During his tour of the United States last November, Lech Walesa underscored this point vividly.
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Still, Mr. Walesa said Mr. Romney had some work to do to win the presidency.
Lech Walesa was the chairman of the Solidarity movement that undermined Communist rule in Poland.
Along with damaging his reputation, the controversy could also have a painful effect on Walesa's career.
Since his comments went nationwide, Walesa has been on the receiving end of furious criticism.
We cherish the tradition of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, Jelena Bonner, Lech Walesa and Ronald Reagan.
The Walesa episode was fading into memory when President Obama made his opening remarks.
Administration officials told Polish journalists that Mr. Walesa's presence was too "political" for this week's occasion.
Lech Walesa, a shipyard worker, walked into her flower shop one day, and the rest is history.
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Supporting Mr Walesa in the 1980s was both a noble cause and helped speed the Soviet empire's demise.
The Poles wanted Lech Walesa to receive the medal on Karski's behalf, but the White House nixed the choice.
Is there a North Korean Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa or Nelson Mandela?
As Lech Walesa, Poland's first freely elected post-war president, noted, it is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup.
Lech Walesa and his fledgling reform movement, Solidarity, were making their bid for individual freedoms and economic liberty in Poland.
Among the speakers was Mr Walesa, the unemployed electrician who led the city strike that led to the formation of Solidarity.
BBC: The event is being marked by three days of celebrations
Pope John Paul's engagement with Poland created space not just for the Catholic Church, but for labor leaders like Lech Walesa.
Mr Walesa challenged the European Union to work for the unity of Europe, torn by recent rows over budget and future shape.
BBC: The event is being marked by three days of celebrations
Likewise with Lech Walesa and his Solidarity trade union in Eastern Europe.
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Walesa, the shipyard worker who went on to inspire the Solidarity trade union in Poland, was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 1983.
Reality struck when Mr Walesa was swept from power in late 1995, to be replaced as president by a reformist ex-communist, Aleksander Kwasniewski.
In 1995, Polish President Lech Walesa, a former shipyard rebel, suffered bitter defeat in a re-election bid at the hands of ex-Communist Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Broadcasting behind the Iron Curtain, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were praised by Poland's Lech Walesa as being critical to the struggle against communism.
But market reforms haven't been kind to the historic shipyards of Gdansk, where the Solidarity Union movement began with union leader and future Polish president, Lech Walesa.
Within a year Germany was reunited, the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel was president of Czechoslovakia and a union activist named Lech Walesa was Poland's head of state.
During those grim days of persecution, Kirkland spearheaded the AFL-CIO's drive to keep Walesa's movement alive by smuggling in personnel, money, printing presses, radio equipment and computers.
In 1980 the rise of Solidarity--a mass movement led by a shipyard electrician, Lech Walesa (later, free Poland's first president)--posed a mortal threat to the Evil Empire.
She was sent because the fear was that if Lech Walesa, who was no longer imprisoned, had left the country, he would not be allowed back in.
FORBES: Behind Every Great Man Is the Mother of His Children. One of Them Finally Comes Out.
Poland was then under martial law, and Lech Walesa was being held in an internment camp, so the story would be that the Nobel winner was in jail.
FORBES: Behind Every Great Man Is the Mother of His Children. One of Them Finally Comes Out.
Set against the harsh tongue and poor syntax of his predecessor, Mr Walesa, the nattily dressed, sound-bite-loving ex-communist looked the more modern man that the country was in need of.
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