[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 100 (Monday, July 22, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1310-E1311]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 JAN NOWAK SAYS, ``THANK YOU, AMERICA''

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 22, 2002

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I want to do two things today. First, I want 
to pay tribute to Jan Nowak, who like me is an American by choice. 
Second, I want to call to the attention of my colleagues in this House 
an outstanding article by Mr. Nowak that appeared in The Washington 
Post earlier this month.
  Jan Nowak is a Polish patriot and an American patriot. He was born in 
Poland, was a Ph.D. student in economics at Poznan University, and was 
drafted into the Polish army in 1939 as his native land was threatened 
by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Jan was captured by German troops, but 
he successfully escaped from a German prison camp. During World War II, 
he became a critical link between the underground fighting against the 
Germans in Poland and the Polish government-in-exile which was forced 
to flee to London. He recounted his experiences during this time in his 
autobiography Courier from Warsaw.
  Jan was in Poland at the time of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. In that 
heroic but tragic battle, the Soviet army stood just east of Warsaw 
poised to march into the Polish capital, but Stalin did not order his 
troops to assist the heroic Polish partisans as they fought a losing 
battle against the Nazi German forces. The city of Warsaw was largely 
destroyed and much of the partisan movement was killed by the Nazis. 
This eliminated Polish leadership in Poland and made it much easier for 
the Soviet Union to impose a communist regime at the end of the war. 
During the Warsaw Uprising, Nowak ran the radio station ``Lightening'' 
to keep Poles informed of partisan activities, and he managed to escape 
from the German forces as they destroyed Warsaw.
  Mr. Speaker, in 1951 with Central and Eastern Europe under Soviet 
dominance, the United Sates established Radio Free Europe (RFE) to 
provide information and democratic ideas to the peoples of these 
communist countries. Jan Nowak was asked to direct the Polish Service 
of RFE. He continued in that key position of responsibility for 25 
years--until his retirement in 1976.
  Following his retirement from RFE, Jan Nowak came to Washington, 
where he served as a consultant on Central and Eastern Europe to the 
National Security Council staff of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George 
H. W. Bush. He has continued to promote freedom and democracy in 
Poland, and he has been one of the most visible and vocal leaders of 
the Polish community in the United States. Certainly one of the 
highlights of his recent activity in behalf of Polish democracy--and 
one that Jan most enthusiastically welcomed--was Poland's admission to 
NATO in 1999. A reflection of his continued vigor and involvement in

[[Page E1311]]

Polish-American issues was his attendance at the state dinner last week 
in connection with the visit to the United States of Polish President 
Aleksander Kwasniewski.
  Jan recently celebrated his 89th birthday, and he has decided to 
return to Poland--though he will retain his American citizenship. We 
will certainly miss his wisdom and energy on issues involving Central 
and Eastern Europe, but we wish him well as he changes his residence.
  Mr. Speaker, on the occasion of his departure from the United States 
and on the occasion of the celebration of American Independence on July 
4th, The Washington Post published an article by Jan Nowak--``Thank 
You, America.'' The Post not only published Jan's article, it 
editorially commented on his ``Fourth of July thank-you note to the 
United States for its support of freedom in his native Poland during 
his nine decades.''
  As the Post editorial observed, the consistent and steadfast American 
commitment to freedom and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe--for 
which Jan Nowak expresses eloquent thanks to the American people--must 
continue to be an integral part of our nation's foreign policy. We must 
pursue democracy and respect for human rights with the same tenacity in 
Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan and Indonesia and China in the current 
century as we did in Poland and Hungary and Czechoslovakia throughout 
the Cold War of the last century.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask that Jan Nowak's excellent article be placed in 
the Record, and I urge my colleagues to join me in thanking Mr. Nowak 
for his great contribution to democracy and respect for human rights in 
the United States, in Poland, and throughout the world.

                [From the Washington Post, July 3, 2002]

                           Thank You, America

                             (By Jan Nowak)

