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His Excellency Lech Wałęsa GCB OMRI RoKavKMO GCollH GColL
Lech Wałęsa in 2009
2nd President of Poland
In office 22 December 1990 – 22 December 1995
Prime Minister	Tadeusz Mazowiecki Jan Krzysztof Bielecki Jan Olszewski Waldemar Pawlak Hanna Suchocka Waldemar Pawlak Józef Oleksy
Preceded by	Wojciech Jaruzelski (Ryszard Kaczorowski – in Exile)
Succeeded by	Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Chairperson of Solidarity
In office 14 August 1980 – 12 December 1990
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Marian Krzaklewski
Personal details
Born	(1943-09-29) 29 September 1943 (age 81) Popowo, Poland
Political party	Solidarity Electoral Action
Spouse	Danuta Gołoś (1969-present)
Children	Bogdan (b.1970) Sławomir (b.1972) Przemysław (b.1974) Jarosław (b.1976) Magdalena (b.1979) Anna (b.1980) Maria Wiktoria (b.1982) Brygida (b.1985)
Profession	Electrician
Awards	(full list)
Signature

Lech Wałęsa (commonly rendered Lech Walesa)(Polish: [ˈlɛx vaˈwɛ̃sa] , English: /ˌlɛk vəˈwɛnsə/ or /wɔːˈlɛnsə/; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish politician, trade-union organizer, and human-rights activist. A charismatic leader, he co-founded Solidarity (Solidarność), the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland between 1990 and 1995.

Wałęsa was an electrician by trade, with no higher education. Soon after beginning work at the Gdańsk (then, "Lenin") Shipyards, he became a trade-union activist. For this he was persecuted by the Polish communist government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976, and arrested several times. In August 1980 he was instrumental in negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government, and he became a co-founder of the Solidarity trade-union movement. Arrested again after martial law was imposed and Solidarity was outlawed, upon release he continued his activism and was prominent in the establishment of the 1989 Round Table Agreement that led to semi-free parliamentary elections in June 1989 and to a Solidarity-led government.

In 1990 he successfully ran for the 1989-newly re-established office of President of Poland. He presided over Poland's transformation from a communist to a post-communist state, but his popularity waned. After he narrowly lost the 1995 presidential election, his role in Polish politics was diminished. His international fame remains, however, and he speaks and lectures in Poland and abroad on history and politics.

Life

Wałęsa was born in Popowo, Poland, on 29 September 1943. His father Bolesław was a carpenter who was arrested by the Nazis before Lech was born and thrown into the concentration camp at Mlyniec. Boleslaw returned home after the war but lived only two months before succumbing to exhaustion and illness - he was not yet 34 years old.

In 1961 Lech graduated from primary and vocational school in nearby Chalin and Lipno as a qualified electrician, worked from 1961 to 1965 as a car mechanic, then embarked on his two year obligatory stint of military service, attaining the rank of corporal, before beginning work at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk (Danzig), Stocznia Gdańska im. Lenina, now the Gdańsk Shipyard, Stocznia Gdańska, as an electrician on 12 July 1967.

On 8 December 1969 he married Danuta Gołoś. The couple have eight children: Bogdan, Sławomir, Przemysław, Jarosław, Magdalena, Anna, Maria-Wiktoria, Brygida.

Solidarity

From early on, Wałęsa was interested in workers' concerns; in 1968 he encouraged shipyard colleagues to boycott official rallies that condemned recent student strikes. A charismatic leader, he was an organizer of the illegal 1970 strikes at the Gdańsk Shipyard (the Polish 1970 protests) when workers protested the government's decree raising food prices; he was considered for chairman of the strike committee. The strikes' outcome, involving over 30 worker deaths, galvanized his views on the need for change. In June 1976, Wałęsa lost his job at the Gdańsk Shipyards for his continued involvement in illegal unions, strikes and a campaign to commemorate the victims of the 1970 protests. Afterwards, he worked as an electrician for several other companies, but was continually laid off for his activism and was jobless for long periods. He and his family were under constant surveillance by the Polish secret police; his home and workplace were always bugged. Over the next few years, he was arrested several times for participating in dissident activities.

