MOSCOW TALKS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 245, 16 October 1944, Page 5

MOSCOW TALKS

POLES MORE HOPEFUL

Ovation For Churchill And

Stalin At Ballet

Rec. 1 p.m

LONDON, Oct. 15

Marshal Stalin; Mr. Churchill and the Prime Minister of Poland, M. Mikolajczyk, conferred for two hours on Friday night. M, Mikolajczyk had previously conferred separately with the British and Soviet Foreign Ministers, Messrs. Eden and Molotov, and the United States Ambassador, Mr. Averell Harriman, also with the leaders of the Lublin Committee. The talks between Marshal Stalin and Mr. Churchill were continued yesterday.

M. Boleslaw Berut, president of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, made the following statement to correspondents:—"After conferring with Mr. Churchill and Marshal Stalin I am optimistic about the results of the present talks. Poland needs the unification of all her forces. We will get unity on the basis of some kind of compromise."

After a concert in Moscow ; on Saturday night, where Mr. Churchill received a great ovation, Marshal Stalin and M.r. Churchill went to the Kremiin and conferred for three hours with M. Molotov, Sir Alan Brooke and General Sir Hastings Ismay, says a Moscow correspondent. At the same time Mr. Eden conferred with the Polish Premier, M. Mikolajczyk, the Polish Foreign Minister, M. Romer, and Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, British Ambassador.

The audience arose as one man and cheered wildly when Mr. Churchill and Marshal Stalin attended a gala ballet performance at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, on Saturday night,. says the British United Press correspondent in Moscow. It was Marshal Stalin's first appearance at the theatre since the outbreak of war and Mr. Churchill's first public appearance in the Soviet Union.

A Moscow correspondent prophesies that on Sunday night or Monday Mr. Churchill will be treated to a third victory salute as the Red Army is fighting on the outskirts of Belgrade, and latest reports from there speak of panic and disorder among the Germans. Russian and foreign observers, discussing the military situation, are speculating whether Mr. Churchill may not be treated to yet another victory salute on the occasion of the crossing into East Prussia by the Red Army, which stands ready for the final onslaught in at least three places on the frontier.