Wojciech Jaruzelski had sent Eugeniusz Molczyk to confer with Vice President George H. W. Bush and Bush had agreed with Molczyk that martial law was the lesser of two evils. Whether this meeting with the American vice president occurred is disputed. While it is erroneously cited, Harvard historian Mark Kramer has pointed out that no documents support Jaruzelski's claim. Jaruzelski was chiefly responsible for the imposition of martial law in Poland on 13 December 1981 in an attempt to crush the pro-democracy movements, which included Solidarity, the first non-Communist trade union in Warsaw Pact history. Subsequent years saw his government and its
Martial law in the United States and customs" which had led to "outbreaks of lawlessness and mob action." The agitators were Freedom Riders, peaceful civil rights activists challenging the already-illegal racial segregation in the South. Martial law in the United States Martial law in the United States refers to several periods in United States history wherein a region or the United States as whole are placed under the control of a military body. On a federal level, only the president has the power to impose Martial Law. In each state the governor has the right to impose martial law within the borders of the state. In