Experts and the Working Group

On the afternoon of 23 August, Bronisław Geremek telephoned me in Warsaw from the office of Director Gniech in the Gdańsk Shipyard —all other lines were disconnected — to report that Wałęsa and the Interfactory Strike Committee had requested the formation of a Commission of Experts. Geremek and Tadeusz Mazowiecki proposed to include Bohdan Cywiński, Waldemar Kuczyński, Jadwiga Staniszkis, Andrzej Wielowieyski, Tadeusz Kowalik and ‘a good lawyer’. He accepted my suggestion of Leszek Kubicki of the Institute of Law at the Academy of Sciences. All agreed to go to Gdańsk and if I had some difficulty in convincing them, this was not of the usefulness of this initiative, but of the authenticity of my information (Cywinski’s reaction was: ‘Tadeusz, you must be drunk, sleep if off and ring me later’). I did not speak to Staniszkis who had already gone to the shipyard on the suggestion of someone there. The rest of us were due to leave the following morning, Sunday 24 August, at 9.00 a.m.