Correspondents' Correspondence

KARATNYCKY, ADRIAN & BHARGAVA, G.S. & SENIGALLIA, F.

Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. A Polish Voice Warsaw-visitors stream in and out of...

...weapons were pointed in its direction...
...There is a widely held American perception that the USSR has the edge in the military competition with the U.S...
...for its role in resolving the hostage crisis in Iran, yet the Reagan Administration has decided to waive President Carter's insistence on a peaceful resolution of the quarrel between Morocco and Algeria over West Sahara before awarding Rabat modern weapons...
...At this writing, it appears that Italy may soon have its first post-World War II non-Christian Democratic Prime Minister, in the person of Giovanni Spa-dolini...
...The signed membership applications, records of dues paid and letters to the grand master are no doubt destined to ruin the reputations of many highly influential people...
...Poles still must speak in guarded language...
...Although several alleged members of P-2 strongly denied any connection with the lodge, in many cases there reportedly is convincing documentation...
...The possibility of forgery on such a huge scale has been ruled out...
...The attention of most Italians, however, is still riveted to the question surrounding P-2...
...These range from Democratic Socialist to Christian Democratic, he says, and promise that the debate over Poland's future course is in its infancy...
...Current domestic conditions in Pakistan reinforce the feeling of deja vu...
...But Kuron is sure that Poland is only one step removed from the emergence of groups with differing viewpoints...
...To date, they have been muted within Solidarity by the sense of a shared adversary and a common external threat...
...A grassroots right-to-life movement, strongly backed by Pope John Paul II, was demanding the repeal of Italy's three-year-old law permitting abortions...
...It is also why it would be small consolation for India if the projected American military assistance were mostly limited to arms usable in guerilla fighting...
...Nearly a year of Soviet inaction demonstrates to Kuron's satisfaction that-barring a direct challenge to its military control-moscow has reconciled itself to the reality of the Polish example...
...In any event, the precedents elsewhere do not suggest that the new Administration will make weapons sales to Pakistan or China contingent upon settling their disputes with India...
...Today's ruler in Islamabad, General Zia-ul Haq, is less popular than Ayub was and enjoys the distinction of having executed Pakistan'sonly elected Prime Minister since its inception, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto...
...At the time, too, other Western nations did not seem likely to be of much help against Communist expansion...
...What he envisions is a kind of Finlandization...
...wants bases for its Rapid Deployment Force...
...In the context of arms sales to Pakistan, this can only step up the pace of nuclear competition in South Asia, and divert resources from development...
...The arrow that merely wounded took the form of a referendum held in the middle of last month...
...the weapons were used against Indians in the fighting at the Rann of Kutch in 1965...
...Again outgoing Democrats who had begun negotiating arms aid to Pakistan have been replaced by Republicans ready to do more than their predecessors...
...General Zia is aware of his country's inability to ever build up enough power to match Soviet strength across the Khyber...
...arms and allowing Afghan guerrillas to augment the scale of their operations across the border will prompt active Soviet belligerence...
...His subsequent efforts to form a new government failed...
...He further assured New Delhi of support if the U.S...
...Kuron-no," and bears the imprimatur of the Polish United Workers' (Communist) Party...
...The similarities between 1952 and the present have been lucidly delineated by William J. Barnds of the Council on Foreign Relations...
...the workers defend kor ." Another declares: "Walesa-yes...
...Those scornful of "lily-livered liberals" who have serious doubts about the wisdom of the undertaking might do well to recall the fateful results of an earlier U.S...
...Pointing to the Soviet Union's domestic and international woes, Kuron maintains that the Kremlin will ultimately accept all of Poland's internal changes if it is persuaded that they do not threaten the USSR's military dominance over the country...
...Bhargava Italy's P-2 Puzzle Rome-the downfall of Arnaldo Forlani's government reminded me of the deer in one of Aesop's fables...
...A Polish Voice Warsaw-visitors stream in and out of Jacek Kuron's ground floor apartment on Mickiewicz Street these days...
...Many prominent Solidarity leaders look to him for insight and advice...
...Forlani's Christian Democrats (DC) officially endorsed the drive...
...But the Prime Minister and some fellow party leaders fretted about their coalition-which embraced the Socialists, Social Democrats and Republicans -surviving an anti-abortion victory...
...This obtains even where the offense is merely being regarded as close to the Soviet Union and not, as is the case with India, a direct border conflict...
...In addition, the Soviet development of a nuclear capability and its build-up of an atomic arsenal wiped out America's first-strike complacency...
...Silvio F. Senigallia...
...Only the Church, initially an impetus for the movement, is oddly unaffected by its course...
...Accepting U.S...
...Solidarity often finds itself forced to adopt a righteous stance, leaving little room for maneuvering...
...He gesticulates with an air of high confidence as he speaks in a gruff, assertive voice, but the tone is softened by his cherubic features and lively expression...
