Wałęsa Compares White House Meeting to Communist Interrogation

WARSAW, Poland — Lech Wałęsa, the former Polish president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, expressed deep concern over his recent disagreement with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting at the White House last week. In a letter signed by Wałęsa and over 30 former political prisoners from Poland’s communist era, the leaders condemned the demands made by then-President Donald Trump and his vice president.

The letter described the Trump’s insistence for Zelenskyy to express gratitude as “insulting” given Ukraine’s ongoing struggle for freedom from Russian influence. The signatories recalled that the experience in the Oval Office bore an unsettling resemblance to their past encounters with the communist regime.

“The atmosphere in the Oval Office reminded us of that which we remember well from interrogations by Poland’s communist secret services and regime courts,” the letter stated. “The prosecutors and the judges, working on behalf of the omnipotent Communist Party police, also told us that they held all the cards, and we held none.”

Wałęsa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, played a crucial role in the Solidarity movement that helped dismantle communism in Poland and served as the country’s first popularly elected president from 1990 to 1995. His efforts not only impacted Poland but also inspired other nations under Soviet control in their quests for democracy.

Other notable signatories of the letter included Adam Michnik, Bogdan Lis, Seweryn Blumsztajn, and Władysław Frasyniuk, all of whom shared their outrage regarding Zelenskyy’s treatment during the meeting.

The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw confirmed that inquiries about the letter should be directed to the White House press office, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.