Warsaw – nerves in Poland before May Day.

What it was looking like, this last day of April in 1983:

From Poland – Police, in Gdansk, summoned three aides of Lech Walesa today, maintaining their pressure on the Solidarity leader on the eve of anti-government demonstrations planned for May Day by his outlawed union federation. Walesa, reached by telephone at his Gdansk apartment, said his friend and bodyguard, Henryk Mazur, was called this morning to the police station. Police questioned Mazur for about five hours Friday. Walesa’s secretary, Bozena Rybicka, was summoned for the fourth time in three days, but she was seeing her doctor and did not go. Her brother Aram, who also works for Walesa, was taken in by police, Piotr Konopka, Walesa’s spokesman, called Friday’s interrogations “harrassment” by the government.

Meanwhile, a mysterious radio announcer claiming to speak for Solidarity, urged Poles on Friday to stay Day and ignore a call by the labor federation for protests against the Communist government. It was impossible for reporters to determine whether the three-minute broadcast was from Solidarity or a government ruse. The government has launched a campaign in Poland’s official news media to defuse the planned demonstrations, and has detained members of Solidarity in Poland in recent weeks. Underground leaders of Solidarity, with Walesa’s tacit endorsement, have called on people to boycott the traditional Communist parades and stage unofficial rallies.

Walesa, 39, has not revealed his plans for Sunday. Contacted at his Gdansk home Friday night, Walesa said: “At this point I have nothing to say on that subject.’.

Meanwhile – A tornado, part of a broad system of thunderstorms that rolled across the nation’s midsection, cut through Springfield, Mo., in g an estimated 100 homes, injuring 17 people and leaving one person dead, officials said today. Storms Friday also soaked parts of Missouri and Kentucky with more than 4 inches of rain, and drowned a Missouri woman when she was washed into a swollen creek, authorities said. An unidentified girl, believed to be a teenager, died in Springfield when she was thrown from a car and another passenger was seriously injured. The vehicle was caught in the tornado that spun through the southwestern Missouri city of 120,000 people, police said. The twister scissored a path 1.5 miles long quarter-mile wide across the city, destroying at least 100 homes and damaging another 200 dwellings, Mayor George Scruggs said early today. At least 16 people suffered minor injuries, Scruggs said.

Muddy Waters, the blues singer and guitarist who brought his brand of music from the Mississippi Delta to the urban north and to worldwide popularity, died today at age 68. Waters died in his sleep of cardiac arrest at 2:17 a.m. at his home in the Chicago suburb of Westmont, according to a statement from his manager, Scott Cameron. Waters, the son of a sharecropper, was born McKinley Morganfield on April 4, 1915, in Rolling Fork, Miss. He picked up his nickname in his early days playing at fish fries and other social gatherings in his hometown.

And finally – George Balanchine, perhaps the greatest choreographer of the 20th century and the founder of the New York City Ballet, died today of pneumonia at age 79. Born in czarist Russia, he left his native country in 1923 to tour Europe as a dancer. About 10 years he arrived in the United States, where he founded the ballet company. He ran the company until this year when Peter Martins, the Danish ballet star, took over as director. Balanchine was named director emeritus.

Balanchine died at 4:27 a.m. at Roosevelt Hospital, hospital spokeswoman Bernie Wisneski said. He had been admitted to Roosevelt about six months ago with neurological problems that gave him balance problems. The exact cause of death was bilateral pneumonia, Wisneski said.

And while Poland was holding it’s breath, that’s just a slice of what happened, April 30, 1983 as reported by CBS Radio News.

The post April 30, 1983 – Poland Braces For May Day – Spring Weather Misery – Muddy Waters And George Balanchine Have Passed...