Human rights and the Jimmy Carter administration’s policy towards Poland, 1977–80

ABSTRACT

This article reviews the Carter administration’s use of human rights in relations with Poland since 1977. Recently declassified archival documents show that Washington had limited opportunities in this field due to the rigid attitude of Warsaw: divided families were a main point of friction. The US government was not really able to support dissident activity in Poland. The Polish government’s relatively subtle handling of dissidence probably reflected its concern with domestic political factors. The formation of ‘Solidarity’ in Poland in 1980 was in accordance with Carter’s human rights policy, yet compromised Washington’s interests at the same time.

KEYWORDS:

• Poland
• United States
• human rights
• Jimmy Carter
• Polish-US relations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Daniel C. Thomas, The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 86, 98.

² Ibid., 62, 86, 99.

³ Ibid., 122. See also: Robert Brier, ‘Entangled Protest: Dissent and the Transnational History of the 1970s and 1980s’, in Entangled Protest: Transnational Approaches to the History of Dissent in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, ed. Robert Brier (Osnabrück: fibre, 2013), 21–42.

⁴ Samuel Moyn, ‘The Return of the Prodigal: the 1970s as a Turning Point in Human Rights History’, in The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s, ed. Jan Eckel and Samuel Moyn (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2014), 4; and Rasmus Sinding Sondergaard, Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 14.

⁵ The American Presidency Project, ‘Jimmy Carter Inaugural Address, 20 January 1977’, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241475 accessed 10 August 2021. See also: Sondergaard, Reagan, 15.

⁶ See two important summaries of recent works on human rights: Sarah B. Snyder, ‘Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Relations: A Historiographical Review’, Passport: The Newsletter of the SHAFR 44 (2013): 17; and Samuel Moyn, ‘Substance, Scale and Salience: The Recent Historiography of Human Rights’, Annual Review of Law and Social Science 8 (2012): 123–40.

⁷ See: Joe Renouard, Human Rights in American Foreign Policy: From the 1960s to the Soviet Collapse (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 125–67.

⁸ Vanessa Walker, Principles in Power: Latin America and the Politics of U.S. Human Rights Diplomacy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020); William M. Schmidli, The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere: Human Rights and U.S. Cold War Policy Towards Argentina (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013); and Brad Simpson, ‘“The First Right”: The Carter Administration, Indonesia, and the Transnational Human Rights Politics of the 1970s’, in The Human Rights Revolution: An International History, ed. Akira Iriye, Petra Goedde, and William I. Hitchhock (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 179–201.

⁹ See especially: Sarah B. Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); and Barbara J. Keys, Reclaiming American Virtue: The Human Rights Revolution of the 1970s (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2014). For more about extant literature, see: Sondergaard, Reagan, 7–8n, 24–6.

¹⁰ For discussion of the rise of dissent in Poland and the Solidarity movement as well as their role in global politics in the 1980s, see a new book by Robert Brier: Poland’s Solidarity Movement and the Global Politics of Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). For more on the opposition in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, see: Tomáš Vilíek, ‘Oppositionists in the ČSRS and GDR: Mutual Awareness, Exchanges of Ideas and Cooperation, 1968–1969’, in Entangled Protest (see note 3), 55–87. See also: Thomas, The Helsinki Effect, 91–120.

¹¹ Wanda Jarząbek, ‘An Escalating Problem: The People’s Republic of Poland and Human Rights in the CSCE Process, 1975–1983’, in Entangled Protest, 129–51.

¹² Snyder, Human Rights Activism, 81–2, 104; William Steding, ‘The Center of the Carter Conundrum: Human Rights and Foreign Policy’, in A Companion to Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, ed. Scott Kaufman (Southern Gate: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 459–60; and Christian Petersen, ‘The Carter Administration and the Promotion of Human Rights in the Soviet Union 1977–1981’, Diplomatic History 38 (2014): 628–54. For a full description of the Belgrade CSCE review meeting, see: William Korey, The Promises We Keep: Human Rights, the Helsinki Process, and American Foreign Policy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 68, 77–99.

