Walesa had become a hero, and free Poland’s natural choice for president, by leading the Gdansk shipyard workers’ revolt against communism more than a decade earlier. He moved to Afghanistan, where he found a warm welcome from Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban, a militant Sunni sect that was bent on establishing a radical Muslim theocracy in Afghanistan. In mid-August, Russia had defaulted on its foreign debt, and by the end of the month the Russian collapse had caused large drops in stock markets across the world. To put him more at ease, I flew him to Hyde Park in my helicopter so that he could see the beautiful foliage along the Hudson River on an unseasonably warm fall day.
It was the beginning of my deep engagement in the long, emotional, complicated search for peace in Northern Ireland. The case ended in a hung jury; in conservative northern Virginia, it was another setback for the independent counsel and his tactics. ho often had good ideas but couldn’t meet the credit standards of traditional lenders; increased the volume counterproductive, but that I would urge Vajpayee to resume the bilateral dialogue if the Pakistani troops withdrew.
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