Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Marek Łatyński papers
Date (inclusive): 1958-2002
Collection Number: 2017C3
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material:
Polish
Physical Description:
16 manuscript boxes
(6.7 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Correspondence, writings, memoranda, reports, broadcast transcripts, and printed matter relating to radio broadcasting to
Poland, and to Polish-Swiss relations.
Creator:
Łatyński, Marek
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual
or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Materials were acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2016.
[Identification of item], Marek Łatyński papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Marek Łatyński, a Polish journalist, was born in Warsaw in 1930 into a middle-class family. Much of his childhood and youth
coincided with periods of Nazi and Stalinist terror in Poland. During the German occupation of the country, he attended classes
in an underground gymnasium. After the war, the communists imprisoned his father for six years on charges of "economic sabotage."
Łatyński's university studies were in English language and literature at the universities of Cracow and Warsaw. He was also
very interested in twentieth-century Polish history but had to study it on his own, as this was a subject under the rigid
control of the Communist Party. Although still a student, Łatyński found employment in the Polish Radio's foreign-language
programming. He worked there until his defection from the Polish People's Republic in 1967.
During a few months' stay in Paris, Łatyński was noticed by two key Polish émigré leaders, Jerzy Giedroyc, the Paris publisher,
and Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, the director of the Polish service of Radio Free Europe (RFE). Nowak offered Łatyński a job with
RFE in Munich. His association with RFE, first in charge of daily news and later as director of the Polish service, lasted
until the end of 1989, with a two-year hiatus in the 1980s when he served as Voice of America's commentator on East Central
Europe in Washington, D.C.
Łatyński returned to Munich as director of RFE's Polish broadcast service in 1987. His tenure, from March 1987 through November
1989, coincided with the momentous changes taking place in Poland and within the Soviet bloc, led by the last Soviet Communist
Party general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev. In January 1988, the communists stopped jamming RFE programming and the Munich
radio greatly increased its daily presence in Poland. Live telephone interviews with Solidarity opposition leaders and prominent
cultural and religious figures, combined with in-depth uncensored international and domestic news, helped solidify national
consensus for a peaceful political change. Under Łatyński's direction, Radio Free Europe Polish broadcasting became an important
medium for the anticommunist opposition during the Round Table Talks with the communist regime and the semi-free elections
of June 1989, which opened the way for a democratic Poland. In July 1989, Łatyński made his first trip to his homeland in
more than two decades, as a member of George H. Bush's press entourage during the president's official visit to Poland.
Łatyński briefly worked as the Paris commentator for the Polish radio and, from 1991 to 1994, served as Poland's ambassador
to Switzerland. He also continued to write and publish, first his RFE memoirs, titled
The English Garden (the Munich street address of RFE), and later a greatly expanded and revised edition of his study on Stalinist terror in
Poland of the 1940s and early 1950s. Łatyński died in Warsaw in 2003.
Scope and Content of Collection
The papers of Marek Łatyński consist of his RFE papers, the archives connected with his ambassadorial tenure in Bern, and
his historical manuscripts. Materials include correspondence, writings, memoranda, reports, broadcast transcripts, and printed
matter.
Andrzej Czechowicz papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Zdzisław Najder papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Radio broadcasting -- Poland
Poland -- Foreign relations -- Switzerland
Switzerland -- Foreign relations -- Poland
Radio Free Europe