THAT GOMULKA should not shrink from the desperate expedient of
a visit to Moscow strikes me as further confirmation of the man's boldness. for such visits are notoriously bad for the health. Quite apart from the tendency of people who negotiate with Russians to disappear—like the Hungarian War Minister last week or the Polish underground leaders in 1945— there are few satellite countries which have not lost a leader by 'natural death' resulting from a stay in Russia. Gomulka's previously healthy predecessor Bierut passed away suddenly only last March while in Moscow and under a cloud. Czecho- slovakia's Gottwald just managed to get back to Prague in 1953, but he was accompanied by Soviet specialists and died a couple of days after his return. Dimitrov, also in the dog- house, very unwillingly left Bulgaria to be cured to death in a Moscow sanitorium. Of course, since Khrushchev's speech we know that Soviet death certificates allow themselves a certain latitude. For he revealed that Ordzhonikidze, whose heart failure was attested to by all the leading specialists in Moscow, had in reality been compelled to shoot himself. I hope Gomulka has taken a chest-protector—preferably a steel one.
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