Poland Cancels Kennedy Visit to Honor Activists

The Polish government Tuesday canceled a scheduled Christmas visit by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who had planned to present a human rights award to two leading Solidarity activists.

Western diplomats had expressed surprise that the government seemed willing to grant Kennedy a visa for this purpose. They said the cancellation is not likely to affect a thaw in U.S.-Polish relations.

Kennedy had planned to spend Dec. 22-25 in Poland on an unofficial visit to present the $40,000 award, which commemorates his brother, the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, to Adam Michnik and Zbigniew Bujak. The two senior figures in the outlawed trade union movement were among more than 200 political prisoners released from prison last summer.

Polish government spokesman Jerzy Urban said Tuesday that the authorities “scrutinized” Kennedy’s plans and decided that the visit is not possible at this time.

Asked at his weekly news conference about Kennedy’s planned trip, Urban said the authorities have concluded that “in the present period, the visit of the senator to our country, regardless of the appearances he is driven by, is not possible because of a fully booked calendar of previously planned political activities.”

‘Popularity, Esteem’ of Kennedy

Instead, Urban said, the Polish Parliament is prepared to invite Kennedy for an official visit later, in view of “the popularity and esteem that Edward Kennedy enjoys in Poland and the United States.”

Kennedy would have been the most prominent American political figure to visit Poland since 1981, when Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski’s government suppressed the Solidarity movement under martial law.

Kennedy reportedly planned to visit Solidarity leader Lech Walesa in Gdansk, along with other opposition activists, and had expressed readiness to meet with Jaruzelski. Two Kennedy aides who visited Warsaw recently were said to have received no indication that the senator would be prevented from coming.

By indicating an offer of a later official invitation, Warsaw, according to diplomatic protocol, can expect a reciprocal invitation for members of the Polish Parliament to visit the United States. More important, Polish officials appeared anxious to avoid having a popular American politician lionize two equally popular Polish dissidents on their home territory.

The decision to cancel the Kennedy visit comes as U.S.-Polish relations have begun to improve. After the latest in a series of amnesties cleared Polish jails of political prisoners last summer, the Reagan Administration carried out an extended review of sanctions still in place from 1981.

High-level Contacts

Washington has yet to restore Poland’s most-favored-nation trade status, but it has lifted a five-year ban on high-level political contacts.

Last month, Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne L. Ridgway met in Vienna with a deputy Polish foreign minister, Jan Kinast. Last week, a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, Tom Simons, spent several days in Warsaw in follow-up talks.

Jozef Czyrek, a senior member of the Polish Politburo, is scheduled to visit Washington in February for talks that are likely to focus on re-establishing normal trade relations and an exchange of ambassadors. Poland’s last ambassador to Washington defected to the United States when martial law was declared, and Poland has refused to accept a replacement for the last American ambassador, who departed on a routine rotation in 1982.

Rebuilding trade with the West has become Poland’s most urgent priority. Its trade surplus with the West this year will cover less than one-third of the $3 billion Poland will owe in interest alone on its debt to Western countries, which now stands at about $33 billion.