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    The Dinner That Helped Save Europe

    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.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    This Is Not the America My Immigrant Father Was Determined to Reach

    As the Trump administration disappears immigrants into foreign prisons and sees this as a source of American strength, I think back to when my dad was disappeared, why he came to America and, indeed, why I exist.My dad’s journey through war and concentration camps teaches me that authoritarianism does not strengthen a nation and that, notwithstanding Elon Musk’s warning that empathy is “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization,” it has been one of our national strengths — and that because of our president, it is now in peril.My father’s family was Armenian. During World War II, my family members were living throughout Eastern Europe and were secretly involved in a network that was spying on the Nazis and transmitting information to the West. The Gestapo uncovered the network, and my dad’s heroic cousin Izabela was arrested in Poland in 1942 and sent to Auschwitz, along with her daughter, Teresa. Izabela died in Auschwitz, and Teresa was subjected to medical experiments by the Nazis.My father and other immediate family members were arrested as well for being part of the spy network. But they were detained in Romania, where officials and the police — the “deep state” — shielded them from the Gestapo, so they were imprisoned for a time but survived and were eventually released. (Bribery helped.)Izabela’s son-in-law, Boguslaw Horodynski, a Pole, oversaw the spy network and survived the war. But the Soviets, seeing a freedom fighter as a potential threat to the emerging Communist bloc, arrested him and dispatched him to a labor camp in the Siberian gulag. We believe Boguslaw was enslaved in a mine in Kolyma — which the Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described as the “pole of cold and cruelty.”Romania’s prime minister personally asked Stalin to show mercy. But Stalin wouldn’t budge.Perhaps this is the prism through which Stalin saw Boguslaw: He’s an immigrant in Romania, he’s potentially a risk to national security, and due process is a silly concept that would slow us down, so we’re sending him to a prison in another country.

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    We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    US allies worldwide decry Trump’s car tariffs and threaten retaliation

    Governments from Tokyo to Berlin and Ottawa to Paris have voiced sharp criticism of Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on car imports, with several of the US’s staunchest long-term allies threatening retaliatory action.Trump announced on Wednesday that he would impose a 25% tariff on cars and car parts shipped to the US from 3 April in a move experts have predicted is likely to depress production, drive up prices and fuel a global trade war.The US imported almost $475bn (£367bn) worth of cars last year, mostly from Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Germany. European carmakers alone sold more than 750,000 vehicles to American drivers.France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Thursday he had told his US counterpart that tariffs were not a good idea. They “disrupt value chains, create an inflationary effect and destroy jobs. So it’s not good for the US or European economies,” he said.Paris would work with the European Commission on a response intended to get Trump to reconsider, he said. Officials in Berlin also stressed that the commission would defend free trade as the foundation of the EU’s prosperity.Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, bluntly described Trump’s decision as wrong, and said Washington appeared to have “chosen a path at whose end lie only losers, since tariffs and isolation hurt prosperity, for everyone”.France’s finance minister, Eric Lombard, called the US president’s plan “very bad news” and said the EU would be forced to raise its own tariffs. His German counterpart, Robert Habeck, promised a “firm EU response”. “We will not take this lying down,” he said.Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said Europe would approach the US with common sense but “not on our knees”. Good transatlantic relations are “a strategic matter” and must survive more than one prime minister and one president, he said.The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, described the move as “bad for businesses, worse for consumers” because “tariffs are taxes”. She said the bloc would continue to seek negotiated solutions while protecting its economic interests.The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, said the tariffs were “very concerning” and that his government would be “pragmatic and clear-eyed” in response. The UK “does not want a trade war, but it’s important we keep all options on the table”, he said.His Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, said on social media: “We will get through this crisis, and we will build a stronger, more resilient economy.”Carney later told a press conference that his administration would wait until next week to respond to the new US threat of tariffs, and that nothing was off the table regarding possible countermeasures.He would, he added, speak to provincial premiers and business leaders on Friday to discuss a coordinated response.“It doesn’t make sense when there’s a series of US initiatives that are going to come in relatively rapid succession to respond to each of them. We’re going to know a lot more in a week, and we will respond then,” he said.One option for Canada is to impose excise duties on exports of oil, potash and other commodities. “Nothing is off the table to defend our workers and our country,” said Carney, who added that the old economic and security relationship between Canada and the US was over.South Korea said it would put in place a full emergency response to Trump’s proposed measures by April.China’s foreign ministry said the US approach violated World Trade Organization rules and was “not conducive to solving its own problems”. Its spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, said: “No country’s development and prosperity are achieved by imposing tariffs.”The Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, said Tokyo was putting “all options on the table”. Japan “makes the largest amount of investment to the US, so we wonder if it makes sense for [Washington] to apply uniform tariffs to all countries”, he said.Reuters and Agence-France Presse contributed to this report More