Wałęsa worked closely with the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR), a group that emerged to lend aid to individuals arrested after 1976 labor strikes and to their families. In June 1978 he became an activist of the underground Free Trade Unions of the Coast (Wolne Związki Zawodowe Wybrzeża). On 14 August 1980, after another food-price hike led to a strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk—a strike of which he was one of the instigators—Wałęsa scaled the shipyard fence and, once inside, quickly became one of the strike leaders. The strike inspired similar strikes, first at Gdańsk, then across Poland. Wałęsa headed the Inter-Plant Strike Committee, coordinating the workers at Gdańsk and at 20 other plants in the region. On 31 August, the communist government, represented by Mieczysław Jagielski, signed an accord (the Gdańsk Agreement) with the Strike Coordinating Committee. The agreement, besides granting the Lenin Shipyard workers the right to strike, permitted them to form their own independent trade union. The Strike Coordinating Committee legalized itself as the National Coordinating Committee of the Solidarność (Solidarity) Free Trade Union, and Wałęsa was chosen chairman of the Committee. The Solidarity trade union quickly grew, ultimately claiming over 10 million members—more than a quarter of Poland's population. Wałęsa's role in the strike, in the negotiations, and in the newly formed independent trade union gained him fame on the international stage.

Wałęsa held his position until 13 December 1981, when General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law. Wałęsa, like many other Solidarity leaders and activists, was arrested; he would be incarcerated for 11 months at several eastern towns (Chylice, Otwock, and Arłamów, near the Soviet border) until 14 November 1982. On 8 October 1982, Solidarity was outlawed. In 1983 Wałęsa applied to return to the Gdańsk Shipyard as a simple electrician. That same year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was unable to accept it himself, fearing that Poland's government would not let him back into the country. His wife Danuta accepted the prize on his behalf.

Through the mid-1980s, Wałęsa continued underground Solidarity-related activities. Every issue of the leading underground weekly, Tygodnik Mazowsze, bore his motto, "Solidarity will not be divided or destroyed." Following a 1986 amnesty for Solidarity activists, Wałęsa co-founded the first overt legal Solidarity entity since the declaration of martial law—the Provisional Council of NSZZ Solidarity (Tymczasowa Rada NSZZ Solidarność). From 1987 to 1990, he organized and led the "semi-illegal" Provisional Executive Committee of the Solidarity Trade Union. In late summer 1988, he instigated work-stoppage strikes at the Gdańsk Shipyard.

After months of strikes and political deliberations, at the conclusion of the 10th plenary session of the Polish United Workers Party, or PZPR (the Polish communist party), the government agreed to enter into Round Table Negotiations that lasted from February to April 1989. Wałęsa was an informal leader of the "non-governmental" side in the negotiations. During the talks, he traveled the length and breadth of Poland, giving speeches in support of the negotiations. At the end of the talks, the government signed an agreement to re-establish the Solidarity Trade Union and to organize "semi-free" elections to the Polish parliament (semi-free since, in accordance with the Round Table Agreement, only members of the Communist Party and its allies could stand for 65% of the seats in the Sejm).

In December 1988, Wałęsa co-founded the Solidarity Citizens' Committee. Theoretically it was merely an advisory body, but in practice it was a kind of political party and won the parliamentary elections in June 1989 (Solidarity took all the seats in the Sejm that were subject to free elections, and all but one seat in the newly re-established Senate). Wałęsa was one of Solidarity's most public figures; though he did not run for parliament himself, he was an active campaigner, appearing on many campaign posters. In fact, Solidarity winners in the Sejm elections were referred to as "Wałęsa's team" or "Lech's team," as all those who won had appeared on their election posters together with him.

While ostensibly only chairman of Solidarity, Wałęsa played a key role in practical politics. At the end of 1989 he persuaded leaders of former communist-allied parties to form a non-communist coalition government – the first non-Communist government in the Soviet Bloc. The parliament elected Tadeusz Mazowiecki as prime minister – the first non-communist Polish prime minister in over four decades.

Presidency

Following the June 1989 parliamentary elections, Wałęsa was disappointed that some of his former comrades-in-arms were satisfied to govern alongside former communists. He decided to run for the newly re-established office of president, using the slogan, "I don't want to, but I've got no choice" ("Nie chcem, ale muszem."). On 9 December 1990, Wałęsa won the presidential election, defeating Prime Minister Mazowiecki and other candidates to become the first democratically elected president of Poland. In 1993 he founded his own political party, the Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms (BBWR – the initials echoed those of Józef Piłsudski's "Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government," of 1928–35, likewise an ostensibly non-political organization).

During his presidency, Wałęsa saw Poland through privatization and transition to a free-market economy (the Balcerowicz Plan), Poland's 1991 first completely free parliamentary elections, and a period of redefinition of Poland's foreign relations. He successfully negotiated the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Polish soil and won a substantial reduction in Poland's foreign debts.