       This July 4, many Americans may feel baffled and 
     disappointed by the waves of anti-Americanism sweeping 
     through countries that, not too long ago, were either saved 
     or helped by the United States. Allies such as France and 
     Great Britain and former enemies such as Germany and Japan 
     benefitted greatly from America's generosity and support in 
     their time of need, as did Belgium, Holland, Italy, Russia, 
     Poland, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan and others. 
     Without the United States, some of these countries might no 
     longer exist.
       Those of us who remember and remain grateful should no 
     longer remain silent. For people like me--and there are 
     millions of us--this Fourth of July is a good opportunity to 
     say, ``Thank you, America.'' My old country, Poland, is a 
     good example. I was born 89 years ago on the eve of World War 
     I in Warsaw, when Poles were forced to live under the 
     despotic rule of the Russian czars. In 1917 Woodrow Wilson 
     made the restoration of Polish independence one of his 14 
     conditions for peace. If it had not been for Wilson, Poland 
     might have disappeared forever from the map of Europe. The 
     United States did not have any strategic or economic 
     interests in this remote eastern part of the European 
     continent. But thanks to America, the ambitions of the 
     Hohenzollern empire to dominate all of Europe were thwarted.
       The war in Poland did not end in 1918, however. For six 
     more years, the wheels of war rolled over the Polish 
     countryside as Poles fought to repel the invasions of the Red 
     Army. The country was left in ruins. Food was scarce. The 
     undernourished population was hit by epidemics of typhoid and 
     Spanish flu.
       I belong to the generation of children of this era, the 
     early 1920s, who were saved by the benevolent intervention of 
     the United States, in the person of the future president 
     Herbert Hoover. As a private citizen, Hoover organized the 
     emergency supplies of food, medicine and clothing that saved 
     a starving and sick nation. I still remember the tin boxes 
     inscribed ``American Relief Committee for Poland.''
       The Polish state survived, but with no economic resources, 
     no reserves of gold or foreign currencies. Roaring inflation 
     had brought the country to the verge of collapse. The United 
     States came forward once again, providing the Dillon loans, 
     which helped stabilize the Polish economy.
       Following the surrender of France in 1940, Hitler was only 
     one step from victory. The United States, by joining Great 
     Britain as it faced alone the greater might of Nazi Germany, 
     and at enormous sacrifice of young American lives, saved 
     European civilization and its values. It is known that 
     Hitler's postwar plans called for elimination of Poland's 
     educated classes, while the rest of the population was to 
     become slave workers.
       Once again, the United States saved the lives of millions. 
     I am grateful to have been one of them.
       Tragically, the defeat of Nazi Germany did not bring 
     freedom to the nations of east and central Europe. Hitler's 
     tyranny was replaced by Stalin's terror. It was the United 
     States that contained the Soviet Union's drive for domination 
     of Europe. It understood before others that the Cold War 
     would be a struggle for human minds.
       One of its major weapons in this war was the skillful use 
     of radio. As a former radio operator with the Polish 
     underground and later a broadcaster with the BBC foreign 
     service, I was recruited in the early 1950s to start the 
     Polish service of Radio Free Europe (RFE). No country but the 
     United States would launch or could have launched such an 
     ambitious undertaking, broadcasting from dawn to midnight.
       RFE destroyed the monopoly of the Communist public media 
     and frustrated the efforts of the Soviet Union to isolate the 
     satellite countries from the outside world. Citizens of these 
     countries had only to tune in to the RFE frequency to learn 
     what their governments were attempting to hide from them. 
     People were able to get the information they needed to form 
     their own views, even if they could not speak them. Their 
     minds remained free.
       Workers' strikes were banned under communism. So when 
     Polish shipyard workers in Gdansk, led by Lech Walesa, 
     defiantly called a strike in August 1980, the government 
     immediately ordered a news blackout. But within hours, the 
     whole country knew of the workers' resistance and related 
     developments from RFE broadcasts. Because the Communists 
     feared a general strike might follow, they quickly agreed to 
     a compromise settlement with the shipyard workers. Solidarity 
     was born.
       The following year, however, the Communist leader, Gen. 
     Wojciech Jaruzelski, sought to destroy the movement by 
     imposing martial law. The United States responded by applying 
     a sophisticated carrot-and-stick policy in which Jaruzelski 
     was never forced into a position where he had nothing to lose 
     and nothing to gain. Economic sanctions were imposed, but 
     economic assistance was promised. The patient and consistent 
     application of this policy over the next eight years resulted 
     in the survival of Solidarity, which emerged triumphant in 
     1989.
       News of this victory spread rapidly to East Berlin, Prague, 
     Budapest, Bucharest and Sofia, as well as Moscow, through the 
     broadcasts of RFE, Radio Liberty, RIAS (Radio in the American 
     Sector, Berlin) and the Voice of America. The overthrow of 
     Poland's Communist dictatorship inspired millions throughout 
     the Soviet orbit, unleashing an avalanche that brought down 
     the Berlin Wall and led to the reunification of Germany, the 
     self-liberation of the nations of east-central Europe and 
     eventually the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
       Poland formed the first non-communist government in the 
     former Soviet empire. But the nation's economy remained a 
     disaster area. Again the United States came to the rescue. 
     Poland's first democratic government and the nation's economy 
     were saved by U.S. leadership in proposing and aggressively 
     promoting an emergency international financial assistance 
     package.
       In the spring of 1998, I watched from the public gallery of 
     the U.S. Senate as it ratified the admission into NATO of 
     Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. For the first time in 
     its history, my old country was not only free but also 
     secure.
       Thank you, America.

       

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