Romney seeks Walesa meeting in Poland

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/07/romney-seeks-walesa-meeting-in-poland-129333.html

By JONATHAN MARTIN |
7/18/12 11:43 AM EDT

Mitt Romney’s campaign is seeking to schedule a meeting between the GOP nominee and former Polish president Lech Walesa when Romney is overseas later this month, Romney insiders and foreign sources tell POLITICO.

The sit-down between Romney and the Nobel Prize-winning icon of the Solidarity movement would represent an unmistakable jab at President Obama. When Obama visited Poland in 2011, he invited Walesa to a meeting with a group of other Polish officials, but Walesa, perhaps wanting a one-on-one, snubbed him. And earlier this year, it was widely reported in the Polish press that Walesa wanted to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of the late World War II Polish freedom fighter Jan Karski, but was not invited to the White House for the ceremony.

The Romney-Walesa tete-a-tete will likely take place in Gdansk, the Baltic port city that Walesa made famous as a shipyard unionist. While in the region, Romney also may pay a visit to the Westerplatte peninsula, where the first shots of World War II were fired when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939.

Westerplatte, a deeply important symbolic place for Poles, also has present day political significance. Some Poles were irked in 2009 when Obama did not attend a solemn gathering there marking the 70th anniversary of the war’s start. While Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared at the commemoration, the Obama administration sent then-National Security Adviser James Jones.

FULL story at link.