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In Moscow and the capitals of Eastern Europe other than Poland, the official welcome was wary and tepid. In most Communist countries, -there was a telling hiatus of several hours before the party-lining press and radio broke the news. But Peking, which has yet to announce the U.S. moon landings, broadcast the news quickly. Most Communist organs reported the election matter of factly. Soviet Boss Leonid Brezhnev issued a belated pro forma wish for "friendship and peace between peoples."
Poland's three top Communist officials, who had jousted for years with Wojtyla and his wily elder colleague Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, 77, cabled the new Pope to tell him of the "great satisfaction" in his homeland. They also lifted travel restrictions so that 5,000 Poles could travel by trains and a private cars to the installation and another more 1,000 could take chartered flights, forming what one official called "an air bridge between Warsaw and Rome."
The people of Poland were swept up in exultation. When word came, said a Warsaw engineer, "our hearts stopped beating for a minute." In the Pope's home see of Cracow, historic political and cultural center of the nation, people of all ages flocked into the streets, singing and shouting and hugging one another. Many gave impromptu speeches, prayed or paraded with Polish flags. Thousands flocked to Wojtyla's residence on Fran-ciszkanska Street and to St. Mary's Church, his episcopal seat. At Wawel Castle, where Polish kings once lived, the great Zygmunt Bell, rung only on historic occasions, pealed joyously, as did the bells in all of Warsaw's churches.
In Wojtyla's birthplace of Wadowice (pop. 14,000), 30 miles from Cracow, thousands descended on the aged church where he had been baptized, the house where he was born, the school he had attended. At least 20,000 people visited the Pope's and Poland's most revered site, the Jasna Gora monastery, where the Black Madonna is enshrined. The ancient painting is credited with, among other things, a miraculous role in repulsing Sweden's armies.
Across most of the non-Communist world, Wojtyla's election was warmly greeted, particularly in cities with large enclaves of Polish émigrés, like Chicago. Polish Americans were unabashedly proud. For the first time, the Atlanta Constitution's Clifford Baldowski signed one of his cartoons "Baldy Baldowski" instead of simply "Baldy": his drawing showed the new Pope writing a proclamation that said: "No more Polish jokes." Non-Poles, too, quickly identified with the "foreign" Pope as one of their own. "It is as if a Third World Cardinal had won," said Brazilian Paulo Cardinal Evaristo Arns. In Australia, where Wojtyla paid a visit five years ago and was photographed feeding kangaroos, he made front-page news once more. T he strongly positive reaction there and elsewhere was explained not only by the break in the Italian connection but also because Wojtyla is widely traveled. He has visited the U.S. and Canada (a total of six weeks in 1969 and 1976), as well as Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, much of Latin America and most of Europe.