ABSTRACT
Janusz Onyszkiewicz suppresses an almost giggly smile as he con-templates the fact that he was the first civilian Deputy Minister of Defence in the Warsaw Pact. The nervous laugh highlights both a residual sense of disbelief and his awareness of the historical and political importance of the appointment. In a sense Janusz Onyszkiewicz is the epitome of the Polish revolution; he is the poacher turned gamekeeper. As Solidarity's national press spokesman he was known to all those who covered the Polish story. A small, neat, mustachioed man with impeccable Oxford-sounding English, his controlled and disciplined behaviour stood out from the cacophany of sound and beaverish activity at Solidarity's regional headquarters in pre-martial law Warsaw. He had a very 'English' way of expressing Solidarity's demands. It all sounded so reasonable until one pinched oneself and remembered that this was a country behind the 'Iron Curtain' where Moscow's will prevailed. The sort of reasonableness which characterized Onyszkiewicz's behaviour was of course the quintessential factor in Solidarity's initial survival. A mathematician by profession, Onyszkiewicz, unlike some of his fellow activists, appeared to stand back from the emotions and momentum in the post-August months. Always careful in his choice of words there was never an iota of bravado in his statements to the media, no element of provocation. Amid all of the chaos in those heady days Onysziewicz radiated an air of the controlled, expedient and calculated strategist. One never sensed any emotional response within him to either the people or the system that he and Solidarity were fighting. He had the measure of the enemy and like General Jaruzelski his response was based on generations of historical perception about Poland's possibilities and geo-political realities. Unlike Jaruzelski, however, Onyszkiewicz did not ultimately believe that the conciliatory, stepby-step approach necessitated outright collaboration.
