Why the hell Wałęsa didn't show his face in Ann Arbor?

Another issue arose at that first meeting: should we invite General Wojciech Jaruzelski? In 1970, as Minister for Defense, he had been responsible (directly or indirectly) for the massacre of protesting workers in Gdańsk, and as head of state in 1981 he had attempted to crush the Solidarity movement by declaring martial law. Because of this background, some on our committee were uncomfortable inviting him to speak, but most of us felt that his role in the negotiations of 1989 was too important to overlook. Since we also intended to invite a strong contingent from the Solidarity side—

including Lech Wałęsa himself—it seemed clear (to me, at least) that we were offering no endorsement of General Jaruzelski. We would soon learn that such an endorsement would be assumed, regardless of our intentions.
From the start we received criticism from many different directions. One of my colleagues told me that such a conference would be of no interest to students or faculty outside the Polish studies program, because our guests were limited to "a bunch of obscure male politicians." Another dismissed it as a publicity event with little intellectual content. Although we were able to obtain enthusiastic support—and money—from the university administration, I would continue to perceive the apathy of my fellow faculty members. Evidently we were striding dangerously close to the line between the scholarly and the popular. Of much greater concern was the aggressive opposition that arose outside the university. In October 1998, Michael Kennedy (then Director of CREES) visited Poland to extend personal invitations to those we hoped to bring to Ann Arbor. Apparently this visit brought our plans to the attention of those who had long opposed the Round Table and the compromises it had entailed. The right-wing newspaper Głos ran an article urging readers to protest our plans to provide a forum for communist "criminals."² This appeal, and others like it in Polish-American publications and on Polish e-mail lists, provoked an avalanche of letters to CREES and to the University of Michigan's president, Lee Bollinger. As one of our opponents put it, "what is the POINT of the conference? Why is it not being held in POLAND? Are these scholarly bleeding hearts unaware that some of the invitees have blood on their hands?...Is history being whitewashed again for the sake of some scholarly papers?"³ One bitter Polish-American, Mirosław M. Krupiński, even sent us a poem, in which he complained about the "traitors" who "ten years later, fat and arrogant / well fed from profits, and victorious / without any disputes, any disagreements / once again raise a toast—in Michigan."⁴

Cyngle « 17 mgnień wiosny w Ann Arbor: "Pojechali do Ann Arbor

1. Adam Michnik,
2. Jan Lityński,
3. Mieczysław Rakowski,
4. Aleksander Kwaśniewski,
5. Stanisław Ciosek,
6. Zbigniew Bujak,
7. Wiesław Chrzanowski,
8. biskup Bronisław Dembowski,
9. Aleksander Hall,
10. Zbigniew Janas,
11. Janina Jankowska,
12. Gabriel Janowski,
13. biskup Alojzy Orszulik,
14. Janusz Reykowski,
15. Grażyna Staniszewska, oraz
16. Lech Kaczyński.
17. Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka
18. Jacek Żakowski"