66 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
calling time on the Warsaw communist authorities and refusing to
ease the rescheduling.^1
Reagan followed his predecessors in trying to improve relations
with Eastern Europe. On 10 June 1981 Assistant Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger spelled out that America would do this only to
the extent that these countries complied with the Helsinki Final Act
and helped to lessen East–West tensions in Europe.^2 The American
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations gave its assent.^3 The Polish
authorities had not been the worst in the region; indeed, they had one
of the better communist records in respect of human rights – but if
America and Western Europe were to bail out Poland’s economy yet
again, it might well be money down the drain, and anyway many pol-
iticians in America objected to basing policy on the notion that there
was a meaningful difference between one communist government and
another.^4 Even if the Americans chose to boost their aid to Poland, it
would be several years before the Polish economy recovered – and the
financial strains on Western creditors would be huge. Unless the West
did something to help, moreover, the USSR would be able to tell the
Poles that the blandishments of the capitalist countries were mere
rhetoric. On the other hand, there was the worry that in alleviating
the Polish economic crisis, Western governments would be helping
an oppressive communist administration at the expense of Poland’s
people.^5
Brezhnev had unsettling meetings with East European communist
leaders on their Crimean vacation. When Czechoslovakia’s Gustáv
Husák pushed for military intervention in Poland, Brezhnev offered
no opinion of his own. Nicolae Ceauşescu of Romania demanded that
the USSR should do something instead of just talking. Brezhnev
snapped back: ‘Why are you always repeating “do, do!”? We have
headaches every day because of Poland. And all you can say is “Do
something!” ’ The Bulgarian communist leader Todor Zhivkov sided
with Brezhnev and said that Ceauşescu was just a bag of wind.^6
It was a dire situation from the communist standpoint. But what
was to be done? The Soviet leadership preferred it to be Poles who
repressed Poles. Brezhnev’s health was too poor for him to sustain
constant supervision of the Warsaw situation. His regents – Suslov,
Gromyko, Andropov, Ustinov and Chernenko – had intimidated the
Polish leadership in the previous year when they ordered three tank
divisions and a motorized rifle division to be made ready for a possible
invasion of Poland. The Baltic, Belorussian and Carpathian military