuing resentment and lack of cooperation of the subject peoples it has conquered. And also under the cynicism and apathy of so many of the Russian people themselves.

  "Of course, America has troubles of its own. But the American people and the American government are moving effectively to correct our problems. While the Kremlin seems to have given up on correcting theirs, and is trying unsuccessfully to draw their people's attention away from those problems by making war in the Middle East.

  "Russia is a nation of large resources and notable qualities. It is interesting to speculate on what the Kremlin might accomplish at home if it discarded its mental fixation on world domination—that old Russian imperialism which it tries now to disguise as 'world revolution.'

  "It will be fascinating to see how the Soviet factions resolve their present difficulties. Perhaps the result will be a government clear-sighted enough to recognize that every nation should be allowed to work out its own destinies free of dictation by some great power.

  "The United States is perfectly willing that Russia—or any other nation—be a Marxist state, if that is what that nation, that people, truly wishes. But we insist upon our right to be a nation free from Russian dictation. O
n our right to evolve politically, technically, and economically in our own directions. We also support the right of our allies to do the same. And fortunately we are in a position to defend that right. And we will defend it if it comes to that."

  The president scanned the room. "But enough talk of fighting. I doubt very much that the United States and Russia will ever go to war against each other. We don't want to and they don't want to, and I would much prefer to be a friend to Russia than an enemy.

  "It is time to build, not destroy. It is time to create, to allow each other to build futures instead of armies. In the United States we are renewing not only our economy but our spirit of democracy and personal liberty. And we are creating new technology, much of which is not the technology of war. A generation from now, we may reasonably hope to have entered a truly golden age.

  "That golden age, of course, is still speculation. But what I will tell you next is fact. Within the next few weeks you can expect to see the release of a major new technology. A new, peaceful technology, the result of a basic scientific breakthrough that will change the welfare of mankind for the better, both economically and in our understanding of the universe.

  "That will not mean the end of problems. But along with recent and future developments in computer technology, superconductors, genetics and other fields, it will move this planet to a new level of accomplishment and human opportunity.

  "And the United States will not hide this technology. It will send it promptly to many nations. Before the end of winter, it will go to Mexico and Australia, Britain and West Germany, Scandinavia and Japan and China. And to Poland. I have agreed to that today with General Jaruzelski."

  Again he looked at his audience and then at the center camera. "Thank you for listening to me, people of Poland," he said. "Once again your premier has demonstrated his courage, by letting me speak to you like this. I value your friendship, and I want to close by wishing you happiness and prosperity."