For the longest time, I associated the city of Gdańsk with my police detention. It was December 16, 1982, and a year earlier the communist authorities had imposed martial law.
They were signaling an easing of restrictions by releasing the Solidarity trade union leader Lech Wałęsa after 11 months of internment. A government spokesman smugly described him as “the former head of a former union.” Wałęsa was due to give a speech that day, and about 40 of us—foreign correspondents, photographers, and our Polish assistants—were clustered next to the entrance to his apartment block, expecting to go inside for an interview.
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