Breakfast with Lech Walesa

One of the Greatest Leaders of the 20th Century Reminds Us to have Solidarity with the Cause of Freedom and Liberty

Last week, I was asked to join a small breakfast with Lech Walesa, the former President of Poland, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, leader of the Polish Solidarity Movement which smashed Communism in Poland and set in motion the demise of the Soviet Union, and, at his core, a hard-working union leader from the docks of Gdańsk Shipyard. Walesa was in town to encourage the U.S. Congress to approve aid to Ukraine - something the Republican Leadership of the House of Representatives seems loath to do.

Walesa came with dire warnings of Russia’s intent (does anyone know better the strain of dictatorial rule that now occupies the Kremlin? What the malign effect a die-hard former KGB agent is having on his country, Eastern Europe, and the world? It is worth noting Putin has put a $5 million price on Walesa’s head - quite a bounty on a man who is 82 years old and long out of power. But I should not say out of power - Walesa will always have extraordinary power because he is a Man of the Truth, a Man who only speaks the Truth, a man determined we all listen to the Truth.

That Truth is we must understand Putin’s intention is not just Ukraine. It is regain what was lost when the ossified Soviet Union fell - the Baltics, Moldova, Georgia, likely Romania and Bulgaria. Whatever he can take by force. And why? Because Russia is now a dying country. The demographics grimly bear that fact out as the young of Russia see no point in having children - or for that matter, staying in Russia. Migration figures are stunning (example: More than 100,000 computer experts/specialists/scientists left Russia in 2022 alone. That is not a brain drain - that is a complete brain disappearance).

For me, the breakfast was quite emotional at times. Walesa spoke of his “friends” Ronald Reagan and St. John Paul II - titans of the last century who left us all an glowing example of leadership and courage to stand up to sheer evil, to never cower, and to trust God will lead us to victory.

God bless Lech Walesa and all those brave Polish dock workers who stood - unarmed and alone - against the Evil Empire. They didn’t just save Poland - they saved the world. It would be good if we all stopped to listen to Walesa’s message today and remember - indeed, embrace and take up — the courage he, Reagan, and St. John Paul II exhibited.

The Twilight Struggle, Then and Now

The Cold War is a distant memory for many of us of a certain age and nothing more than a textbook history lesson for the rest of us under the age of 40. But now, in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s brutal and bloody onslaught against Ukraine amid our collective prolonged worry and

apprehension about an increasingly aggressive China, many seem to be struggling to understand what it will take to keep the peace. History can and will guide us, so we go back to the history books for guidance and enlightenment. The first place we should start is with Hal Brand’s latest book. Brands, a noted Cold War historian, and former Pentagon advisor, presents an illuminating and richly researched lesson of how the US dealt with the challenge of the Cold War – that “Twilight Struggle” the West fought from the end of World War II until 1991 when the Soviet Union dissolved itself. Brands gives us a crisp examination of the many successes, and more than a few missteps US leaders experienced during these anxious years. Ultimately, it was the power of ideas and free markets that brought the West victory against a hollowed-out Communist empire – but it took extraordinary

work, innumerable policies and programs, and a willingness to stand strong that won the peace.

Brands ventures deep into those many challenges, strategies, and tactics the Cold War American Presidents, beginning with Truman to ending with Reagan and Bush, took up to win that “Twilight Struggle.” To be fair to potential readers, this is not light reading. But it is an excellent read for those fascinated by Cold War history. For everyone else who picks up this book, it is something of an incredibly well-timed primer for what it will likely require from all of us to strenuously defend freedom and democracy as we know it once again.