Edward L. Rowny
Walesa.
Q ..
What did you t a l k about with these Polish officials?
addition to talking- about their general political and economic situation, I talked
In
A
to them about a pet project of mine, retuming the remains of Paderewski to Poland.
I left with Mazowiecki a draft letter which I said I hoped he would send to
President Bush. It requested that Paderewski's body be returned to Poland. I
specified in the draft that the body be returned on June 29, 1991, the 50th
anniversary of the death of Paderewski. You will recall that Paderewski died on
June 29, 1941, in New York. President Roosevelt ordered the War Department to
bury Paderewski at Arlington National Cemetery. But the Secretary of War said
this could not be done, since only U.S. nationals can be buried at Arlington.
Roosevelt then ordered Paderewski's remains to stay in Arlington until the end of
the war. In 1963, President Kennedy went to Arlington Cemetery and dedicated
a brass plaque which said that Paderewski should continue to rest in Arlington
Cemetery and be returned to his native country "when Poland is free." The letter
that I left with Mazowiecki said that in my contacts with Paderewski's family and
with members of the Polish-American community, they felt that Poland would be
free by June of 1991. Therefore, we began making plans to return the body on
June 29, 1991.
During these meetings in Poland, I had several conversations with the head of the
Polish Parliament, Bronislav Geremek. Geremek and I had been scholars at the
Wilson Center in 1979 and 1980. In addition to being head of the Parliament,
Geremek was one of Walesa's principal advisors. It was interesting to me that
Geremek was one of those persons who believed that the presidency should not
necessarily go to Walesa. He felt that there should be free elections and that the
people should decide who should be their next president. There was a split within
Solidarity about this issue. Some members felt that Walesa was moving too fast
politically and too radically economically. Others thought that he was too
ambitious. They wanted to be sure that other candidates would be given a chance
to run for the office of the presidency.
Q ..
What did you plan to do after you retired?
A.
I planned to do five things. First, I planned to become a distinguished scholar at
CSIS, the Center for Strategic International Studies. Under their auspices, I
intended to write a book on the lessons learned while negotiating with the Soviets.
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