Mr Kaczyński is the first incumbent to have supported the letter to the US president. In an unusual appeal that we reported about yesterday, former presidents, prime ministers and cabinet members from Central and Eastern Europe - among them Vaclav Havel, Valdas Adamkus, Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Lech Wałęsa - sounded their worries that the Obama administration appeared uninterested in an alliance with the region, and appealed for a more determined policy towards Russia.

The letter was presented in Washington yesterday by Ron Asmus, co-author of Nato's eastward enlargement under President Clinton. 'You should be happy you're not a problem for US policy,' ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied the letter's authors.

'The historical experience of our countries, which have for centuries had to do with the Russian state, shows that only decisiveness and consistence in presenting your own position can cause our Russian partners to really talk to us,' wrote Lech Kaczyński in a statement published on his official website yesterday. 'The issue of the planned missile defence installations in Central Europe is important because of America's credibility as a global superpower and an ally. Concessions in this regard, even a partial abandonment of the plans, will have disastrous effects and will undermine America's credibility.'

Gazeta talked to several persons yesterday who either signed the letter or helped draw it up. 'A new generation of politicians is coming to power. These are people who don't remember totalitarianism, don't remember the decades of independence struggles. They simply have freedom and have always had it. That's why they see certain things differently than we do. We want policy to remain based on principles that were important for the past generation,' explains the intentions of the letter's authors former Polish foreign minister, Adam Rotfeld.

Gazeta's interlocutors wishing to remain anonymous are more outright. 'We have for years watched Russia reviving its imperialistic policies,' says a Polish diplomat who helped draw up the letter. 'There were the arrogant speeches by Mr Putin, in which he practically refused to recognise Ukraine's independence, and then there was the Georgian war when the West proved unable to stop Russia.'

According to Gazeta's sources it was precisely after last's year conflict over South Osetia that several Central-and-Eastern European politicians from various camps started to seriously worry about US policy towards the region. 'The issue of the missile defence, very important for us, was what overfilled the chalice,' Gazeta heard yesterday. 'A US military base in Poland and the Czech Republic would mean an ultimate end of the Iron Curtain and the post-WWII arrangements made between the US and the USSR. But after Mr Obama's visit to Moscow, the view is that there will be no shield,' adds our source.

The letter has been signed by former politicians, but the views it contains are familiar to and shared by most incumbent heads of state and government in the region. 'The letter didn't come as a surprise to Mr Kaczyński at all,' says a Polish diplomat.

Translated by Marcin Wawrzyńczak