New Cabinet, Old Talk

A new Polish Government in Exile was announced in London last week by President Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz. It was somewhat to the left of the government of General Wladyslaw Sikorski. The new Premier: Peasant Leader Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, no surprise. New Foreign Minister: Tadeusz Romer, quite a surprise.

Tadeusz Romer is a career diplomat who knows how to get on with any government. As Polish Ambassador to Japan until Pearl Harbor, he got on so well with the Japanese that he was able to get clothes, money and passage for Polish refugees stranded in Japan. As Ambassador to Russia, until the Russians broke relations with the Polish Government in Exile, he earned the trust and respect of Soviet leaders.

To the Soviet Union, Prime Minister Mikolajczyk tossed this bid for a reconciliation: "The sincere wish of the new Polish Government [is] that relations with Russia be re-established." But in his first official interview he let drop a remark which must have ruffled Russia anew. Instead of ignoring a correspondent's question asking whether Poland favored the restoration of the Baltic States, Mikolajczyk replied: "I can say that no Pole could remain indifferent to the aspirations of any country seeking independence."

In Russia last week the Polish Kosciuszko Division was displayed to foreign correspondents. Some of its officers & men were Poles who refused to leave the Soviet Union with General Wladyslaw Anders' Polish armies last year. Its equipment was brand-new--all-Russian except for a few jeeps and U.S. trucks. Many companies were armed entirely with automatic weapons. The division's estimated fire power: seven times that of the Polish division of 1939.

Cabled New York Times Correspondent Alexander Werth: "The unity of interests of Russia and Poland was emphasized in everything."

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