¹³ I was unable to find anything of note in the archives of the Polish Communist Party in Archiwum Akt Nowych, Warsaw. I also used documents from the Institute of National Remembrance, published in Łukasz Kamiński and Grzegorz Waligóra, eds., ‘Kryptonim, Gracze’: Służba Bezpieczeństwa wobec Komitetu Obrony Robotników i Komitetu Samoobrony Społecznej ‘KOR’ 1976–1981 (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2010).

¹⁴ See: Andrzej Mania, Détente i polityka Stanów Zjednoczonych wobec Europy Wschodniej styczeń 1969-styczeń 1981 (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2003), 51–3, 143–4; Jakub Tyszkiewicz, Rozbijanie monolitu: Polityka Stanów Zjednoczonych wobec Polski 1945–1988 (Warsaw: PWN, 2015), 382–4, 395–6, 403–6 (books in Polish were published before the declassification of new sources in the National Archives and the Jimmy Carter Library). A very valuable work of Gregory F. Domber’s is Empowering Revolution: America, Poland and the End of the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), which instead focuses on the Reagan administration’s policy towards Poland.

¹⁵ For more on US efforts regarding the USSR, see: Petersen, ‘The Carter Administration’, 630. See also a new article: Jakub Tyszkiewicz, 'U.S. Policy Toward political opposition in Poland (1975-1981)'™ in Human Rights and Political Dissent in Central Europe. Between the Helsinki Accords and the Fall of the Berlin Wall, ed. Jakub Tyszkiewicz (London: Routledge 2022), 8-13.

¹⁶ For more, see: Paschalis Pechlivanis, America and Romania in the Cold War: A Differentiated Dètente (London: Routledge, 2019), 2.

¹⁷ This attitude is especially clear in the first NSC directive dedicated exclusively to Poland, NSC 5808/1, adopted in April 1958 (See also: Tyszkiewicz, Rozbijanie monolitu, 144–7).

¹⁸ See: Jakub Tyszkiewicz, ‘The Policy of the United States Towards Poland 1945–1989’, in Through the Eyes of Strategist and Diplomat: Polish-American Relations post-1918, ed. Robert Kupiecki (Warsaw: Wyd. Scholar, 2019), 67–9.

¹⁹ Gierek took over as a party leader after the workers’ protest on the Baltic Coast in December 1970, which was bloodily suppressed by his predecessor, Gomulka. For more, see: Andrzej Paczkowski, The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 2003), 351–3.

²⁰ For more, see: Tyszkiewicz, ‘The Policy’, 70–7.

²¹ Sarah B. Snyder, From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 155; John J. Maresca, Helsinki Revisited: A Key U.S. Negotiator’s Memoirs on the Development of the CSCE into the OSCE (Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag 2016), 93; and Daniel J. Sargent, A Superpower Transformed: the Remaking of American Foreign Relations in the 1970s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 206.

²² Mary E. Stuckey, Jimmy Carter, Human Rights, and the National Agenda (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008), 109.

²³ See: Snyder, From Selma to Moscow, 149–50; Clair Apodaca, Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy: Prevarications and Evasions (London: Routledge, 2019), 14–15.

²⁴ Keys, Reclaiming American Virtue, 167, 175; Snyder, From Selma to Moscow, 164; and Mania, Détente, 154.

²⁵ Sondergaard, Reagan, 17–18.

²⁶ Snyder, Human Rights Activism, 9.

²⁷ Sondergaard, Reagan, 19. The most important human rights legislation in 1977 placed human rights restrictions on US votes in international financial institutions.

²⁸ Evaluating human rights records became a routine part of US foreign policy. Already in May 1977, Carter went over the list of 25–30 nations that had reported to the US improvements in the field of human rights with Brzezinski (Jimmy Carter, White House Diary [New York: Picador, 2011], 52).

