Important Fact

French and Russian distrust of Adolf Hitler's Germany hastened the signing last fortnight of the Treaty of Mutual Assistance between France and Russia (TiME, May 13). Last week France, which cherishes its old alliance with Poland even more than its new one with Russia, lost no time in trying to fix up one of the flaws in the new treaty setup, a flaw caused by the fact that Poland's Dictator Pilsudski dis- trusted Russia and rather liked Germany. To Foreign Minister Pierre Laval fell the chore of explaining the innocence of the Franco-Russian treaty to Pilsudski.

One important fact Laval did not have, as he stepped on the Express du Nord in Paris: that Dictator Pilsudski was fast dying of cancer (see p. 21). When the train stopped for 20 minutes in Berlin, he expected what he got, scant attention from anybody except the French Ambassador. But he was chilled to the marrow, when the train pulled up on a well-guarded siding in Warsaw, by the strange stiffness of the top-hatted Poles. Foreign Minister Josef Beck explained that Pilsudski had a little hangover of influenza, proceeded to do the honors with a cold and abstracted air. Into this atmosphere Laval launched his strategic idea that Poland and Germany should join Russia in a consultative pact for non-aggression in Eastern Europe without mutual assistance guarantees. Beck, his mind on the cancer cells ravening in Pilsudski's stomach, was noncommittal.

Baffled and dismayed, Laval left for Moscow where the Russians, whose Stalin is in the best of health, set off the Poles' coldness with their own full-blooded reception. At week's end Laval heard about Pilsudski's death, thought he understood.

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