Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [485]
The next day, Friday, was one I shall never forget. I flew up to Gdansk in the early morning to join General Jaruzelski in laying a wreath at the Westerplatte, which saw the first fighting between the Poles and the invading Germans in 1939. It was a bleak peninsula above the bay of Gdansk and the wind was bitter; the ceremony lasted half an hour. I was pleased to get aboard and into the cabin of the small naval ship which was to take me down the river to Gdansk itself. I changed out of my black hat and coat into emerald green and then went back up on deck. The scenes at the arrival of our boat at Gdansk shipyard were unbelievable. Every inch of it seemed taken up with shipyard workers waving and cheering.
After a walkabout in old Gdansk itself I was driven to the hotel where Lech Walesa and his colleagues came up to see me in my room. He had a somewhat ambiguous status at this time, being under a sort of liberal house arrest, and had been brought to the hotel, ironically enough, by Polish Security Police. I gave him the present I had brought with me — some fishing tackle, for he was a great fisherman — and we departed again for the shipyard. Again there were thousands of shipyard workers waiting for me, cheering and waving Solidarity banners. I laid flowers on the memorial to shipyard workers shot by the police and army in 1970, and then went to the house of Father Jankowski, Mr Walesa’s confessor and adviser, for a meeting followed by lunch.
The Solidarity leaders were a mixture of workers and intellectuals. Mr Walesa was in the former group, but he had a large physical presence as well as a symbolic importance which allowed him to dominate. He told me that Solidarity was disinclined to accept the Government’s invitation to join in round-table talks, believing — probably rightly — that the purpose was to divide and if possible discredit the opposition. Solidarity’s goal he described as ‘pluralism’, that is a state of affairs in which the Communist Party was not the sole legitimate authority. What struck me, though, was that they did not have a specific plan of action with immediate practical objectives. Indeed, when I said that I thought that Solidarity should attend the talks and submit its own proposals in the form of a detailed agenda with supporting papers my hosts looked quite astonished.
Over lunch — one of the best game stews I have ever tasted — we argued through together what their negotiating stance might be and how in my final discussions with the Polish Government I could help. We decided that the most important point I could make to General Jaruzelski was that Solidarity must be legalized. De facto recognition was not enough. Throughout I was repeatedly impressed by the moderation and eloquence of Mr Walesa and his colleagues. At one point I said: ‘you really must see that the Government hears all this.’ ‘No problem’, replied Mr Walesa, pointing up to the ceiling; ‘our meetings are bugged anyway.’
After lunch it was suggested that I might like to look around the nearby church of St Brygida. To my delighted astonishment, when Mr Walesa and I entered I found the whole church packed with Polish families who rose and sang the Solidarity anthem ‘God give us back our free Poland.’ I could not keep the tears