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Lech Walesa: Tough interview

Journalists often like to start out an interview with a softball question to break the ice before moving on to controversial topics. This tactic clearly doesn’t work on former Polish President and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa: SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you looking forward to travelling to Berlin on Monday for the 20th anniversary celebration of the ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
577402_091106_walesa12.jpg
577402_091106_walesa12.jpg
BERLIN - JUNE 09: Lech Walesa, former Polish President and leader of the Solidarity labour movement that toppled the communist regime in Poalnd in 1989, arrives to sign a giant domino symbolizing the Berlin Wall at the Rotes Rathaus city hall on June 9, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. Through the 'Domino Aktion' thousands of young people across Germany will paint approximately 1,000 of the dominoes, which will then be brought to Berlin for events scheduled for November 9 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The dominoes are to be set up in a row following the course of the former Wall through the city center, and then knocked over for a domino-effect. The event is meant to symbolize the domino-like fall of communist powers across Eastern Europe in 1989. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Journalists often like to start out an interview with a softball question to break the ice before moving on to controversial topics. This tactic clearly doesn't work on former Polish President and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa:

Journalists often like to start out an interview with a softball question to break the ice before moving on to controversial topics. This tactic clearly doesn’t work on former Polish President and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you looking forward to travelling to Berlin on Monday for the 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall?

Walesa: It’s not important whether I’m looking forward to it or not. I am a politician who played an important role in the reunification of Germany and I was invited to take part in the celebration. It’s not like a piece of candy handed out to a sweet little boy.

Sean Gallup/Getty Images 

Joshua Keating is a former associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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