POLAND: A New Party Boss Takes Charge

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No amount of economic reform can succeed without a massive influx of foreign aid. As Poland's foremost trading partner and a major creditor ($550 million in hard-currency loans since May), the Soviet Union is a logical source. Warsaw accordingly dispatched a delegation to Moscow to seek assistance and explain the strike agreements. Headed by First Deputy Premier Mieczyslaw Jagielski, the man who negotiated the Gdansk accord, the Polish envoys met first with Soviet trade officials. Jagielski then held a private meeting with Mikhail Suslov, the Soviet Politburo's hard-lining ideologist; diplomats in Moscow had no doubt that Suslov expressed strong disapproval of the independent trade union concept. The question undoubtedly came up as well during Jagielski's meeting with Brezhnev the following day. Whatever political advice the Soviet leader gave, TASS announced that Moscow's deliveries of food and manufactured goods would be stepped up to ease Poland's crisis.

The Soviet press, meanwhile, continued its campaign against "antisocialist elements and Western imperialist propaganda." In particular, Pravda blasted AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and other U.S. labor leaders for sending aid to "antigovernment" Polish strikers and labor unions. The American leaders, warned Pravda, "are profoundly mistaken in thinking that their interference in the internal affairs of the sovereign Polish state will go unnoticed."

Despite Moscow's heated public rhetoric, however, quiet diplomatic contacts had in fact taken place. In two meetings with Soviet representatives, U.S. officials reiterated Secretary of State Edmund Muskie's public calls for noninterference. Two weeks ago, in discussions with Soviet Chargé d'Affaires Vladillen Vasev, Muskie disavowed any U.S. Government responsibility for the financial aid sent by American labor groups. But Washington did not scrimp on its official aid to Warsaw; at week's end President Carter announced a $670 million credit for the purchase of U.S. grain and foodstuffs.

Back in Warsaw, another high-level meeting took place last week between leaders of two important power blocs: the workers and the Roman Catholic Church. At the invitation of Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, Labor Leader Walesa attended a private Mass at the chapel of the Primate's palace, followed by a meeting in the Cardinal's apartments. The invitation was widely interpreted as an attempt by Wyszynski to mend fences with the workers, many of whom felt that he had failed to support them adequately during the strikes. The workers were especially disappointed by the Cardinal's Aug. 26 sermon calling for "calm and responsibility." Excerpts were broadcast on state television, giving the impression that Wyszynski opposed the continuation of the strikes. The Polish episcopate later protested that it had not authorized the broadcast and that the government had edited it to serve its purposes, but many workers remained suspicious.