Word: warsaw
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Those who consider Reagan's measured policy wise could offer several plausible defenses. One was that even concerted action by the allies would probably not persuade Warsaw or Moscow to lift martial law, at least for the moment. Another argument was that some gesture had to be made: mere silence would be perceived as acquiescence to an atrocity. More than that, it remained possible that Moscow would see the sanctions as only a first step, which might give the Soviets pause for restraint. Said one senior U.S. diplomat: "If we had come down like a ton of bricks...
...should be persecuted, how many more hopes should be destroyed, until the Western governments understand their mistake? When will they understand that their indifference to the Polish tragedy gives the Soviet totalitarianism full liberty to commit the next crimes? When will they realize that after Budapest, Prague, Kabul and Warsaw, sooner or later the tanks will roll into West Berlin...
Poland has been on the brink of defaulting on its loans for almost a year. During the summer and fall, private bankers and Polish authorities negotiated a program to give Warsaw more time to pay off its debts. In an agreement reached in November, the Western bankers said that they would give the Poles an additional seven years to repay $2.4 billion that was due this year...
...tough condition, though, was that the Poles, who had already paid more than $2 billion in interest this year, had to put up an additional $500 million in debt service charges before the end of the year. The Warsaw government scrambled to raise foreign exchange to make the interest payment, but by early December it was able to assemble only $150 million. Immediately after martial law was declared, Marian Minkiewicz, president of Bank Handlowy, the nation's foreign trade bank, sent wires to 23 major commercial creditors pleading for a short-term loan to keep Poland from toppling into...
...irony of Communism's penchant for self-inflicted violence extends in less spectacular but more persistent form to Europe. The only military operations that Soviet forces have actually carried out on the Continent since the Warsaw Pact was formed 26 years ago have been to crush the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring in 1968. Today a considerable portion of Warsaw Pact maneuvers and contingency planning is focused on Poland-the country where the treaty creating the alliance was signed. If Polish troops cannot stabilize the situation, their allies may move in to help. While...