Wałęsa supported Poland's entry into NATO and into the European Union (both these goals would be realized after his presidency, in 1999 and 2004, respectively). In the early 1990s, Wałęsa proposed the creation of a "NATO bis" as a sub-regional security system. The concept, while supported by right-wing and populist movements in Poland, garnered little support abroad; Poland's neighbors, some of whom (e.g., Lithuania) had only recently regained independence, tended to see the proposal as Polish "neo-imperialism."

Wałęsa has been criticized for a confrontational style and for instigating "war at the top," whereby former Solidarity allies clashed with one another, causing annual changes of government. This increasingly isolated Wałęsa on the political scene. As he lost more and more political allies, he came to be surrounded by people who were viewed by the public as incompetent and disreputable. Mudslinging during election campaigns tarnished his reputation. The ex-electrician with no higher education was thought by some to be too plain-spoken and too undignified for the post of president. Others thought him too erratic in his views or complained that he was too authoritarian – that he sought to strengthen his own power at the expense of the Sejm. Finally, Wałęsa's problems were compounded by the difficult transition to a market economy; while in the long run it was seen as highly successful, it lost Wałęsa's government much popular support.

Wałęsa's BBWR performed poorly in the 1993 parliamentary elections; at times his popular support dwindled to some 10%, and he narrowly lost the 1995 presidential election, gathering 48.72% of the vote in the run-off against Aleksander Kwaśniewski, who represented the resurgent Polish post-communists (the Democratic Left Alliance, SLD). Wałęsa's fate was sealed by his poor handling of the media; in the televised debates, he came off as incoherent and rude; at the end of the first of the two debates, in response to Kwaśniewski's extended hand, he replied that the post-communist leader could "shake his leg." After the election, Wałęsa said he was going to go into "political retirement," and his role in politics became increasingly marginal.

Later years

Since the end of his presidency, Wałęsa has lectured on Central European history and politics at various universities and organizations. In 1996 he founded the Lech Wałęsa Institute, a think tank whose mission is to support democracy and local governments in Poland and throughout the world. In 1997 he helped organize a new party, Christian Democracy of the 3rd Polish Republic; he also supported the coalition Solidarity Electoral Action (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność), which won the 1997 parliamentary elections. However, the party's real leader and main organizer was a new Solidarity Trade Union leader, Marian Krzaklewski. Wałęsa ran again in the 2000 presidential election, but received only 1% of the vote. During Poland's 2005 presidential elections, Wałęsa supported Donald Tusk, saying that he was the best candidate.

In 2006 Wałęsa quit Solidarity, citing differences over the union's support of the Law and Justice party, and the rise to power of Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński. On 27 February 2008, at Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center, in Houston, Texas, in the United States, Wałęsa underwent a coronary artery stent placement and the implantation of a cardiac pacemaker. In the run-up to the 2009 European Parliament elections, he appeared at a rally in Rome to endorse the pan-European Eurosceptic party Libertas, describing it and its founder Declan Ganley as "a force for good in the world." Wałęsa admitted that he had been paid to give the speech but claimed to support Civic Platform, while expressing the hope that Libertas candidates would be elected to the European Parliament.

He is member of the international advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

In 2011 Wałęsa wrote an article claiming that only communism is viable temporary solution for the poor african countries in 21st century.

Controversy

Over the years, Wałesa has been accused of having been an informer for the Polish secret police Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB) in the early 1970s, codenamed "Bolek". Although this was long before Wałęsa emerged as a hero of the Solidarity, questions remain whether it had an effect on his later decisions; for example, making him a probable target of blackmail. On 11 August 2000, the Warsaw Appellate Court, V Wydział Lustracyjny, declared that Wałęsa's lustration statement was true – that he had not collaborated with the communist regime. Nonetheless, periodically the question resurfaces.

A 2008 book by historians from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Sławomir Cenckiewicz and Piotr Gontarczyk, presenting new evidence, received substantial coverage in the media, provoked a hot nation-wide debate, and was noted by the international press. The book is seen by some as very controversial; however, it contains over 130 pages of documents from archives of the secret police (which were inherited by the IPN) to support its claims, and Cenckiewicz defended his discoveries on a factual basis. Janusz Kurtyka, president of the Institute of National Remembrance at the time, staunchly affirmed the thesis of the book while admitting that it does not contain a "hundred-percent" proof that Wałęsa was the agent Bolek, as some of the documents went missing during Wałęsa's presidency of Poland (1990–1995). He expressed hope the book would be subject to a wider debate.

