In 1982, the United States International Communication Agency (USICA), earlier and later called the United States Information Agency (USIA), published a booklet “Poland: A Season of Light, and of Darkness,” to complement its “Let Poland Be Poland” television film produced by the agency as a response of the Reagan Administration to the imposition of martial law in Poland by General Wojciech Jaruzelski and his regime.
Writing about Solidarity:
…A dawning of freedom, when the horizon opened to reveal a sudden landscape of national concord and individual hope…
Writing about martial law:
…then a night of fear and arrest, and the return to a familiar oppression.
“Poland: A Season of Light, and of Darkness” quoted from President Ronald Reagan’s address in “Let Poland Be Poland.”
“Solidarity symbolizes the struggle of real workers in a so-called workers’ state for fundamental human and economic rights…the right to assemble, the right to strike, and the right to freedom of expression.”
According to USICA, “Let Poland Be Poland” television broadcast was seen, in whole or in part, by more than 180 million people in 43 countries. In addition, the Voice of America (VOA) broadcast parts of the audio track of the TV broadcast. The VOA Polish Service, where I was in charge at the time, broadcast the whole audio of “Let Poland Be Poland.”
I was involved in recruiting Polish poet Czesław Miłosz to participate in the program.
