The Dinner That Helped Save Europe

New York Times

27-04-2025

In 1979, during John Paul II's first visit to the United States as pope, he met with President Jimmy Carter at the White House. Shortly after that, he invited Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's national security adviser, to dinner at the Vatican Embassy in Washington. Along with world affairs, Carter wanted to discuss declining morals with the recently elected pope, but Brzezinski had more practical subjects in mind.
For the pontiff and the adviser, their mutual obsession was the Soviet Union. Over a simple meal at the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See, they explored how they could together weaken Moscow's grip over its captive nations. Brzezinski was stunned by the pope's geopolitical knowledge. He joked that Carter was more like a religious leader while the pope seemed more like a world statesman. The vicar of Christ affirmed the quip with a belly laugh, Brzezinski noted in his personal diary, to which I acquired exclusive access.
From that dinner onward, the two Polish-born figures — one the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, the other America's first (and to date, probably the only) Polish-speaking grand strategist — became intimate allies.
Their serendipitous relationship proved critical in late 1980 in dissuading the Soviets from invading Poland, where the Solidarity movement had just emerged as a serious challenge to the Communist government. It was a partnership sustained by a running dialogue conducted during Brzezinski's visits to the Vatican, in long handwritten correspondence and over the phone. His White House speed dial had P for 'pope.'
John Paul's relationship with Brzezinski is a vivid example of how diplomacy works when there is mutual trust. Good chemistry is rare but extremely productive. Sustained dialogue with both friends and adversaries in today's volatile world is, if anything, even more critical. The ability at a tense moment to pick up the phone and know that you can trust the person on the other end is the fruit of constant gardening.
Yet it is increasingly hard to find the time. Technology means that presidential envoys are always within White House reach to respond to the cascade of competing demands. The world is also a more complex place than it was 40 years ago, and U.S. diplomats have rarely been held in lower regard at home. Twenty-four-hour media scrutiny also makes secrecy far harder. Henry Kissinger's covert visit to Beijing in 1971 to pave the way for U.S. rapprochement with Mao Zedong's China is hard to imagine today.
Kissinger also built strong relationships with his Soviet counterparts. (Brzezinski was reviled in Moscow, and Carter kept him away from talking to the Soviets.) Even as President Richard Nixon was luring China away from the U.S.S.R.'s Cold War bloc, Kissinger was buttering up the stony Soviet foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko, and having frequent dinners with Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet Union's longstanding ambassador to Washington. That the United States was able to further pry China apart from the U.S.S.R. while cementing détente with Moscow was a feat of diplomacy. It was also a product of time invested in relationships.
One of the few recent examples of a sustained conversation between rivals was that between Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden's national security adviser, and Wang Yi, China's top diplomat. In the second half of the Biden administration, the two met in Vienna, Malta, Bangkok, Beijing and Washington for talks that added up to more than 50 hours of conversation, according to Mr. Sullivan. His quest for a stabilization of U.S.-China relations was cut short by Donald Trump's victory last November. China's request for Mr. Trump to appoint his own envoy has so far gone unanswered.
Without the trust that comes from a solid relationship between officials, the risk of military accident arising from miscommunication or ignorance is far greater. Above all, there should be no surprises. Talking at length clarifies the other side's intentions and reduces the chances of potentially lethal miscalculation. Even without Mr. Trump's unpredictable and shifting priorities, any U.S. president would find today's world harder to navigate than the relatively manageable bipolar divide during the Cold War.
American politics has never stopped at the water's edge. But foreign policy was not politicized during the 1970s and '80s to anything like the degree it is today.
The point of maximum danger to Poland in 1980 took place after Carter lost the election to Ronald Reagan. On Dec. 6, Stansfield Turner, the C.I.A. director, warned the president that a Soviet invasion was likely to happen within the next 48 hours. The Soviets had amassed 15 divisions on Poland's border. Brzezinski and John Paul had for weeks been working the phones in tandem to warn Solidarity and its charismatic leader, Lech Walesa, to tamp down their anti-Soviet rhetoric. The Soviets should be given no pretexts to cross the border, they told him.
At the same time, Washington, leaders of allied nations and the Vatican made clear to the Soviets that Poland would be indigestible. Unlike with the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Red Army would meet heavy resistance from workers belonging to Mr. Walesa's mass trade union, from the Catholic Church and even from elements of the Polish military. All the while, Brzezinski was keeping the transition team of the incoming president informed. The incoming national security adviser, Richard Allen, agreed to reinforce Carter's warnings to Moscow.
Brzezinski's rapport with John Paul II had the benefit of not just their shared Polish roots but also timing: Karol Wojtyla was elected to the papacy in 1978. When the Vatican announced the outcome, Yuri Andropov, the head of the K.G.B., ordered a report on the election, which laid out a far-fetched plot by Brzezinski to rig the conclave. There was no basis to that claim. But the pope and Brzezinski more than redeemed Moscow's paranoia. Their coordinated tactics, based on trust and friendship, helped to prevent an invasion that could have changed history.