Wałęsa himself denies having collaborated with the secret police, and others have noted that the Polish secret police commonly falsified documents. In November 2009 Wałęsa sued the then president of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, over his having repeated the collaboration allegations.

On 15 April 2010, during a civil trial brought by Wałęsa against former fellow activist Krzysztof Wyszkowski over the collaboration allegations, a retired MO and Służba Bezpieczeństwa officer appeared in court and confirmed the fact of Wałęsa's collaboration in a sworn testimony. The officer, Janusz Stachowiak, was in charge of keeping documentation on Wałęsa from December 1970 to 1974 (which shows these documents were not fabricated later), although never met him in person. He stated that Wałęsa was convinced to cooperate by SB Capt. Henryk Rapczyński and SB Capt. Edward Graczyk, after a two-hour interrogation, albeit without the use of threats, and signed an agreement to keep his cooperation with SB in secret. The officers asked him to "calm down" the atmosphere in the shipyard after protests were bloodily suppressed. Wałęsa kept meeting regularly with the secret police, reportedly receiving substantial sums of money, but after about 4 months he started to "withdraw" (although it was not until June 1976 when he was unregistered, because of his "reluctance to cooperate").

Previously, in 2008, Capt. Edward Graczyk (long thought to be deceased and as such not summoned to testify in the 2000 trial) was interrogated by the IPN about his contacts with Wałęsa and subsequently interviewed by Gazeta Wyborcza. In the interview, which somewhat contradicts his earlier testimony, Graczyk recounted Wałęsa's cooperation, but denied his own actions had been "recruitment" of an agent. He also denied giving money to Wałęsa. The other of the two officers, Capt. Henryk Rapczyński, was never interrogated.

On December 22, 2011, it was reported that the Polish National Remembrance Institute had determined that communist secret security had forged documents in the 1980s that suggested Walesa was their agent.

Views

Wałęsa is a devout Roman Catholic and a staunch opponent of abortion, and has said that he would rather have resigned the presidency twenty times than sign into law a bill permitting abortion in Poland.

He has also said that he is interested in information technology and likes to use new developments in that field. He has claimed to have personally assembled several computers to find out how they work, and has said that he takes a smartphone, a palmtop, and a laptop with him when traveling. Early in 2006 he revealed that he is a registered user of the Polish instant-messaging service Gadu-Gadu, and was granted a new special user number – 1980. Later that year, he also said that he used Skype, his "handle" being lwprezydent2006. It is rumored that around 1980 Gillette offered him $1,000,000 to shave off his trademark moustache in a commercial, but that he refused. A couple of years later, though, he surprised the public by shaving off the mustache for personal reasons.

Honours

Apart from his 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, Wałęsa has received many other international distinctions and awards. He has been named "Man of the Year" by Time Magazine (1981), The Financial Times (1980) and The Observer (1980). He was the first recipient of the Liberty Medal, on 4 July 1989 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and that same year received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is the only Pole to have addressed a joint meeting of the United States Congress (15 November 1989).

On 8 February 2002, Wałęsa represented Europe, carrying the Olympic flag at the opening ceremonies of the XIX Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, in company with Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Africa), John Glenn (the Americas), Kazuyoshi Funaki (Asia), Cathy Freeman (Oceania), Jean-Michel Cousteau (Environment), Jean-Claude Killy (Sport), and Steven Spielberg (Culture). Two years later, on 10 May 2004, Gdańsk International Airport was officially renamed Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport to commemorate a famous Gdańsk citizen, and his signature was incorporated into the airport's logo.

A month later, in June 2004, Wałęsa represented Poland at the state funeral of Ronald Reagan. On 11 October 2006, Wałęsa was keynote speaker at the launch of "International Human Solidarity Day," proclaimed in 2005 by the United Nations General Assembly. In January 2007 Wałęsa spoke at a Taiwan event, "Towards a Global Forum on New Democracies," in support of peace and democracy, along with other prominent world leaders and Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian.

On 25 April 2007, Wałęsa represented the Polish government at the funeral of Boris Yeltsin, former President of the Russian Federation. On 23 October 2009, he spoke at a conference in Gdańsk of presidents of all European senates, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the first free parliamentary elections in a former communist country – the 1989 elections to the Polish Senate.

On 6 September 2011, Wałęsa rejected Lithuania's Order of Vytautas the Great as a result of alleged discrimination on the part of the Lithuanian government towards its Polish minority.

