Word: walesa
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...when President Bok wrote Walson in early February, he hoped to snap a two-year streak of turndowns. The Walesa invitation was initiated, as it is with each Commencement speaker, by a trio of administrators: Aloian, Fred L. Glimp '50, vice president for alumni affairs and development; and the acting president of the Harvard Alumni Association--a post held this year by Dunbar Carpenter...
...strongest influences in their decision, Aloian said earlier in the spring, was a New York Times interview with Walesa in which he expressed his abiding desire to visit the United States. He hoped to make such a trip "perhaps in May, June or July," to see relatives in the country, he told the Times. America, he said, was his "second homeland...
Once Aloian's troika had gained the approval of a number of Harvard figures, including Bok, other alumni leaders, and Eastern Europe specialists at the university, the president went ahead with the letter to Walesa...
Next the letter fell into the hands of a few unidentified go-betweens. Over the next four months, according to Aloian, two Western journalists with frequent access to Poland would carry messages between Harvard and Walesa, and at least one of them had a hand in getting Bok's letter to its destination. Another person actually handed the letter to Walesa. Aloian refuses to identify this last carrier, although he said in April, "It wasn't the Harvard Club of Gdansk...
...Walesa responded to Harvard's offer in a letter dated March 5. Once again, Bok and Aloian called on Baranczak to serve as interpreter, and he told them that Walesa wanted to give the speech. The letter also stressed Walesa's uncertainty that he would actually be allowed to come to Cambridge, Baranczak recalled later, but overall, he said "it was very positive in terms of accepting the invitation and expressing his wish to come...