Poland: In a Crooked Circle

One of Poland's most influential Communist authors has been sentenced to a year in prison. The charge: writing poison-pen letters to the regime's highest officials.

The scandal broke last fall when Pre mier Josef Cyrankiewicz, Politburo Member Edward Ochab and other top functionaries suddenly got a rash of Rabelaisian letters that mingled demands for greater intellectual freedom with obscene personal denunciations. Most of the letters, many of which were mimeographed, were mailed from the same Warsaw letter box, and police soon identified the sender: Novelist Jerzy Kornacki, 53, a protégé of the late Polish President, Boleslaw Bierut, and author of...

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