Popular culture

Wałęsa has been portrayed in numerous works of popular culture. In Volker Schlöndorff's film Strike, a character based on Wałęsa was played by Polish actor Andrzej Chyra. Wałęsa played himself in Andrzej Wajda's 1981 Golden Palm-winning film about Solidarity, Man of Iron. While this was perhaps his best-known movie appearance, he has played himself in some 20 other productions.

In the 1990s two satirical Polish songs, "Nie wierzcie elektrykom" ("Don't Trust Electricians") by Big Cyc, and "Wałęsa, gdzie moje 100 000 000" ("Wałęsa, Where's My 100,000,000 ?") by Kazik Staszewski, were major hits in Poland, and another song about Wałęsa was composed in 2009 by Holy Smoke. He also inspired U2's song "New Year's Day" on their War album. Coincidentally the Polish authorities lifted martial law on 1 January 1983, the very day that this single came out. Patrick Dailly's Solidarity, starring Kristen Brown as Wałęsa, was premiered by the San Francisco Cabaret Opera in Berkeley and Oakland, California, in September and October 2009.

Wałęsa has been the subject of dozens of books and articles. He himself has authored three books: Droga nadziei (The Road of Hope, 1987), Droga do wolności (The Road to Freedom, 1991), and Wszystko, co robię, robię dla Polski (All That I Do, I Do for Poland, 1995).

Film

On December 1, 2011, Oscar-winning filmmaker Andrzej Wajda began shooting the biographical film Wałęsa. The off-Broadway playwright Janusz Głowacki wrote the screenplay. Robert Więckiewicz and Agnieszka Grochowska star as Lech Wałęsa and his wife Danuta Wałęsa. The film is expected to be released in September 2012.

