The most signal achievement of Brzezhinski’s career was predetermined a year before he took office by one of his last experiences as an academic. In 1976, a Polish Archbishop, Karol Wojtyla, came to Harvard to deliver a lecture. So impressed was Professor Brzezinski, a churchgoer, that he invited the visitor for tea, during which they found much in common. The regular correspondence they embarked on, in Polish, continued for years after Wojtyla’s investiture as Pope John Paul II on October 22, 1978.