On August 1, 2004, the 60th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, nine runners from Poland left Los Angeles on a cross-country run and reached New York City on September 11, the third anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
The symbolism of the starting point is that this was the destination of one of the airplanes that had been hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center.
The symbolism of the starting date is that the Warsaw Uprising of August 1 to October 2, 1944, was one of Poland’s greatest wartime tragedies – in the words of historian Norman Davies, as many died in Warsaw every day for 63 days as died in the Word Trade Center on September 11th.
The runners, passing through Washington laid a wreath at Arlington Cemetery, visited the Pentagon to pay tribute to those who died on September 11th, and met with Minister Boguslaw Winid, Deputy Ambassador at the Polish Embassy.
On September 8, 2004 Poland and the United States signed an agreement to facilitate the travel of bona fide passengers on direct flights from Warsaw’s Frederic Chopin Airport to the U.S. (JFK, Newark, O’Hare). This was the implementation of Foreign Minister Cimoszewicz’s proposal which was announced by presidents of both countries in January 2004. The Immigration Advisory Program (IAP), as it is known, is designed to reduce the number of travelers who are turned away at U.S. ports-of-entry because of invalid or expired visas. These passengers (who make up less than one percent of all Polish citizens admitted to the U.S. annually) are informed that they face this likelihood prior to boarding and have an opportunity to avoid this inconvenience and expense.
Boguslaw Winid (DCM) presenting Stanis³aw Borucki with the nomination to the position of Honorary Consul of Poland in Anchorage, Alaska (September 10, 2004).
Victor Ashe was nominated by President Bush to be Ambassador to the Republic of Poland on April 8, 2004, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 21, 2004. He was sworn in on June 23, 2004, in Washington, DC. Amb. Ashe has a long history of public service, having served over 31 years in elective office at the state and local level in Tennessee. In December 2003, he completed 16 years as Mayor of Knoxville, making him the longest serving Mayor in the city’s 213-year history. Prior to that, he was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1968 at the age of 23, and served six years before being elected in 1975 to the Tennessee State Senate, where he served for 9 years. Also during this time, Mr. Ashe served in the U.S. Marine Corps Air Reserves from 1967 to 1973. Most recently, Amb. Ashe completed a three-month Residency Fellowship in May 2004 at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Amb. Ashe was born January 1, 1945, in Knoxville and attended public schools there. He graduated from the Hotchkiss School, in Lakeville, Connecticut, in 1963 and from Yale University with a BA in History in 1967. He received his law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1974. In 1965, Mr. Ashe served as an intern in the office of Congressman Bill Brock, where he helped to write a tax sharing for education bill. In 1967, he was a staff assistant in the office of then-Senator Howard Baker, who is now the U.S. Ambassador to Japan.
As Mayor of Knoxville, Mr. Ashe established a sister city relationship with Chelm in Poland and led two delegations to the city, one in 1997 and the other in 2000. Mr. Ashe also led a delegation of U.S. mayors to Israel in 1995 and to Uganda in 2003 on HIV/AIDS. Amb. Ashe is married to the former Joan Plumlee and they have two children, J. Victor, 14 and Martha, 11. Mrs. Ashe was an elementary school teacher for 13 years. Amb. Ashe is an avid hiker.