Last year, Jay Nordlinger wrote at NRO:
Many years ago, as the Soviet Union was expiring and Eastern Europe was shaking free, Lech Wałęsa was asked what the “radios” — Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty — had meant to Poland. He answered, “Would there be an earth without the sun?”
In Washington this week, Wałęsa said, “Numerous civilizations in the past have crumbled because somewhere along the way they forgot about leadership, and we are heading in this direction. We will destroy our civilization unless the United States retakes its leadership role.”
Incidentally, Wałęsa was wearing a Ukrainian lapel pin. He did so both in California (at the Reagan Library) and in Washington. There are a lot of U.S. Republicans who flip out at such a thing. But Lech Wałęsa is a very patriotic Pole — who understands the importance of solidarity with peoples under siege, and who holds freedom to be indivisible.
Presenting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, the committee’s chairman said that “the future will recognize” Wałęsa as one of those “who contributed to humanity’s legacy of freedom.” He has done his part, yes.