The Anoshkin Notebook on the Polish Crisis, December 1981

46 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN 11
army sergeant and still had a queasy feeling when dealing
with four-star generals. He came back immediately—
sergeants were nothing much—it was corporals you had to
watch out for—he had been a corporal himself—and there
was Napoleon—and then “there was that other corporal as
well.” We knew we were looking at one of the great
political naturals.
I met with Jaruzelski the same day the Primate warned
me there was a good chance of martial law. I still regret
the professional goof of not telling the general I had heard
martial law was coming and asking his views. I doubt he
would have “fessed up” and given dates and times, but I
should have had the wit to get him on the record.
By the time I saw him Jaruzelski must have assumed
Colonel Kukli½ski, now missing from his duties for a
couple of weeks, was in US hands, and we were fully
aware of the planning for a military strike against
Solidarity. He could easily have avoided a meeting. For
all he knew I might have appeared armed with instructions
to ask awkward questions about the regime’s intentions.
<strong>The</strong> US might have been about to launch a political
campaign that could cause problems in the immediate
run-up to martial law. Perhaps a reason for seeing me was
to mislead deliberately by a pretence of business as usual
even after the Kukli½ski affair. <strong>The</strong> hour was unusual—
we met from eight-thirty till ten at night—but there was
certainly nothing vastly new or different in what he had to
say from our previous meetings.
Jaruzelski restated the government’s commitment to
broad national consensus. It did not have to follow this
policy—it had reserves of power that had not been used.
“Some people” accused it of being weak for negotiating
with Solidarity “with the strike pistol aimed at us,” but it
intended to continue seeking agreement. However, the
crisis facing the state could not continue indefinitely.
Not everything Solidarity did suited him, he said, but
there were forces in the union that could be worked with.
Marginal, radical elements were moving way from the
mainstream. Solidarity realized it was not enough just to
fight the authorities. It was essential to reach a settlement
on the enterprise self-management law, otherwise all the
other agreements would be useless.
On our bilateral relations Jaruzelski said the West
Europeans were waiting for a positive US lead on
economic aid, and he asked for a positive approach from
us in advance of the EC summit which was to be held
shortly. He stressed the importance of our agricultural
deliveries within the Commodity Credit Corporation
framework, and said he wanted to send the minister of
agriculture to the US to discuss technology, fertilizers,
pesticides and related matters. We had their list of
requirements in industrial and semi-finished goods, spare
parts, and raw materials. Vice Premier Zbigniew Madej’s
visit to Washington in December would be a good
occasion to pursue these topics.
If this was all an act, the general did it well—worth an
Oscar nomination. It sounded much the same in tone and
substance as I had heard from him before. He struck me
again as moderate, realistic—the cool political soldier.
Personally he seemed, as before, reserved, tense, basically
a loner. Had he already set the date for martial law when
he saw me? I am inclined to think the decision to strike
was taken closer to the actual event, but I might only be
trying to excuse my inability to see the cloven hoof
sticking out at the foot of those razor-crease uniform pants
with the broad red stripe.
Debate on Jaruzelski’s patriotism strikes me as a more
than slightly red herring. He was and is a Pole—I suspect
more now than he was then. People who were in a
position to know told me he thought the worst thing the
US ever did to him was [U.S. Secretary of Defense
Casper] Weinberger’s one-liner in a TV show that he was
a Soviet general in a Polish uniform. That really got to
him. But if he was a Pole, he was the top Polish
Communist power handler in a tight spot, completely
devoted to maintaining party control of the system, and
also completely committed to the Soviet connection. He
may well have wanted to avoid Soviet military
intervention, possible occupation, but he also wanted to
put the reform movement back in its cage. My guess is the
latter objective was the primary motivation in a convenient
coincidence of goals and interests—but I was wrong on
the Soviet politburo and I could be wrong again.
Colonel Kukli½ski was a very brave man. <strong>The</strong>
operation to bring him and his family to the West—the
planning and the action itself—made for an edgy week or
so in the embassy, and no doubt it was an excruciatingly
anxious time for the Kukli½skis themselves. <strong>The</strong>
operation’s success reflected much credit on the
Kukli½skis for their courage and on the professionalism of
those involved on the US side. My role was minimal—to
support the people who were doing the work. I hope I
looked calmer than I felt. If it had all gone wrong, if the
colonel had been caught before he could get away, or if
the extraction operation had been discovered while it was
in progress, things would have been messy.
I am not sure it would have made all that much
difference if we had tipped off the Solidarity leadership
about the regime’s planning for a strike against them on
the basis of the information Kukli½ski provided. <strong>The</strong>y
would not have been much surprised to learn the generals
were thinking nasty things about them. I believe they
assumed that to be the case from very early on. What they
would have wanted to know—as I would have—was the
date of martial law, and Kukli½ski did not give us that so
far as I know.
I say “so far as I know” because I did not see all of his
reporting. <strong>The</strong> CIA provided me with summaries from
time to time. I remember the material as largely
technical-organizational in nature. It must have been of
great use to our military analysts, but what I saw lacked
broader political scope, and I lost sight somewhat of the
colonel’s reporting in the press of more urgent business in
the months before martial law.