Poland: Let the Vodka Flow Freely

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Relations between Poland and the United States have been strained since General Wojciech Jaruzelski's government declared martial law in 1981. Last week President Reagan lifted the last of the economic sanctions he imposed five years ago against the Warsaw regime. The measures and Poland's own economic mismanagement had nearly halved U.S. imports of Polish goods, such as vodka and canned ham. Reagan praised Warsaw's more tolerant attitude toward the Catholic Church and political prisoners, hundreds of whom have been freed since martial law was ended in 1983. Both the church and the banned Solidarity trade-union movement pressed for the U.S. action as an important symbolic gesture. Warsaw, said a spokesman, was pleased "that the unlawful restrictions are being lifted."