Freedom Fallout

The U.S. considers a gesture

Dishonesty ... astonishing." The angry words of the Polish government's chief spokesman, Jerzy Urban, last week were aimed at the U.S., not for what it had done but for what it had failed to do. What infuriated Urban was Washington's apparent initial tepid response to Warsaw's sweeping amnesty for 652 political prisoners. To Premier General Wojciech Jaruzelski's regime, the amnesty clearly lived up to Washington's conditions for lifting an array of painful economic sanctions imposed after Poland declared martial law in 1981. But the Reagan Administration seemed to Warsaw to be dragging its feet. If amnesty is not enough, cried Urban, "what does the U.S. Government really want?"

Warsaw's annoyance was premature.

What Washington wanted, for one thing, was time to fashion a concerted NATO response that will please Warsaw while satisfying anti-Communist Polish Americans. A White House official confided that President Reagan's decision "will be guided by what's good for the Polish people, what Polish Americans want and, most of all, by the wishes of the Catholic Church." Pope John Paul II has long made it plain that he would like to see an end to sanctions against his country, among them Washington's veto of Polish membership in the International Monetary Fund, as well as U.S. bans on most-favored-nation trading status and the denial of credits for food and other much needed commodities. Even some Administration officials feel that such sanctions have outlived their usefulness. Said one: "There is the feeling that Poland is doing, at least technically, what we demanded."

Only hours after Urban's outburst, Reagan explained at a news conference that aides were studying the amnesty "very carefully," with an eye toward lifting sanctions. By week's end the Administration appeared to favor easing some of the most onerous barriers, and the President seemed likely to reveal his position from the Western White House later this week. Relief cannot come too soon for Warsaw: government officials estimate that sanctions have already cost Poland $13 billion.

Easing the squeeze on Poland could be made politically easier for Reagan by the lack of rancor expressed by many of the prisoners freed in the amnesty. Andrzej Gwiazda, a co-founder of the banned Solidarity trade union, was hopeful as he welcomed well-wishers to his Gdansk apartment. If the relaxation continues, he said, "we might reach the point that the government will decide on pluralism." He added, "The present government is the most intelligent in the past 40 years, and that is already something." Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa also expressed hope for renewed contact between Poland's leaders and the opposition. But he warned that if the regime turns its back on dialogue, "then in one month's time we will have a similar situation, with perhaps more in prison than we have now."

If Washington was slow to please Warsaw, it did take a conciliatory step toward Moscow last week by announcing the end of an embargo on Soviet fishing in U.S. waters. The ban was imposed after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Washington stressed that lifting the embargo was part of a wider effort to promote a "constructive dialogue with the Soviet Union." It was also a key election-year gesture to Alaskan and West Coast fishermen. The deal permits the Soviets to haul in 50,000 tons of fish on their own. In exchange, they will have to buy an additional 50,000 tons a year, worth at least $8 million, from U.S. fishermen.