Walesa Comes to Capitalize on U.S. Connections

Sounding a note of cheerful capitalism Friday night, Polish President Lech Walesa praised the American taxpayers’ commitment to freedom, saying he was offering the American public a chance to recover what it has invested in the cause of Polish democracy.

Walesa, on a two-day visit to Los Angeles, spoke to 1,200 people at a World Affairs Council dinner, accompanied by what one speaker called another “leader of a labor union”--former President Ronald Reagan, who was once president of the Screen Actors Guild.

“There would have been no victories, there would have been no Walesa, without the great sons of the American nation,” Walesa told the crowd, speaking in Polish that was being simultaneously translated.

“I would like for us to continue to work to build a system which is profitable to all of us,” Walesa said.

Walesa’s visit to the United States is intended to raise interest among American businesses in investing in Poland, a cause that Reagan promoted as he introduced Walesa.

“Many American companies,” Reagan said, “are discovering that Poland is a sound place for investing.”

In words almost identical to the ones he used in 1983 to praise Walesa when the Polish labor leader won the Nobel Peace Prize, Reagan said he represented “the triumph of moral force over savage force.”

Walesa and Reagan, both accompanied by their wives, shared a standing ovation as they entered the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. It was same hotel ballroom where Walesa conveyed 80th birthday greetings to Reagan in a wide-screen video message last month.

For Chris Kolski, president of the Southern California division of the Polish-American Congress, there had not been such an emotional moment since Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1987.

It was especially significant, he said, coming about six weeks before the bicentennial celebration of Poland’s original constitution.

“For the first time in 45 years we have a president of Poland who represents the free will of the people, and for the first time in history he is popularly elected,” Kolski said.

Walesa is the former shipyard electrician who electrified the political world before he was 40, leading an outlawed labor movement that ultimately pried Poland free of Communist control.

The vast changes that have taken place in Poland since Walesa led the first Gdansk shipyard strike in 1980 culminated last December with his election to the presidency.

Now he is visiting Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York to coax American business into demonstrating in dollars and cents the depth of the U.S. commitment to a free Poland.

Although the Eastern European nation’s economy has been uncoupled from communism, it is a country mired in foreign debt despite substantial forgiveness of that debt by Western bankers. And Poland still has only the most elementary free market skills.

In a speech Friday in Washington, Walesa flattered his audience of business leaders by saying that he wants Poland to be the “America of the East.” He brought laughter from members of the National Press Club with remarks like: “I think you are still of the opinion that we are Communists and still run around with a knife in our teeth. Let me tell you, we were Communists like radishes--red only on the outside.”

Reagan and Walesa’s mutual admiration became manifest shortly after Reagan took office in 1981. But the two men did not get a chance to meet until last fall; they spoke then during a cloudburst near the gate of the Gdansk shipyard where a crowd of 7,000 accorded Reagan the signal honor of singing “Sto Lat” (“May He Live 100 Years”), a song reserved only for the nation’s most popular leaders.

On that trip, Walesa’s former parish priest gave Reagan a saber, for helping to “chop off the head of communism.”

On Friday night, Walesa presented Reagan with Poland’s Order of Merit, the highest award Poland can give a foreigner.

For his part, Walesa is already a Californian of sorts--San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors named him an honorary San Diegan in 1982, when the Communist government interned him under martial law.

Walesa considered coming to Los Angeles in 1986 to accept a human rights award, but chose not to make the trip because Polish authorities would not guarantee that they would allow him to return. The same problem prevented him from traveling to Sweden to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.

Before Friday night’s dinner, Walesa visited Reagan’s top-floor office in a Century City skyscraper and admired the view of rain-scoured Los Angeles.