...According to some American experts, to be meaningful, the sales would have to amount to $30-40 billion over five years...
...So the U.S...
...Solidarity thus influences not only the workplace and the nation's economy, but the academy, film, literature, law, the press, everything...
...Kuron smiles at the heavy-handed provocation aimed at splitting the union...
...The differences between 1952 and 1981, however, are what have exacerbated India's concern about the similarities...
...Despite his tactical protests to the contrary, Zia is keen to get American arms and is prepared to pay the political price...
...This will have dire repercussions in Baluchistan and in the Northwest Frontier Province, where ongoing ethnic problems cannot be solved with weapons, no matter how modern...
...For Pakistan itself, a repetition of the '50s experience of military involvement with America will be hazardous...
...France, with interests in the Middle East as well as in Southeast Asia, was caught in a seemingly interminable domestic crisis...
...involvement in the security woes of Southern Asia...
...Kuron's living room is cluttered with newspapers, journals and books...
...Meanwhile, unlike the '50s when it was guided by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's Prime Minister is not a revered world figure whose opinion cannot be ignored by the U.S...
...For that would surely trigger a violent Left-wing attack against the Pope, who had already been accused of meddling "beyond the limit" in Italy's domestic affairs and of viewing Italian realities "through Polish eyeglasses...
...But no one in the Reagan Administration has given any sign of understanding Indian interests and vulnerability...
...Robert Sutter of the Library of Congress (during a discussion at the recent annual meeting of the Association for Asian studies in Toronto) has highlighted the implications of thus overplaying the China card...
...In Kuron's scenario, the "Polish disease" will inevitably spread to other Eastern bloc countries and, eventually, to the Soviet Union itself...
...It should perhaps be noted in conclusion that this is not the voice of one isolated man...
...Until last summer, the authorities controlled virtually every phase of the country's life, he recalls, so any challenge to the totalitarian status quo is revolutionary and reverberates throughout the entire society...
...Apparently he had forgotten Aesop's cautionary tale about the unpredictability of danger...
...After offering us the customary glass of tea, Kuron launches into his analysis of thecurrentsituationinPoland...
...Kuron is nevertheless quite critical of articles in the Western press suggesting that Solidarity has achieved so much, it should not press for more lest it lose what it has gained...
...Having had its left eye pierced by a hunter's arrow in the woods, the animal fled to the seashore for safety-only to be killed by an arrow fired into its other eye by a hunter who happened to be on a boat...
...and led to a rethinking of the concept of "containment...
...Kuron observes, creates a boundary that cannot be crossed, and this weighs heavily on Solidarity...
...President Eisenhower did not fully share the views of some of his officials and cautioned against the arms to Pakistan causing "trouble" for India...
...The guns, alas, are more likely to be used in Kashmir...
...The list, top secret documents, and other highly damaging evidence were found by the police in the of fices and country villa of one Li-cio Gelli, the lodge's grand master, who was conveniently out of the country...
...It was almost 30 years ago, in mid-1952, that an exiting Truman Administration agreed in principle to give arms to Pakistan...
...Called Propaganda Due, or P-2, the organization is suspected of a variety of crimes, particularly political and industrial espionage...
...That is why 14 of his infantry divisions face India, while a mere two divisions guard the sensitive border with Afghanistan...
...He insists that the national minorities in theUSSR will play a decisive role: Last December, for instance, he told a large public gathering at Warsaw University that" without an independent Ukraine, there can be no independent Poland...
...Meanwhile, according to Kuron, a number of new political tendencies have emerged in the country as well...
...In Kuron's opinion, what is taking place in Poland can most accurately be described as a moral revolution: The people are trying to remake all aspects of their existence...
...In 1951, after the assassination of Pakistan's first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, certain "hierarchs," including General Ayub Khan, clamored for the arms deal with the United States and clinched it...
...The 56-year-old former newspaper editor, whose Republican Party won only 3 per cent of the vote in the last Parliamentary election in 1979, is highly respected and seems close to forming a coalition government...
...Since politics permeate everything in Poland, Kuron argues, the struggle being waged must be political...
...they must be tackled by peaceful means, internally...
...Moreover, he insists, in no country, and especially not in Poland, can a revolutionary process be restricted to the economic sphere...
...Adrian Karatnycky Arming Pakistan Again Ithaca-the Reagan Administration's offer of a five-year, $3 billion aid package to Pakistan-consisting overwhelmingly of armaments, including some F-16 jet fighters that can be used as bombers-is an unhappy example of history repeating itself, particularly for India...
...Forlani's position was further weakend by ruthless attacks from the Communist Party-untainted by the scandal-And the sudden disengagement of his Socialist allies...
...Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, then implemented the decision with enthusiasm . One reason for the move was North Korea's invasion of the South and China's entry into the conflict, which changed the postwar mood in the U.S...
...Despite the danger Poland poses for the Kremlin, Kuron persists in his belief that had the Soviet Union been prepared to invade, it would have moved in the final months of 1980...
...For it is another unhappy fact of history that the more unstable the regime in Islamabad, the greater its temptation to wage a jihad against India.?G.S...
...Paradoxically, he says, precisely because the upheaval is so all-encompassing it is difficult to see Solidarity in political terms...
...Religious elements continue to animate the union members, but the movement as a whole is secular and avoids involving itself in Church affairs...
...Air Force was seeking sites in the region for bases...
...For reasons that need not be elaborated here, the United States was unable to live up to Eisenhower's assurance...
...The SB (security service) probably did it," our interpreter explains...
...The ensuing strain quite possibly could lead India to greater dependence on the Soviet Union...
...as a result, the various currents in the movement do not always understand one another...
...The threat of Soviet tanks rolling in...
...Even at the grass roots of the Polish Communist Party, he contends, there are strong stirrings aimed at decentralized authority and introducing some sort of pluralism...
...wooing of China with arms as a way of chastening any Soviet desire to intervene militarily in Poland or elsewhere...
...Less auspicious still is the White House decision to overlook Islamabad's efforts to manufacture nuclear weapons clandestinely...
...And American strategists believed that an adequately equipped Pakistani Army would come in handy for deployment in Asia's trouble spots...
...The DC would be forced to side with the Vatican, and in the ensuing fracas, both Socialist parties would bring down Forlani's government...
...One reads: "kor defended the workers...
...Posters adorn the walls and bookcases...
...Whether it was greed, blackmail or the arrogant certainty of impunity, the explanation is yet to come...
...A few P-2 members may have had something to do with the faked kidnapping of Sicilian financier Michele Sindona...
...At best, Indira Gandhi's reputation at home and abroad as a crafty politican fosters indifference on the part of most Americans toward the country she leads...
...But on May 23 Forlani's Minister of Justice, Adolfo Sarti, was forced to resign after he was linked to a powerful, secret Masonic Lodge...
...Despite the wave of sympathy prompted by the attempt on John Paul IPs life, the referendum was defeated by a resounding 2-1 margin: 20 per cent of the DC electorate crossed party lines, in effect, by voting against repeal...
...Having been ousted from Iran, the U.S...
...Amoreominous new element, though, is the U.S...
...The reason for this, Kuron believes, is that Solidarity does not seek to reform the Church from within...
...Unhappy and yet relieved, For-lani thought he could sail along until after the nationwide administrative elections on June 21...
...Nor does one have to be a partisan of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, it should be added, to appreciate the unease the policy has produced in New Delhi...
...The invasion of Afghanistan is seen as a link in an unbroken chain of Soviet thrusts, this time in Angola, Ethiopia and South Yemen...
...After almost two decades of harassment and repression, Jacek Kuron's egalitarian vision is a significant element of the evolving Polish revolution...
...The American assump-tion is of course thai Pakistan needs the weapons on its northwestern border...
...India would be an unintended victim, for China's leaders believe in punishing those pitted against Peking...
...Since two ministers besides Sarti were implicated, the Prime Minister plainly could not weather the storm through a mere Cabinet reshuffle...
...As it turned out, Forlani's fears were never realized...
...Such advice is particularly outlandish, he says, because the Polish economy is in chaos: "Suspending the revolutionary process now would result in literal starvation...
...The 47-year-old former instructor at Warsaw University and founding member of kor, the dissident Workers' Defense Committee, is now an "expert"-one of the key advisers to the 10-million strong Solidarity independent trade union movement...
...Last January, for instance, Algeria was hailed as a friend of the U.S...
...The DC leaders therefore made it clear that they were leaving party members and sympathizers free to vote "in accordance with their consciences...
...The scandal broke when 963 names of P-2 Free masons were made public, including Cabinet ministers, senators and deputies, judges, thechief of staff of the Armed Forces and other Army and police generals, high secret service officials, prestigious journalists, bankers, plus additional well-known figures in the nation's establishment...
...And the use of Pakistani troops by the security establishments of Saudi Arabia and other Moslem states has revived the notion that Pakistani's manpower could be employed to counter Soviet maneuvers in the area...
...Britain was embroiled in a bitter struggle with Iran over nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and with Egypt over the Suez military base...
...One week after the anti-abortion referendum, the hapless Prime Minister had to resign...
...They-And this correspondent with them-would like to know what led a number of truly powerful people to join a disreputable, op-era-bouffe secret society involved in shady deals and headed by an unsavory character...

Vol. 64 • June 1981 • No. 12


 
Developed by
Kanda Sofware
  Kanda Software, Inc.