See also

• History of Poland
• Bezpartyjny Blok Wspierania Reform (BBWR)
• Cold War

Notes

1. Wałęsa | Define Wałęsa at Dictionary.com
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3. ^ "CNN Cold War – Profile: Lech Walesa". CNN. Archived from the original on 15 April 2008. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
4. Pages 129-131. Walesa, Lech. "The Struggle and the Triumph: An Autobiography". Arcade Publishing (1991). ISBN 1-55970-221-4
5. Page 95. Walesa, Lech. "The Struggle and the Triumph: An Autobiography". Arcade Publishing (1991). ISBN 1-55970-221-4
6. ^ A Biographical Note, Lech Walesa Institute
7. ^ ON THE FOUNDER, Lech Walesa Institute
8. ^ "Lech Wałęsa," Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/634519/Lech-Walesa
9. Hunter, Richard J. (1998). From Autarchy to Market: Polish Economics and Politics 1945–1995. Westport, CN: Praeger. p. 51. ISBN 0-275-96219-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
10. ^ Timothy Garton Ash, Lech Walesa, TIME magazine,"The Most Important People of the Century", 13 April 1998
11. Perdue, William D (1995). Paradox of Change: The Rise and Fall of Solidarity in the New Poland (ebook). Praeger/Greenwood. p. 9. ISBN 0-275-95295-9. Retrieved 10 July 2006. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
12. ^ Template:Pl icon Wałęsa Lech, Encyklopedia WIEM
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17. POLAND. Parliamentary Chamber: Sejm. Elections held in 1989. Inter-Parliamentary Union. Last accessed 28 January 2010.
18. Grażyna Zwolińska, Template:Pl icon Historyczne wybory 4 czerwca 1989: Zwycięstwo drużyny Lecha ("Historic Elections of 4 June 1989: Victory of Lech's Team", Gazeta Lubuska, 6 June 2009.
19. Jarosław Osowski, Template:Pl icon "Warszawska drużyna Lecha Wałęsy" ("Lech Wałęsa's Warsaw Team"), Gazeta Wyborcza, 4 June 2009.
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26. ^ "Economist article". Economist article. 22 September 1990. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
27. Danielle Lussier, "From Solidarity to Division: An Analysis of Lech Walesa's Transition to Constituted Leadership", working paper, UC Berkeley.
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31. ^ Etgar Lefkovits, Walesa: World needs to combat Iranian threat, The Jerusalem Post, 15 Jan 2008
32. .Krzysztof Jasiewicz, "The 2000 presidential election in Poland," The National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, 2001.
33. Judy Dempsey, "Warsaw Mayor Is Poised to Win Runoff in Poland," New York Times, 24 October 2005.
34. "Lech Walesa Quits Solidarity," Wikinews, Tuesday, 22 August 2006.
35. Nichols, Bruce (4 March 2008). "Walesa leaves Texas hospital after heart treatment Reuters". Uk.reuters.com. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
36. ^ Gibbons, Fiachra (7 May 2009). "Libertas, Lech and some odd bedfellows". France24. France 24, RADIO FRANCE INTERNATIONALE. Retrieved 11 May 2009.
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40. Template:Pl icon Piotr Gontarczyk, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, "Jak lustrowano prezydenta Wałęsę" ("How President Wałęsa Was Lustrated"), rp. pl, 18-06-2008.
41. Template:Pl icon "SB a Lech Wałęsa. Przyczynek do biografii (The SB and Lech Wałęsa: A Biographical Contribution)". Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (Ipn.gov.pl). 16 February 2006. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
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45. "'Positive Proof' Lech Walesa Was a Communist Spy: Interview with Historian Slawomir Cenkiewicz," Der Spiegel, 23 June 2008.
46. Template:Pl icon "Kurtyka: Wałęsa był „Bolkiem”, brał pieniądze od SB – podpisuję się pod tymi tezami" (Kurtyka: "Wałęsa was Bolek, he took money from Służba Bezpieczeństwa - I subscribe to these statements"), RMF24, 18 June 2008.
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50. ^ Template:Pl icon Pełne zeznania w sprawie "Bolka" (Full testimonies in the "Bolek" case)
51. Template:Pl icon"Protokół z przesłuchania świadka byłego funkcjonariusza SB Edwarda Graczyka". ipn.gov.pl.
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53. http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20111222/communists-fabricated-documents-against-lech-walesa-111222/#ixzz1hI0hcpn1
54. Former Polish president: I would have resigned the presidency rather than legalize abortion. Catholic News Agency, 21 May 2009.
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61. Maureen Dowd, Envoy; BUSH GIVE WALESA MEDAL OF FREEDOM, New York Times, 14 November 1989
62. Foreign Leaders and Dignitaries Who Have Addressed the U.S. Congress, The Office of the Clerk
63. Carter B. Horsley, Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games: The Greatest Television Program Ever?
64. Jean-Michel Cousteau (biography), Winter Park Institute, Rollins College
65. Template:Pl icon Prezydent Lech Wałęsa patronem Portu Lotniczego Gdańsk (President Lech Wałęsa – patron of Gdańsk Airport), 10 maja 2004 r., Gdańsk Airport Website
66. Fast Facts: Who's Who at Reagan Funeral, Fox News, Friday, 11 June 2004
67. Lech Walesa Welcomes Launch of International Human Solidarity Day at UN, News Blaze, 11 November 2006
68. "Press Release". Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tiwan. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
69. FACTBOX: Dignitaries attending funeral of Boris Yeltsin, Reuters, Tue 24 Apr 2007
70. http://tvp.info/informacje/polska/walesa-odmawia-litwinom-z-powodu-polonii/5214828 (in Polish)
71. Strajk – Die Heldin von Danzig (2006), IMDb
72. Czlowiek z zelaza (1981), IMDb
73. Lech Walesa, IMDb
74. Anita Zabłocka, Template:Pl icon "Lech Wałęsa w wersji heavy metal" ("Lech Wałęsa in Heavy Metal"), Wiadomości 24, 19 August 2009.
75. New Year's Day, U2.com
76. Mick Wall, Bono: In the Name of Love (London: Andre Deutsche, 2005), 92.
77. Ken Bullock, SF Cabaret Opera Premieres ‘Solidarity’Ken Bullock, Berkeley Daily Planet, Thursday 24 September 2009
78. Results of Google Books search for works with "Lech Walesa" in title
79. Results of Worldcat search for works with "Lech Walesa" in title
80. Results of Open Library search for works with "Lech Walesa" in title
81. Template:Pl icon Media o Lechu Wałęsie (Media on Lech Wałęsa), Lech Wałęsa Institute
82. Template:Pl icon Wywiady Lecha Wałęsy (Interviews of Lech Wałęsa], Lech Wałęsa Institute
83. Roxborough, Scott (14 November 2011). "Robert Wieckiewicz to Play Lech Walesa in Andrzej Wajda-Directed Biopic". The Hollywood Reporter.