²⁹ Michael C. Morgan, The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation of the Cold War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 223; Stuckey, Human Rights, 117; and Stuckey, Human Rights, 112, 116–17.

³⁰ Andrzej Mania, Department of State i Foreign Office w polityce zagranicznej lat gorącej i zimnej wojny 1939–1989 (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2020), 481.

³¹ Snyder, Human Rights Activism, 110, 246; and Korey, The Promises We Keep, 68, 77–99.

³² Snyder, Human Rights Activism, 81–2, 104; and Steding, ‘The Center of Carter Conundrum’, 459–60.

³³ Pechlivanis, America and Romania, 131.

³⁴ Justin Vaȉsse, Zbigniew Brzezinski: America’s Grand Strategist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 275; Keys, Reclaiming American Virtue, 251.

³⁵ Snyder, Human Rights Activism, 83–4; and Stephan Kieninger, The Diplomacy of Détente: Cooperative Security Policies from Helmuth Schmidt to George Schulz (London: Routledge, 2018), 49–50.

³⁶ Zbigniew Brzeziński, Cztery lata w Białym Domu. Wspomnienia (Warsaw: Agencja Omnpress, 1990), 286. The secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, saw a more modest role for human rights. He wanted to decide the extent to which human rights concerns would influence other aspects of US relations with a particular country. See: Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster 1983), 46. For more on Vance’s attitude, see also: Carl. J. Bon Tempo, ‘From the Center-Right: Freedom House and Human Rights in the 1970s and 1980s’, in The Human Rights Revolution, 230.

³⁷ Presidential Directive/NSC-21, 13 September 1977, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/pd/pd21.pdf accessed 15 June 2018.

³⁸ Snyder, Human Rights Activism, 110; and David F. Schmitz and V. Walker, ‘Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights: The Development of a Post-War Foreign Policy’, Diplomatic History 18 (2004): 125–6. See also: Brzeziński, Cztery lata, 118.

³⁹ The Polish Economic/Financial Situation and U.S. Political Objective, no date, Remote Archives Capture Project (hereafter NLC)-29-10-4-5-0, Jimmy Carter Library, Atlanta (hereafter JCL).

⁴⁰ Snyder, Human Rights Activism, 67–8; and Gunter Dehnert, ‘The Polish Opposition, the Crisis of the Gierek Era, and the Helsinki Process’ in The Breakthrough (see note 4), 178. KOR’s early members came from diverse backgrounds, but among the most active were the former revisionists Jacek Kuroń and Adam Michnik. For more, see: Paczkowski, The Spring, 380–3.

⁴¹ Snyder, Human Rights Activism, 68. For more on the ROPCiO, see: Grzegorz Waligóra, Ruch Obrony Praw Człowieka i Obywatela 1977–1981 (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej 2006); Jarząbek, ‘An Escalating Problem’, 131–2. See also: Brier, Poland’s Solidarity, 28–9.

⁴² Thomas, The Helsinki Effect, 168; For more about Warsaw’s attitude in this regard, see: Jarząbek, ‘An Escalating Problem’, 134.

⁴³ Memo, Robert King to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 7 October 1977, NLC-23-29-4-7-4, JCL. King formulated a similar opinion in another memorandum for Brzezinski (Memo, Robert King to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 30 November 1977, NLC-23-29-4-11-9, JCL).

⁴⁴ Memo, Robert King to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 30 November 1977, NLC-23-29-4-11-9, JCL.

⁴⁵ Memo, Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, no date, NLC-126-9-28-2-0, JCL.

⁴⁶ Notes, 01/09/77 (sic!), ‘Trip: Poland, Iran, India, Saudi Arabia, France, Belgium, 12/29/77-1/6/78 [4]’ folder, box 41, Jody Powell Papers, Subject Files, JCL. Carter also noted ‘a remarkable degree of religious freedom’ in Poland in his diary (Carter, White House Diary, 155).

