Word: walesa
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...With Walesa and Solidarity, it was the internal clock of the people of Poland that struck the morning hour...
...plan had been unveiled that very day: Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity labor union, had accepted an invitation to speak at Harvard's 332nd Commencement exercises. The University had received a formal letter of acceptance from Walesa in March, administrators said, and they had confirmed his intentions through secret conversations with a journalist who had been in touch with Walesa...
Harvard planners announced the news with pride and fanfare. "As the leader of and spokesman for millions of working men and women in Poland, Lech Walesa has demonstrated extraordinary vision and courage," stated David A. Aloian '49, executive director of the Harvard Alumni Association, on whose behalf Walesa was formally invited. "The message he will bring to Harvard will undoubtedly be timely, important and of interest to the University community and people around the world...
...later that afternoon, UPI quoted Walesa as saying "No, I am not going." In a telephone interview with the service's Warsaw bureau, he explained that "this situation is so unstable that I cannot go without being sure whether I can come back...
...festivities. For one, he is a rare public figure whose political views would hold enormous appeal to virtually every member of the hodgepodge Commencement audience, from the most outspoken student radical to the stodgiest reactionary alumnus. Moreover, his very presence on campus would be an international event, marking Walesa's first trip outside Poland since Communist authorities there imposed martial law in December 1981, and his first visit to the United States ever...