The World - News from Oct. 9, 1988

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said he would boycott talks with Poland’s Communist authorities if a leaked party document ruling out the rebirth of his outlawed trade union proved to be authentic. But he added, “I think this is a provocation.” The government has invited Walesa and other Solidarity leaders to talks in mid-October on political and economic reforms, pledging to consider the possibility of re-legalizing the union, suppressed under martial law in 1981. But the document, said to have been distributed to Communist Party chiefs in factories across the country on Sept. 26, said the party viewed any possibility of Solidarity’s re-legalization as a major threat. The official news agency PAP denied the existance of the document.