⁴⁷ See Stephen A. Garret, From Potsdam to Poland: American Policy Towards Eastern Europe (New York: Praeger 1986), 143.

⁴⁸ See: Keys, Reclaiming American Virtue, 176; Sargent, A Superpower Transformed, 204.

⁴⁹ Access to Archival Databases, Electronic Telegrams (hereafter AAD) 1977, National Archives at College Park, Maryland (hereafter USNA).

⁵⁰ For more on the Polish regime’s attitude towards emigration in the 1970s, see: Dariusz Stola, Kraj bez wyjścia? Migracje z Polski 1949–1989 (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2012), 160–4, 205–10, 237–45.

⁵¹ 30 czerwca, notatka wicedyrektora Departamentu Konsularnego w sprawie wyjazdów emigracyjnych do USA, Polskie Dokumenty Dyplomatyczne 1975, ed. Paweł Machcewicz (Warsaw: PISM, 2010), doc. 174, 397–8.

⁵² First Quarterly Report on Implementation of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) August 1–31 October 1975, ‘CSCE, 1976 (1) NSC’ folder, box 45, NSA NSC Europe, Canada, and Ocean Affairs Staff, General Subject File: Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1976 (5) White House, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor.

⁵³ Telegram 2194 from Warsaw to DS (Davies), 30 March 1977, AAD 1977, USNA. However, he urged Washington not to accept the narrow definition of divided families.

⁵⁴ Memo of Conversation, 5 May 1977, NLC-7-35-7-3-6, JCL. Wojtaszek’s evasive proposal to discuss these matters further was approved by Carter. See: 5 październik, szyfrogram ministra spraw zagranicznych (z Nowego Yorku) do I sekretarza KC PZPR o rozmowach z prezydentem USA, Polskie Dokumenty Dyplomatyczne 1977, ed. Piotr Majewski (Warsaw: PISM, 2009), doc. 265, 645.

⁵⁵ Telegram 3171 from Warsaw to the DS (Schaufele), 15 April 1978, US Department of State Freedom of Information Act (hereafter: DSFOIA), https://foia.state.gov accessed 10 June 2018.

⁵⁶ Memo, Peter Tarnoff to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 2 February 1978, NLC-132-132-4-3-1, JLC.

⁵⁷ This idea was based on the discussion of Anthony Lake (Policy Planning Staff), George Vest (Bureau of European Affairs), and Mark Schneider (Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs) regarding how to resolve the divided families issue without undermining key US interests in Poland and Eastern Europe. See: Memorandum, 26 May 1978, Records of Anthony Lake 1977–1981, ‘TL 5/16-31/78’ folder, box 3, Record Group 59 (hereafter: RG 59), Policy and Planning Staff, Office of the Director, USNA.

⁵⁸ Telegram 4413 from Warsaw to DS (Schaufele), 25 May 1978, NLC-132-132-4-3-1, JLC.

⁵⁹ Telegram 144,863 from DS to Warsaw (Vance), 8 June 1978, AAD 1978, USNA.

⁶⁰ CCC Credits for Poland, no date, NLC-17-34-7-7-2, JLC.

⁶¹ Telegram 316,709 from the Department of State to Warsaw (Christopher), 16 December 1978, AAD 1978, USNA; Szyfrogram [Cipher] Nr 3707/IV, Waszyngton, 15 December 1978, Zbiór Depesz [A Collection of Dispaches; hereafter ZD], sig 29/80, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives, Warsaw (hereafter, MFA).

⁶² CCC Credits for Poland, no date, NLC-17-34-7-7-2, JLC.

⁶³ Telegram 7344 from Warsaw to DS (Schaufele), 25 July 1979, AAD 1979, USNA.

⁶⁴ Telegram 004873 from DS to Warsaw, 1 August 1980, NLC-16-82-6-22-4, JCL.