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    What We Know About the Deadly Floods in Central Europe

    At least 17 people have died and thousands have been displaced. “Relief is not expected to come before tomorrow, and more likely, the day after,” an official in Austria said.At least 17 people were dead and several others missing on Monday after days of flooding in Central Europe. Thousands were displaced, and with heavy rains continuing in some places, officials feared there could be more destruction ahead. The floodwaters have ravaged towns, destroyed bridges and breached dams since intense rainfall from Storm Boris — a slow-moving low-pressure system — began in some places late last week. Emergency workers have made daring rescues of people and even pets as officials assessed the scale of the damage.For some, the disaster recalled the devastating floods that struck the region in July 1997, killing more than 100 people and driving thousands of others out of their homes.“This was a very traumatic one for Poland — the one that is remembered,” Hubert Rozyk, a spokesman for Poland’s Ministry of Climate and Environment, said of that disaster. “And in some places, the situation is even worse than in 1997.”Here’s what we know about the destruction in some of the worst-hit countries.RomaniaTwo men rescued a third from rising floodwaters in the Romanian village of Slobozia Conachi on Saturday.Daniel Mihailescu/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSeven people have died in Romania, Dr. Raed Arafat, the head of the Department for Emergency Situations in the Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a phone call on Monday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    World leaders react to Biden’s decision to exit presidential race

    Leaders from around the world have begun to react to Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek re-election this year, endorsing vice-president Kamala Harris in the most unorthodox US presidential campaign in generations.US allies largely offered tributes to Biden’s work over decades of government service, discussing his work as a partner in international security, without addressing the tense political debate still unfolding in the US.The US election campaign comes at a pivotal moment with major conflicts ongoing in Ukraine and in Gaza, both parties warning of a growing great-power rivalry with China, and European allies unsettled about a revanchist Russia and potential America First policy under Donald Trump that could see Washington turn its back on the continent.“Dear President @JoeBiden,” wrote Polish prime minister Donald Tusk on X, “you’ve taken many difficult decisions thanks to which Poland, America and the world are safer, and democracy stronger. I know you were driven by the same motivations when announcing your final decision. Probably the most difficult one in your life.”UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that he “respected” Biden’s decision and called his career “remarkable”.“I respect President Biden’s decision and I look forward to us working together during the remainder of his presidency,” Starmer said in a statement. “I know that, as he has done throughout his remarkable career, he will have made his decision based on what he believes is best for the American people.”Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett called Biden a “true friend” of Israel.“President Biden is a true friend of Israel who stood by us in our most difficult moments,” he wrote on X. “During my tenure as Prime Minister, I witnessed his unwavering support of the State of Israel. Thank you for everything.”US adversaries criticised Biden’s record and accused him of standing behind growing tensions around the world.“Biden has caused problems all over the world and in his own country, the United States. Since he sees that he will not be elected, he is withdrawing without waiting for the election,” Russian state Duma leader Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of Vladimir Putin’s, told reporters on Sunday.Biden “should be held accountable for the war unleashed in Ukraine, for destroying the economies of European countries, and for the sanctions policy against Russia and other countries,” Volodin said.“The issue has not been Biden for a long time,” said Russia’s Federation Council deputy speaker Konstantin Kosyachov. “The Americans are divided in their positions in favour of or against Trump. I believe that whoever leads the Democrats’ campaign after Biden’s withdrawal, this divide will remain in place. And everything will depend on how the Republicans will now organise and complete this campaign.” More

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    Sigmund Rolat, Who Used His Wealth to Memorialize Polish Jews, Dies at 93

    A Holocaust survivor and a shipping financier, he returned to his home country, where his parents and brother perished, to help build a museum and other memorials.Sigmund Rolat, a Polish Holocaust survivor who tapped the wealth he accumulated as a businessman in the United States to support cultural projects in his homeland, most notably a museum devoted to the history of Jews in Poland that stands on the grounds of the Warsaw Ghetto, died on May 19 at his home in Alpine, N.J. He was 93.His son, Geoffrey, confirmed the death.Mr. Rolat believed that except for the dark chapter of World War II, with Nazi atrocities at concentration camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka in occupied Poland, the history of Polish Jewry was a mystery to most Jews, and most Americans. He donated millions of dollars to help build the interior and other elements of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which opened in 2014, and he became a major fund-raiser and an influential voice on its board.“I want the gate of our museum, and not the ‘Arbeit macht frei’ gate, to be the first gate that will be seen by Jews visiting Poland,” Mr. Rolat told Forbes magazine in 2014, referring to the cynical inscription (“Work sets you free”) that greeted inmates when they entered the main Auschwitz concentration camp.The Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews sits on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto. Mr. Rolat donated millions for its construction. It opened in 2014.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times“The Jews should first learn our shared history,” he added. “And then, of course, they should see Auschwitz, but with a better understanding of what happened there.”The main exhibition at the museum tells the story of Poland’s Jews over 1,000 years, from the Middle Ages to the present, using artifacts, paintings, replicas and interactive installations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Don’t Underestimate the Mobilizing Force of Abortion

