Editorials & Other Articles

xchrom

(108,903 posts) Tue Feb 28, 2012, 10:33 AM Feb 2012

Thatcher was Supicious of Polish Solidarity Movement

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,817778,00.html

AP
Documents show British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was suspicious of the Polish Solidarity Regime, the trade union movement which helped topple communism in Europe.

With the trade union Solidarity, the charismatic leader Lech Walesa helped rattle the foundations of Soviet communism. But new evidence, reported in Monday's SPIEGEL magazine reveals British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was suspicious about the influential movement and Lech Walesa, the man who later became a Nobel Laureate.

In September 1981, British Premier Thatcher even considered supporting the Eastern bloc regime in Warsaw in quelling Solidarity, a German Foreign Ministry document, long treated as classified, showed.

According to the document, Thatcher's Foreign Secretary, Lord Peter Carrington, told colleagues in New York that Britain sympathizied with Solidarity. But if Solidarity got out of control and the government had to take repressive measures, it might make sense to help the government, he added.

Carrington had earlier outlined the UK's position, saying that his government only backed Solidarity out of respect for public opinion, but that perhaps, from a more rational position, they would actually be "on the side of the Polish government".

*** i simply have nothing good to say about margaret thatcher