Further reading

• Walesa, Lech. "A Path of Hope: An Autobiography". Collins Harvill. London. 1987. ISBN 0-00-272120-1
• Walesa, Lech. The Struggle and the Triumph: An Autobiography, with the collaboration of Arkadius Rybicki, translated by Franklin Philip, in collaboration with Helen Mahut, New York, Arcade Publishers, 1992. ISBN 1-55970-221-4

External links

Films

• Signing of the Gdańsk Agreement
• Presidential Inauguration
• Speech at the National Press Club on Nov.16 1989, from C-SPAN video archive

Other

• Official blog
• Lech Wałęsa Institute
• Stephen Engelberg, Man in the News; The Grandmaster of Polish Politics: Lech Walesa, New York Times, 11 December 1990
• Stefan Chwin, God must have parachuted him to Earth originally published in Tygodnik Powszechny, December 2008
• New Statesman interview with Lech Walesa by Mark Seddon
• Wałęsa speech (mp3)
• Lech Walesa – Nobel Lecture
• BBC interview with Lech Walesa on the 25th anniversary of the founding of Solidarity
• Interview on WTTW
• The Shaming of Lech Walesa: Why the defeater of communism finds himself defeated by ex-communists—and why he and the American public haven't noticed Agnieszka Tennant, Books & Culture magazine, 2002
• Lech Walesa, NNDB.com

Template:Cold War figures

v t e Laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize
1901–1925	1901: Henry Dunant / Frédéric Passy 1902: Élie Ducommun / Charles Gobat 1903: Randal Cremer 1904: Institut de Droit International 1905: Bertha von Suttner 1906: Theodore Roosevelt 1907: Ernesto Moneta / Louis Renault 1908: Klas Arnoldson / Fredrik Bajer 1909: A. M. F. Beernaert / Paul Estournelles de Constant 1910: International Peace Bureau 1911: Tobias Asser / Alfred Fried 1912: Elihu Root 1913: Henri La Fontaine 1914 1915 1916 1917: International Committee of the Red Cross 1918 1919: Woodrow Wilson 1920: Léon Bourgeois 1921: Hjalmar Branting / Christian Lange 1922: Fridtjof Nansen 1923 1924 1925: Austen Chamberlain / Charles Dawes
1926–1950	1926: Aristide Briand / Gustav Stresemann 1927: Ferdinand Buisson / Ludwig Quidde 1928 1929: Frank B. Kellogg 1930: Nathan Söderblom 1931: Jane Addams / Nicholas Butler 1932 1933: Norman Angell 1934: Arthur Henderson 1935: Carl von Ossietzky 1936: Carlos Saavedra Lamas 1937: Robert Cecil 1938: Nansen International Office for Refugees 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944: International Committee of the Red Cross 1945: Cordell Hull 1946: Emily Balch / John Mott 1947: Friends Service Council / American Friends Service Committee 1948 1949: John Boyd Orr 1950: Ralph Bunche
1951–1975	1951: Léon Jouhaux 1952: Albert Schweitzer 1953: George C. Marshall 1954: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 1955 1956 1957: Lester B. Pearson 1958: Georges Pire 1959: Philip Noel-Baker 1960: Albert Luthuli 1961: Dag Hammarskjöld 1962: Linus Pauling 1963: International Committee of the Red Cross / League of Red Cross Societies 1964: Martin Luther King Jr. 1965: UNICEF 1966 1967 1968: René Cassin 1969: International Labour Organization 1970: Norman Borlaug 1971: Willy Brandt 1972 1973: Lê Đức Thọ (declined award) / Henry Kissinger 1974: Seán MacBride / Eisaku Satō 1975: Andrei Sakharov
1976–2000	1976: Betty Williams / Mairead Corrigan 1977: Amnesty International 1978: Anwar Sadat / Menachem Begin 1979: Mother Teresa 1980: Adolfo Pérez Esquivel 1981: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 1982: Alva Myrdal / Alfonso García Robles 1983: Lech Wałęsa 1984: Desmond Tutu 1985: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War 1986: Elie Wiesel 1987: Óscar Arias 1988: UN Peacekeeping Forces 1989: Tenzin Gyatso (14th Dalai Lama) 1990: Mikhail Gorbachev 1991: Aung San Suu Kyi 1992: Rigoberta Menchú 1993: Nelson Mandela / F. W. de Klerk 1994: Shimon Peres / Yitzhak Rabin / Yasser Arafat 1995: Pugwash Conferences / Joseph Rotblat 1996: Carlos Belo / José Ramos-Horta 1997: International Campaign to Ban Landmines / Jody Williams 1998: John Hume / David Trimble 1999: Médecins Sans Frontières 2000: Kim Dae-jung
2001–present	2001: United Nations / Kofi Annan 2002: Jimmy Carter 2003: Shirin Ebadi 2004: Wangari Maathai 2005: International Atomic Energy Agency / Mohamed ElBaradei 2006: Grameen Bank / Muhammad Yunus 2007: Al Gore / Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2008: Martti Ahtisaari 2009: Barack Obama 2010: Liu Xiaobo 2011: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf / Leymah Gbowee / Tawakkol Karman 2012: European Union 2013: Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons 2014: Kailash Satyarthi / Malala Yousafzai 2015: Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet 2016: Juan Manuel Santos 2017: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons 2018: Denis Mukwege / Nadia Murad 2019: Abiy Ahmed 2020: World Food Programme 2021: Maria Ressa / Dmitry Muratov 2022: Ales Bialiatski / Memorial / Center for Civil Liberties 2023: Narges Mohammadi 2024: Nihon Hidankyo

