Europe,” in Bociurkiw and Strong, eds., Religion and Atheism in the USSR and Eastern Europe (London: Macmillan, 1975), 212–13. Simon states that Catholic Church organization in the USSR was completely destroyed by the 1930s, and Catholicism was not permitted to reestablish a central apparatus after World War II, unlike some other churches. Writing in the mid-1970s, Simon reported that there was not a single Catholic monastery, convent, school, or welfare institution in the entire Soviet Union. Poland, however, was another story.
20. Ibid., 212–15, 242–51.
21. Fr. Robert A. Sirico, “The Cold War’s Magnificent Seven, Pope John Paul II: Awakener of the East,” Policy Review, no. 59 (Winter 1992): 52.
22. Malachai Martin, The Keys of This Blood (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 102.
23. Ibid., 103.
24. This particular broadcast was titled simply, “The Pope in Poland.” Located in “Ronald Reagan: Pre- Presidential Papers: Selected Radio Broadcasts, 1975–1979,” October 31, 1978 to October 1979, Box 4, RRL. For a full transcript, see Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, eds., Reagan, In His Own Hand, 174–75.
25. Reagan, “Address to the Roundtable National Affairs Briefing,” Dallas, Texas, August 1980,” vertical files.
26. Located in “Ronald Reagan: Pre-Presidential Papers: Selected Radio Broadcasts, 1975–1979,” October 31, 1978 to October 1979, Box 4, RRL. For a full transcript, see Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, eds., Reagan, In His Own Hand, 176–77.
27. Quoted in Schweizer, Victory, 35–36, 59, 69, 159–61. Allen said that, “Reagan had a deep and steadfast conviction that this pope would help change the world.” Quoted in Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 270. Ed Rowny, a Polish- American and one of Reagan’s chief advisers on nuclear arms, who would brief John Paul II four times on Reagan’s behalf, also confirms that the president believed that the pope would be an important factor in the eventual liberation of Poland. Agostino Bono, “Officials say pope, Reagan shared Cold War data, but lacked alliance,” Catholic News Service, November 17, 2004.
28. Interview with Bill Clark, August 24, 2001.
29. Editorial, “The Polish Pope in Poland,” New York Times, June 5, 1979, A20. Reagan was not entirely alone. George Weigel, biographer of John Paul II, states that the import of those nine days in Poland was not lost among two key Slavic observers: In Moscow, KGB head and future Soviet general secretary Yuri Andropov was gravely concerned; prior to the Poland visit, within just six weeks of Karol Wojtyla’s election as Pope, Andropov ordered up a “massive” (Weigel’s word) KGB analysis on the potential impact of the new chief at the Holy See. (There have been reports, not to mention statements from John Paul II himself, that the USSR was so worried about the Polish pope that the KGB began considering assassination options.) Another Russian of very different ideological bent, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, witnessed the Pope’s reception in Poland from his exiled home in Vermont. He was elated: “This is the greatest thing to happen to the world since World War I,” he declared. “It’s the first real sign of hope since the Bolshevik revolution.” Quoted by George Weigel, “And the Wall Came Tumbling Down: John Paul II and the Communist Crack Up,” Address at Grove City College, February 15, 2001.
30. Information provided by Tomasz Pompowski, senior editor and reporter at Fakt (“Fact”), Poland’s largest daily newspaper, via e-mail correspondence September 5, 23, and 29, 2005.
31. Quoted in Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, The Reagan Revolution (New York: Dutton, 1981), 11– 12.
32. Reagan, “The President’s News Conference,” June 16, 1981.
33. Acknowledging this spiritual link, Russia expert James Billington notes that as a “bottom-up mass movement rooted in religion,” Solidarity was not the typical movement that apparatchiks could domesticate by decapitation or by offering carrots and sticks to its members. James H. Billington, “The Foreign Policy of President Ronald Reagan,” Address to the International Republican Institute Freedom Dinner, Washington, DC, September 25, 1997, 2.
34. Arthur R. Rachwald, In Search of Poland (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1990), 3.
35. Cited by Brian Crozier, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire (Rocklin, CA: Forum, 1999), 359.
36. Among others, see Reagan, “Proclamation 4891—Solidarity Day,” January 20, 1982.
37. Reagan, “Address to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,” Columbus, Ohio, August 1980,” vertical files.
38. Schweizer, Victory, 29, 31.
39. Benjamin Weiser, A Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to Save His Country (New York: PublicAffairs Books, 2004), 3. I also learned of Kuklinski’s importance from Gus Weiss, who told me only vaguely that Kuklinski “earned his salary during the crisis.” Interview with Weiss, November 26, 2002.
40. For instance, Polish state television as early as November 1980 had broadcast ominous film of joint Polish-Soviet military maneuvers, using what was likely old video footage (the trees in the video had leaves suggestive of summertime). The point of these broadcasts was to directly suggest Soviet military intervention, even if many Poles were uncertain about the seriousness of the suggestion. Timothy Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity, 88.
41. Jerrold Schecter and Leona Schecter, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002), 305.
42. December 16, 1980 letter in George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (New York: Harper Perennial, 2001), 406–7.
43. Richard Pipes, Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 168–69.
44. This information was reported and presented by Mark Kramer, director of the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies, in a number of his papers and bulletins, including the Cold War International History Project Bulletin, specifically issue no. 5 (Spring 1995) and issue no. 11 (Winter 1999).
Some Soviet officials insisted on an invasion while others, like Mikhail A. Suslov, asserted: “There is no way that we are going to use force in Poland.” Edward Shevardnadze, The Future Belongs to Freedom (New York: The Free Press, 1991), 121.
45. Shevardnaze,
46. In illuminating this extraordinary consideration, a clarification is essential: Aside from NSDD-32, there were other formal Reagan directives that addressed the Poland issue, such as NSDD-75, released January 17, 1983, which (as noted) explicitly aimed to undermine the Soviet empire. Among the most dramatic wording in all of the NSDDs was this line on the middle of page three of NSDD-75: “In the longer term, should Soviet behavior worsen, for example, an invasion of Poland, we would need to consider extreme measures.” (NSDD is on file at Reagan Library.) NSDD-75 was safely declassified on July 16, 1994, five years after the end of the Soviet grip on Poland and three years after the end of the USSR itself. The directive does not specify what those “extreme measures” might be. Could such measures include U.S. military force in Poland? Those interviewed on the “extreme measures” phrase offered mixed, puzzled reactions, with most claiming ignorance. Some did not recall that seemingly provocative line, including no less than Richard Pipes, regarded as the primary author. This is confusing, until one reads the little known, thirty-five page “support paper” to NSDD-75, which was released on December 6, 1982 with the simple title, “U.S. Relations with the USSR,” declassified in 1997. On page thirty is the reference to “extreme measures.” Unlike NSDD-75, however, the support paper explains what is meant by “extreme measures.” It states: “the West would need to consider extreme measures such as a total trade boycott, including grain.” In other words, “extreme measures” refers to trade, not war.
47. Interview with Richard Pipes, September 9, 2002.
48. Interview with Richard V. Allen, September 18, 2002.
49. Interview with Caspar Weinberger, October 10, 2002.
50. In his memoirs, Weinberger used almost verbatim language, saying that at this particular meeting,
