POLISH THREATS TO KHRUSHCHEV

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28368, 29 August 1957, Page 16

POLISH THREATS TO KHRUSHCHEV

Widespread Rumour Reported 1

(NJZ. Press Association—Copyright) PARIS', August 27. Two French members of Parliament have reported that Polish leaders were rumoured to have held Mr Nikita Khrushchev a prisoner and to have threatened to kill him if Soviet troops intervened in the bloodless “revolution” in Poland last year. The Parliamentarians, Mr Jean Lipkowski and Mr Pierre July, said this in an article published in “Paris-Presse.” They returned recently from a visit to Poland. The article said that according to reports circulating in Poland, even the Prime Minister (Mr Wladislaw Gomulka) menaced Khrushchev with a revolver. Mr Khrushchev made an emergency visit to Warsaw when nation-wide unrest toppled the old guard Stalinist regime last October, only a short time before the abortive Hungarian uprising. The article said that popular Polish belief had it that a few hours after being threatened, Mr Khrushchev and other Russian leaders accepted the Polish conditions. They were notably Mr Gomulka’s return to power (he had been deposed several years earlier and imprisoned), the recall to Russia of Marshal Rokossovsky, who under the Stalinist regime was Polish Defence Minister, condemnation of the former Government, and liberalisation of the new regime. The writers said that everyone they had spoken to in Poland had given the same account of events. Even if the “legend of October” was incorrect, they said, all Poland believed it was true, and this was a political fact in itself. It profoundly affected the relations of the Poland of today towards Russia.