WORLD : Heiress Ends Gdansk Project

WARSAW — Polish-born American heiress Barbara Piasecka Johnson, who offered up to $100 million to save the Gdansk shipyard where Solidarity was born, said today she is no longer interested in the project.

Johnson, one of the United States’ richest women, told reporters she had been misunderstood, misrepresented and subjected to political sabotage and ugly propaganda since signing a letter of intent in June, 1989, to take a 55% interest in the shipyard.

She said that if she had gone ahead, she probably would have been embroiled in legal battles with a host of small companies that had grabbed half the shipyard’s assets.