    Poland recently ousted its right-wing, nationalist Law and Justice Party. In 2020, a party-appointed tribunal severely restricted the country’s abortion rights, sparking nationwide protests and an opposition movement. After a trip to Poland, the Times Opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg came to recognize that similar dynamics could prevail in the United States in 2024. In this audio essay, she argues that Joe Biden’s campaign should take note of what a “powerful mobilizing force the backlash to abortion bans can be.”(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available by Monday, and can be found in the audio player above.)Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Photograph by Getty ImagesThe Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, X (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram.This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Jillian Weinberger. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin and Alison Bruzek. Engineering by Isaac Jones and Sonia Herrero. Original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. More

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    Donald Tusk, a Man of Eclectic Identities, Returns to Power in Poland

    The opposition leader was endorsed by Parliament as the country’s next prime minister, unseating the right-wing Law and Justice party that had long denounced him as unfit to rule.It was just minutes after Donald Tusk made his triumphant return as Poland’s leader that his archenemy stepped to the podium in Parliament to rain acid on his parade.“I don’t know who your grandfathers were but I know one thing: You are a German agent, just a German agent,” growled Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the chairman of Law and Justice, the right-wing party that, until Monday, had held all the reins of power.The accusation, one of many smears aimed at Mr. Tusk over a political career stretching back to the 1980s, came after Parliament endorsed Mr. Tusk as prime minister, stirring joy and relief among Polish liberals and pro-European centrists.The attack reflected the no-holds-barred approach to Polish politics after eight years of Law and Justice rule. But it also highlighted the difficulties for many in Poland of pinning down who their country’s next leader is and where he stands.In a country that has been largely mono-ethnic and monolingual since the end of World War II, Mr. Tusk stands out as a man of eclectic identities, interests and linguistic talents.As Parliament on Tuesday debated whether to endorse a cabinet proposed by Mr. Tusk, one of his most strident critics, the far-right legislator Grzegorz Braun, used a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles during an event with members of the Jewish community.The new government lineup later won a vote of confidence as expected.Mr. Tusk has described himself as having four parallel identities: a proud son of Gdansk, the formerly German port city of Danzig on the Baltic Sea; a Kashubian, an ethnic minority native to northern Poland with its own language and traditions; a Pole and a European.He speaks Polish, Kashubian, German and English, a language he barely knew when he took a break from Polish politics in 2014, to take a senior job in Brussels, but mastered quickly.Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s Law and Justice party, left the plenary hall of the Parliament as Mr. Tusk spoke on Tuesday.Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBeing Polish, Mr. Tusk said in 2014, when he became president of the European Council is “my main identity” but the others matter, too — a position that baffles Mr. Kaczynski and other Polish nationalists, who see allegiance to the Polish state as indivisible.Riina Kionka, a diplomat from Estonia who advised Mr. Tusk in Brussels, remembers him as both a “passionate European” and a “proud Pole determined to lead his country.”Mr. Tusk always had “his two feet firmly on the ground” and sought compromise rather than total victory, she said. “He always told us: ‘It is better to have part of something than all of nothing.’”This distaste for all-or-nothing dogmatism led some to question the convictions of a politician who began his career in a circle of radical free-market believers but who, in Poland’s recent campaign, promised to preserve a raft of welfare payments introduced by Law and Justice.Asked in 2013 whether he had changed his earlier views, he quoted the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, a former Marxist who, after leaving Poland, became a trenchant critic of communism and described himself as a “liberal conservative socialist.” That, Mr. Tusk said, described his own views.“He is a political cherry picker,” said Jarolaw Kuisz, the author of a recent book, “The New Politics of Poland.” He added, “He takes what he sees as the best bits from every part of the spectrum.”Active in politics for more than 40 years, Mr. Tusk started out as a youth activist and journalist with Solidarity in Gdansk. After communism’s collapse, he went on to win two consecutive terms as prime minister, though he cut short the second to take the Brussels position.Mr. Tusk, when he was president of the European Council, in Gdansk in 2019.Adam Warzawa/EPA, via ShutterstockThe job that perhaps prepared him best for his current role, juggling implacable hostility from Law and Justice and tensions within his diverse alliance of supporters, however, was one he took in the 1980s in Gdansk, after communist authorities imposed martial law.Unable to find regular work after being briefly arrested, he took a job scaling chimneys and high buildings with mountaineering gear so as to paint or repair them.This “high-altitude work,” Mr. Tusk later recalled, involved being a “crazy alpinist” and equipped him to calibrate results and risk, a useful political skill. Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, leader of the Polish Peasants Party and Mr. Tusk’s candidate for defense minister, praised him Monday for taking the risk of leaving Brussels to return to Polish politics in 2021, starting what seemed a long-shot effort to beat Law and Justice.“He showed courage when he abandoned a comfortable life,” he said. “He abandoned lucrative posts and came back here.”Mr. Tusk’s flexibility has alarmed some progressives. They loathe Law and Justice but complain that Mr. Tusk has not rallied more forcefully to their side on issues like abortion, on which the outgoing government imposed a near total ban and which Mr. Tusk did nothing to liberalize when he was prime minister.A pro-European Union demonstration following a ruling of the Constitutional Court against the primacy of E.U. law in Poland, in Warsaw on October. Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Tusk declared women’s rights the “No. 1 issue” in Poland this year but, ahead of the general election, removed from his party’s list of candidates an activist who called for allowing for abortion at any stage of pregnancy, a position that risked alienating voters.His party, Civic Coalition, wants to liberalize Poland’s harsh abortion law but only to allow termination up to the 12th week of pregnancy.Zuzanna Dąbrowska, a veteran political journalist, said Mr. Tusk deserved credit for addressing an issue that most politicians avoided. “The majority in Poland has the same opinion that policy on abortion should be more liberal. But politicians have done everything to avoid this reality.”To become prime minister, Mr. Tusk stitched together an array of diverse opposition parties that together won a clear majority of seats in Parliament, and joined forces on Monday to reject Law and Justice’s nominee as prime minister and select Mr. Tusk. They include a leftist grouping, the center-right Polish Peasants Party and hard-line free-market liberals.“To be a good prime minister you must be everything but sometimes you can’t combine water and fire,” said Bartosz Rydlinski, a political scientist at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. “You cannot have low taxes and an effective welfare state. This is Tusk’s biggest challenge.”A fan of Miles Davis who studied history at university, Mr. Tusk has sometimes alienated potential voters, particularly more traditional-minded ones in small rural towns and villages.Mr. Tusk offended millions of Poles in 2005 by dismissing conservatives as a “mohair coalition” — a reference to the berets many older women wear to church. Mr. Tusk apologized but struggled for years to shake off an image of haughty contempt.The candidates Lech Kaczynski of Law and Justice and Mr. Tusk of Civic Platform during a TV debate three days ahead of the first round of presidential elections, in 2005.Tomasz Gzell/European Pressphoto AgencyHe has since talked about his youth in what he describes as “poverty” in Gdansk, particularly after his father, a carpenter, died when he was 14, and how he used to hang out with street toughs. His older sister, he says, helped set him straight.As a university student and then a journalist and youth activist with Solidarity, he embraced free-market economics. He helped found the Liberal Democratic Congress, a group of anti-communist free-marketeers. After the 1990 election of the Solidarity leader Lech Walesa as president, he was involved in managing the privatization of state assets.Widespread public discontent with economic “shock therapy” crushed his early political ambitions. His party’s defeat in a 1993 election dampened his faith in free-market orthodoxy.“He realized he had to follow political currents and adjust to reality,” said Ms. Dąbrowska. “He has been doing this ever since — adjusting his views and himself to political reality.”After retreating from politics for four years to write books, he won a seat in the Polish senate and then helped set up Civic Platform, a liberal party. He became prime minister after the party won a 2007 election, and served a second time after another victory in 2011.He boasted after his second triumph, “we have no one left to lose to” and, to the dismay of many supporters, decamped to Brussels before finishing his second term.A year after his departure, Law and Justice defeated his party in a parliamentary election and won an upset in a presidential race. “He was arrogant and misjudged the situation,” said Mr. Kuisz.But Law and Justice recently made the same mistake, misjudging Mr. Tusk’s ability to reach out to voters after seven years in Brussels.“He was presented as a lofty liberal and came back unsure of his success but determined to fight,” said Mr. Kuisz. “From Brussels he was suddenly everywhere in small towns and villages doing basic grass-roots politics.”Mr. Tusk addressing the Polish Parliament on Tuesday.Pawel Supernak/EPA, via Shutterstock More