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Comrade Maxim Maximovich Litvinov arose, and in the course of welcoming the plenipotentiaries of Rumania, Poland, Latvia and Esthonia, referred to Rumania as "a country with which we had serious difficulties—difficulties not settled by this protocol."
What did that mean-Bessarabia? Oracle Litvinov did not explain. Perhaps he was alluding to the several hundred pinpricks and quarrels which have estranged Bucharest and Moscow. But whatever he meant, 'his words provoked no slightest frown or trace of annoyance on the smiling face of Carol A. Davila.
The Rumanian statesman participated in the signing of the protocol; he delivered an effusion to the effect that Eastern Europe thus became the only area where the Kellogg pact was in force last week,* and finally M. Davila joined all present in a champagne toast—Crimean champagne.
The next long journey to be made by Rumania's Davila will be to Washington, D. C., where he is slated to replace M. George Cretziano as Rumanian Minister.
Significance. If Rumania actually did receive a secret assurance that Soviet Russia has renounced her claims to Bessarabia, that was the biggest news in Europe last week. Secrecy may well have been necessary, in order to give the Soviet Government time in which to break gently to Soviet citizens, school children and map makers the news that Bessarabia has been in Rumania for the last eleven years.
*When all the original signatories have ratified the pact, it will become operative among them. The nations of the British Commonwealth were dallying over ratification last week. Of the 15 original signatories, only four—Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, the U. S. have ratified, but all unquestionably will.