⁶⁵ Szyfrogram Nr 4041/II (Waszyngton) 18 June 1980, ZD sign. 29/82, MFA.

⁶⁶ Notatka z rozmowy z Victorem Gray’em, szefem Zespołu ds. polskich w Departamencie Stanu [Memo of Conversation with Victor Gray], August 14, 1980, Department III 1980, sign. 50/84, MFA.

⁶⁷ Ibid.

⁶⁸ Telegram 04498 from Warsaw to DS (Schaufele), 7 May 1979, AAD 1979, USNA.

⁶⁹ Freedom of Movement, [5 October 1979 r.], DSFOIA, https://foia.state.gov accessed 10 June 2018.

⁷⁰ Cyrus Vance to Emil Wojtaszek, 1 February 1980, and Emil Wojtaszek to Cyrus Vance, 10 April 1980, Department III 1980, sign. 50/84, MFA.

⁷¹ Telegram 9056 from Warsaw to DS (Schaufele), 10 October 1978, AAD 1978, USNA.

⁷² Freedom of Movement, [5 October 1979], DSFOIA, https://foia.state.gov (accessed 10 June 2018); Telegrams: 10,872 from Warsaw to DS (Schaufele), 30 October 1979, and 12,001 from Warsaw to DS (Schaufele), 3 December 1979, AAD 1979, USNA.

⁷³ Stuckey, Human Rights, 121.

⁷⁴ Intelligence Memorandum. Dissident Activity in East Europe: An Overview [03/77], NLC-28-10-3-1-6, JCL; Dissident Activity in East Europe: An Overview, 2 January 1977, NLC-7-17-5-4-7, JCL. The regime’s amnesty for workers who had been imprisoned since June 1976 seemed to confirm this opinion (Memo, Robert J. Lipshutz to Midge Costanza [et al.], 16 May 1977, ‘Human Rights – Treaties and Covenants (3)’ folder, box 30, Robert Lipshutz’s Subject Files, Robert J. Lipshutz Papers, JCL). A similar statement was also present in the memorandum prepared for Brzezinski.

⁷⁵ Dissident Activity in East Europe: An Overview, 03/77, NLC-28-10-3-1-6, JLC. See: Ł. Jasiński, Kwestie międzynarodowe, 152–3, regarding the letter to Carter.

⁷⁶ Dissident Activity in East Europe..., NLC-28-10-3-1-6, JLC.

⁷⁷ See: Paper Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency for the Special Activities Working Group 4 February 1977 r., FRUS, 1977–1980, Volume XX, Eastern Europe, eds. Carl Ashley and Mircea A. Munteanu (Washington DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2015), doc. 3.

⁷⁸ These dissidents were arrested during a trip to the funeral of a KOR member, Jagiellonian University student, Stanislaw Pyjas, who was allegedly murdered by the regime’s secret police on 7 May 1977.

⁷⁹ Memorandums from Warren Christopher to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 26 May 1977, and 1 August 1977, ‘WC-Official Chronos – Jan/Dec 1977’ folder, box 16, Records of Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher, RG 59, USNA; Memo, Gregor F. Treverton to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 2 February 1977, ‘CO 126 Executive 1/20/77-2/28/78’ folder, box CO-49, WHCF-Subject File, JCL.

⁸⁰ Eastern Europe Weekly Review, 29 November 1977, NLC-31-30-7-1-6, JCL.

⁸¹ Telegram 301,404/1 from the Department of State to the White House (Vance), 17 December 1977, NLC-16-23-2-13-3, JCL; Telegram 304,974 from the Department of State to Warsaw (Vance), 22 December 1977, NLC-16-110-3-3-2-4, JCL. Carter responded to three of the ROPCiO’s questions about human rights. Although his answers were rather vague, they were printed in a later issue of Opinia (Waligóra, Ruch Obrony, 98–101).

