Poles Strain to Stay Polite to Visitors : Diplomacy: Would-be benefactors are among the throngs flocking to the new democracy. So tired officials must grin and bear the ‘grip and grins.’

Poland is awash in would-be benefactors. Executives, ambassadors, governors, heads of state, celebrities--the parade of visitors trailing their good intentions through the country’s wrecked economy is endless.

The goodwill visits have become tiring, but Poland must try to cash in on the bonanza before the angels from the West turn to another fashionable cause.

For every planeload of visitors, ranking government members must clear schedules and prepare briefings. They fear closing off any opportunity.

But now, although very politely, some Poles are beginning to wonder: Will much of anything come of all the meetings, briefings and conferences?

“The Poles are suffering from visitor fatigue,” said Jerzy Gabrielczyk, a London businessman working as a top adviser to the Industry Ministry through the British Know-How aid fund.

“They come and have meetings with the ministers. They think it is fantastic--to have a meeting with a minister. Then they shake hands and nothing ever happens,” he said.

Some missions have been fruitful: A German builder has started a new airport terminal, and a French firm provided computer services for the May municipal elections. The well-publicized homecoming of heiress Barbara Piesecka Johnson brought a monumental art exhibit, but talks on investing in the Gdansk shipyard broke off.

The visits can mark the beginning of genuine cooperation, said Jerzy Baczynski, writing in the weekly Polityka.

“Yet on many occasions . . . their only outcome are suggestions on further aid to Poland”--subject to further study, he said.

The foreign delegations are political, parliamentary, industrial, international--and countless.

A small sampling from recent weeks: Portuguese business leaders, Japanese investors, the U.S. Import-Export bank, India’s health minister, Iran’s vice minister of building, Britain’s foreign minister, Sweden’s minister for cooperation with developing countries, East Germany’s defense minister, former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, French police officers and the governor of Maryland--along with his state’s topsail schooner, the Pride of Baltimore II.

They come to teach: how to speak English, run a democratic election, organize a free press. And to learn: How bad are the telephones? How much would it cost to retool a factory?

The new Polish government hopes they have also come to give: harvesters for farmers, computers for banks and money to help the nation’s young market economy grow.

But some, it seems, mainly come for what photographers call a “grip and grin” with Poland’s leadership.

A Western diplomat regularly required to arrange visits senses a new ambivalence among Polish officials.

“It is ambivalence because intellectually even some very impatient people realize they are getting pretty generous aid packages from most of the West, and it is in their interests to be a good trooper,” the diplomat said.

“Still, we have noticed a growing impatience with this constant flow of visitors,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Paul Schurick, Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer’s press secretary, said he felt it.

“That notion was in the air . . . that they’ve seen a lot of foreign delegations here,” he said.

But the governor is convinced that a personal visit is worthwhile if it comes with an all-business message, said Schurick: “We’ve got no intention to solve Poland’s problems but if there can be two or three specific contracts with Maryland, then I’m going to do what I can to make them happen. . . . A personal visit could put it over the top.”

Polish officials are reluctant to talk about the downside of being so sought-after.

One with a well-known name, whose portfolio includes pressing economic issues, was overheard by a diplomat asking with a tinge of annoyance when faced with a new visitor, “What am I, the minister of tourism?”

Polish leaders have developed A lists and B lists of meeters and greeters according to a visitor’s rank, the Western diplomat said.

“Everyone wants to see (Solidarity Parliament leader Bronislaw) Geremek, everyone wants to see (Lech) Walesa. But just because everyone wants to come to Poland, it doesn’t mean that they can see them,” said another Western diplomat.

Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz, the architect of Poland’s economic reform plan, is one of those in “huge demand,” said an aide.

“First of all there are the politicians who come here out of curiosity,” he said. “And of course all the ambassadors are pushing their way in through doors and windows. We decided Thursdays would be the day for them, so we see a maximum of two every Thursday.”

Then there are business executives, the aide said. “There is great danger that one could be granted a meeting and another wouldn’t be, so we are really trying to limit them. . . . Of course, we have to make exceptions for really big figures, such as the head of the (West German) Dresdner Bank.”

At the Labor Ministry, Director General Leslaw Nawacki said many visits “have the nature of reconnaissance. People just come to see what we are doing or what kind of help they could offer.”

“The main cost of these visits is hard work and time,” he said. “People who come often can’t really understand the situation in Poland, going from socialism to a market economy. Nobody has done it before, and everybody who comes here looks at it from the point of view of the West.

“On the other hand, we must admit with shame that we are not prepared either. It’s something completely new to most of us.”