Curtain Up

Jaruzelski meets the press

For the first time since the imposition of martial law in December 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski last week took his case directly to the world press. The government invited 122 editors, columnists and reporters from 26 nations who were in Warsaw attending an international conference of East bloc and Western journalists for an unusual evening question-and-answer session. Among the participants at the three-day meeting was TIME Associate Editor John Kohan, who filed this report:

"I appeal to you to try to understand us," said General Jaruzelski, looking down the rows of journalists assembled in the columned hall of Warsaw's Palace of the Council of Ministers. "Poland never was, is not and never will be an outcast of the international community."

A week earlier, the Polish leader's efforts to thaw relations with the West had suffered a serious setback. West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had postponed a visit to Warsaw, largely because Polish officials told him it would be inappropriate to visit the grave of Father Jerzy Popieluszko, an outspoken supporter of the banned Solidarity trade union who was abducted and killed in October. The Jaruzelski government has been hurt by revelations that at least four secret-police officers were involved in the murder. The "Jablonna V" International Meeting of Journalists provided a timely opportunity for Jaruzelski to revive his efforts to end Poland's isolation. He assured his listeners that he wanted "to work with the curtain up."

Dressed in a dark tan uniform, Jaruzelski remained cool and confident throughout the nearly three-hour encounter with the press. At times he even displayed a wry sense of humor. President Reagan, the Polish leader said, deserved "a medal of achievement" from COMECON, the Soviet-led trading community, because Reagan's policy of sanctions against Poland had resulted in greater economic cooperation among Moscow's allies. Jaruzelski made it clear that he was not about to bend to pressure from Washington. Said he: "Reckoning that we will pay with concessions for favors is not realistic."

Switching to domestic issues, Jaruzelski maintained that Poland had made "a giant step forward," considering the "catastrophic" situation that the country had faced only three years ago. The Polish Premier once again ruled out talks with the opposition but made no direct mention of Solidarity or former Union Leader Lech Walesa. Still, the general admitted that if he could do everything over again, "tactically, many decisions could have been carried out with greater accuracy." Said Jaruzelski: "There has never been a case where the forces leading a country have engaged in such profound self-criticism."

Jaruzelski's low-pitched voice betrayed a note of emotion when he discussed the Popieluszko case and Western charges that he had been involved in the murder. "No one is more interested than we are that no unclear elements remain in this case. Such doubts do harm to the Polish authorities," he said. The leader declared that the "hideous crime" had been investigated with "energy and firmness" and that the investigation had already "dug deeply into the internal-affairs apparatus and uncovered a rotten cell."

Jerzy Urban, the government's press spokesman, gave a few new details of the Popieluszko autopsy report last week. He said that the priest died from strangulation rather than from any injuries he sustained in a beating and was dead when his body was tossed into a reservoir 90 miles northwest of Warsaw. Earlier reports had said that Popieluszko might still have been alive when he was thrown into the water. Urban also confirmed that the four police officers arrested in the case will go on trial soon and that the proceedings will be open to the foreign press. At week's end, however, events took an unsettling turn when two senior police officials involved in the Popieluszko investigation were killed along with their driver in a head-on collision with a truck about 40 miles south of Warsaw.

In the month since Popieluszko was buried, his tomb in the graveyard of Warsaw's St. Stanislaw Kostka church has been turned into a makeshift shrine, decked with wreaths and Solidarity banners. Early last week more than 30,000 Poles jammed streets surrounding the church to hear the monthly "Mass for the Fatherland" that Popieluszko began shortly before the imposition of martial law. The parish priest at St. Stanislaw Kostka, Father Teofil Bogucki, delivered a tough homily charging that 40 years after the imposition of Communism in Poland, "society is paralyzed with terror and people are worn out by hopelessness." As the subdued crowd joined in reciting prayers and singing patriotic hymns, two youths climbed the church's iron fence to put up a new banner. The message: O LORD, FORGIVE THEM. But as Jaruzelski knows, it will take more than sincere words to make national reconciliation a reality in Poland.