⁸² Telegram 1420 from Warsaw to the Department of State (Brown), 18 February 1978, DS FOIA, https://foia.state.gov accessed 10 June 2018). The secret police noted the US delegation’s lack of KOR and ROPCiO contacts with satisfaction. See: ‘Kryptonim Gracze’, doc. No 113, 387.

⁸³ Telegram 301,404 from DS to the White House (Vance), 17 December 1977, NLC-16-23-2-13-3, JCL.

⁸⁴ Telegram 295,591 from DS to Warsaw (Vance), 12 December 1977, AAD 1977, USNA.

⁸⁵ Telegram 1420 from Warsaw to DS (Brown), 18 February 1978, DSFOIA.

⁸⁶ Telegram 3171 from Warsaw to DS (Schaufele), 15 April 1978, DSFOIA, https://foia.state.gov accessed 10 June 2018; Letter, Frank Moore to Jack Kemp, 5 August 1978, ‘CO 126 Executive 1/20/77-1/20/81’ folder, box CO-49, WHCF-Subject File, JCL.

⁸⁷ Telegram 3171 from Warsaw to DS (Schaufele), 15 April 1978, DSFOIA, https://foia.state.gov accessed 10 June 2018. For more on flying universities, see: ‘Kryptonim Pegaz’: Służba Bezpieczeństwa wobec Towarzystwa Kursów Naukowych 1978–1980, ed. Łukasz Kamiński, Grzegorz Waligóra (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2008), 23–35.

⁸⁸ Letter, Frank Moore to Congressman Kemp, 8 August 1978, ‘CO 126 Executive TR16-7’ folder, box CO-49, WHCF-Subject File, JCL.

⁸⁹ Undoubtedly, this position stemmed from the CIA’s assumption that nonconformist writer and poet Andrzej Braun’s accusations that the regime’s censors were threatening Polish culture, and Congress’s selection of four active dissidents to its main board were important victories for dissidents. Human Rights Review (May 12–18, 1978), NLC-31-39-2-3-0, JCL.

⁹⁰ Letter, Douglas J. Bennet, Jr to Jack Kemp, 12 December 1978, ‘CO 126 Executive 3/1/78-1/20/81’ folder, box CO-49, WHCF-Subject File, JCL. Although dissidents’ houses were sometimes searched by the secret police, charges were rarely filed, and publications still flourished even as samizdat and printing equipment were occasionally confiscated (The U.S. and Dissidence in Eastern Europe, ‘Human Rights 4/79-4/80’ folder, box 29, NSA – Brzezinski Subject File, JCL; Telegram 3171 from Warsaw to DS [Davies], 15 April 1978, DSFOIA, https://foia.state.gov [accessed 10 June 2018]; Mania, Détente, 175).

⁹¹ Letter, Douglas J. Bennet, Jr to Jack Kemp, 12 December 1978, ‘CO 126 Executive 3/1/78-1/20/81’ folder, box CO-49, WHCF-Subject File, JCL.

⁹² Dissidence in Eastern Europe. A Research Paper, [September 1978], CIA-RDP80T00634A000900110001-5, Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room (hereafter CIA FOIA) https://www.cia.gov/readingroom [accessed 12 June 2018].

⁹³ Patrick J. Flood to Patricia Derian, 26 October 1978, ‘Poland’ folder, box 5, Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs: Country Files, RG59, USNA.

⁹⁴ National Intelligence Daily Cable, 17 November 1978, CIA-RDP79T00975A030900010007-3, CIA FOIA https://www.cia.gov/readingroom [accessed 14 June 2018]. This information Brzezinski saw a day earlier (Memorandum for Dr. Brzezinski, 11/16/78, NLC-1-8-5-31-3, JCL.

