Adam Rapacki
Adam Rapacki
A diplomat who widened room for negotiation amid East-West tension
On 2 October 1957 he presented to the UN General Assembly his plan for a nuclear-free zone comprising Czechoslovakia, Poland, East and West Germany; it was never adopted.
Adam Rapacki was born on 24 December 1909 in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (now Lviv), and raised in Warsaw. A Polish socialist politician, economist and diplomat, he translated the security demands of the socialist bloc into the language of international negotiation. He proposed a nuclear-free zone in Central Europe in 1957 and called for a European security conference in 1964, helping shape an agenda that fed into the Helsinki process. He was also a Communist politician who served in the PZPR leadership and government, and was nominated for the 1966 Nobel Peace Prize. Regarded as a leader of the party's liberalising wing, he opposed the persecution of people of Jewish origin and was removed as foreign minister in December 1968; he died in Warsaw on 10 October 1970.
Career timeline
- 1931Joined the Union of Independent Socialist Youth
- 1939–1945Educational and political activity in German prisoner-of-war camps
- 1947–1950Polish Minister of Shipping
- 1950–1956Minister of Higher Education and Science, later Higher Education
- 1956–1968Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs
- 1964Proposed convening a European security conference
- 1968Withdrew from political life after the March events
- 1948–1968PZPR Politburo member (deputy member 1954–56)
- 1968.12Removed as foreign minister for opposing anti-Jewish measures