ABSTRACT
General Wojciech Jaruzelski paid an official visit to Italy from January 12 to 14, 1987. It was the first official visit to a Western democratic country by Poland's head of state since the imposition of martial law in December 1981. Poland had come out of its isolation and gained international approval for its domestic policies. Euphoric reports on Jaruzelski's successes in Italy were carried by the official media during the visit. The Italian government, on the other hand, emphasized that the visit had been made possible only by the release in September of the majority of political prisoners in Poland. From the political point of view, both the imposition and the lifting of the sanctions had a more complicated dimension. The Polish authorities' response to the imposition of the American sanctions had been equivocal. The Polish authorities had also not been slow to use the issue for propagandists purposes.