⁹⁵ In June 1977 the Polish American Congress (PAC) had already appealed in Congress for a statement on a violation of human rights in Poland. Members of the PAC supported the Carter administration’s activity in this field (See further: Joanna Wojdon, W jedności siła. Kongres Polonii Amerykańskiej w latach 1968–1988 [Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek 2008], 383–5).

⁹⁶ October Polonia Meeting: Questions and Answers – Political, ‘Poland’ folder, box 5, Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs: Country Files, RG59, USNA.

⁹⁷ Telegram 5193 from Warsaw to DS (Schaufele), 23 May 1979, AAD 1979, USNA.

⁹⁸ During Gierek’s visit to Moscow in April 1978, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev criticised Poland’s domestic policy regarding dissidents and the Catholic Church. See: Wanda Jarząbek, ‘A Trap and a Chance: Basket III, Dissidents and State Authorities in Communist Poland’ in Human Rights in Europe during the Cold War, ed. Rasmus Mariager, Karl Molin, and Kjersti Brathagen (London: Routledge, 2014), 151.

⁹⁹ Memo, the Situation Room to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 2 February 1979, NLC-1-10-3-2-4, JCL.

¹⁰⁰ For more about free trade unions see: W walce o lepszą przyszłość. Wolne związki zawodowe, https://wzz.ipn.gov.pl/wzz/ (accessed 2 June 2022).

¹⁰¹ Świtoń was officially charged for allegedly obstructing militia officers from carrying out their orders.

¹⁰² Telegram 2217 from Warsaw to DS (Brown), 7 March 1979, and Telegram 072872 from DS to Warsaw (Vance), 23 March 1979, AAD 1979, USNA.

¹⁰³ Dissidence in Eastern Europe. A Research Paper, [September 1978], CIA-RDP80T00634A000900110001-5, CIA FOIA https://www.cia.gov/readingroom [accessed 12 June 2018]. For more about Polish-Czechoslovak dissidents’ cooperation see: Łukasz. Kamiński, Peter Blažek and Grzegorz Majewski, Ponad granicami. Historia Solidarności Polsko-Czechosłowackiej (Wrocław: Oficyna Wydawnicza Atut, 2009).

¹⁰⁴ Memo, Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, 13 December 1978, NLC-1-8-2-29-9, JCL.

¹⁰⁵ National Intelligence Daily Cable, 26 August 1978, CIA-RDP79T00975A030800010046-9, CIA FOIA https://www.cia.gov/readingroom [accessed 12 June 2018]; Memo, ORPA/Eastern Europe CIA to [Secret], 9 August 1978, NLC-34-6-49-1-3, JCL.

¹⁰⁶ Memo, Steve Larrabee to Zbigniew Brzezinski, August 28, 1980, NLC-6-65-2-22-8, JCL.

¹⁰⁷ Memo, Situation Room to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 9 March 1980, NLC-1-16-8-5-0, JCL.

¹⁰⁸ Memo, Robert D. Blackwill to Zbigniew Brzezinski from 9 May 1980, NLC-23-56-19-4-1, JCL.

¹⁰⁹ Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, ‘Poland: Country Reader’ (Interviews with Michael G. Anderson, Carl S. Bastiani, and Richard A. Virden, http://www.adst.org/Readers/Poland.pdf (accessed 20 June 2018).

¹¹⁰ Memo, Warren Christopher to the President, 25 September 1980 r., NLC-128-15-9-14-9, JCL. See also: Korey, The Promises We Keep, 143.

¹¹¹ Human Rights in the Review of Implementation, folder ‘CSCE-33 A Oct.-Dec. Madrid Meeting New Proposals – Principles and Basket III’ folder, box 3, Subject Files of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1973–1980, Bureau of European Affairs, Office of NATO and Atlantic Political Military Affairs, RG 59, USNA.

¹¹² Betty Glad, The Outsider in the White House: Jimmy Carter, His Advisers and the Making of American Foreign Policy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009), 248.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Narodowe Centrum Nauki [2014/13/B/HS3/04900].