v t e Candidates in the 1990 Polish presidential election → following
Winner	Lech Wałęsa
Lost in runoff	Stanisław Tymiński
Other candidates	Roman Bartoszcze Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz Tadeusz Mazowiecki Leszek Moczulski

v t e previous ← Candidates in the 1995 Polish presidential election → following
Winner	Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Lost in runoff	Lech Wałęsa (incumbent)
Other candidates	Leszek Bubel Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz Janusz Korwin-Mikke Tadeusz Koźluk Jacek Kuroń Andrzej Lepper Jan Olszewski Waldemar Pawlak Jan Pietrzak Kazimierz Piotrowicz Tadeusz Zieliński
Withdrew	Lech Kaczyński Marek Markiewicz Leszek Moczulski Bogdan Pawłowski

v t e previous ← Candidates in the 2000 Polish presidential election → following
Winner	Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Other candidates	Dariusz Grabowski Piotr Ikonowicz Jarosław Kalinowski Janusz Korwin-Mikke Marian Krzaklewski Andrzej Lepper Jan Łopuszański Andrzej Olechowski Bogdan Pawłowski Lech Wałęsa Tadeusz Wilecki
Withdrew	Jan Olszewski

v t e Heads of state of Poland
Kingdom of Poland (1917–1918)	Provisional Council Regency Council
Republic of Poland (1918–1939)	Józef Piłsudski Gabriel Narutowicz Maciej Rataj* Stanisław Wojciechowski Maciej Rataj* Ignacy Mościcki
Polish government-in-exile (1939–1990)	Władysław Raczkiewicz August Zaleski Stanisław Ostrowski Edward Raczyński Kazimierz Sabbat Ryszard Kaczorowski
Polish People's Republic (1944–1989)	Bolesław Bierut Franciszek Trąbalski* Władysław Kowalski* Bolesław Bierut Aleksander Zawadzki Edward Ochab Marian Spychalski Józef Cyrankiewicz Henryk Jabłoński Wojciech Jaruzelski
Republic of Poland (1990–present)	Wojciech Jaruzelski Lech Wałęsa Aleksander Kwaśniewski Lech Kaczyński Bronisław Komorowski* Bogdan Borusewicz* Grzegorz Schetyna* Bronisław Komorowski Andrzej Duda
*Acting

Template:Persondata

• Use dmy dates from June 2011
• Lech Wałęsa
• 1943 births
• Living people
• People from Lipno County
• Polish Roman Catholics
• Polish anti-communists
• Presidents of Poland
• Polish Nobel laureates
• Polish trade unionists
• Roman Catholic activists
• Nonviolence advocates
• Solidarity (Polish union movement) activists
• Articles including recorded pronunciations (Polish)
• Polish electricians
• Members of Catholic political parties
• Nobel Peace Prize laureates
• Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
• Grand Crosses of the Order of Polonia Restituta
• Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland)
• Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
• Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav
• Recipients of the Order of the Seraphim
• Knights of the Elephant
• Commanders Grand Cross of the Order of the White Rose of Finland
• Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
• Grand Croix of the Légion d'honneur
• Order of the Netherlands Lion
• Grand Cordons of the Order of Leopold (Belgium)
• Grand Crosses Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Grand Collars of the Order of Liberty
• Grand Collars of the Order of Prince Henry
• Recipients of the Order of Saint James of the Sword
• Grand Crosses of the Order of the White Lion
• Grand Crosses of the Order of Merit (Chile)
• Recipients of the Order of the Southern Cross
• Grand Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary (civil)