Piotr Wandycz considers that he was well educated, cosmopolitan, pragmatic, liberal and ambitious, and imbued with a sense of patriotism and belief in cooperation with the left in Western Europe.

Recruited to the army on the 24 August 1939, he fought in the invasion of Poland by Germany as a second lieutenant and the leader of a platoon in the 36th Infantry Regiment of the Academic League.

Rapacki engaged in many rebellious activities, such as writing anti-Nazi books and secret newspapers, joined leftist groups and learnt Russian.

[4] As Foreign Minister, Rapacki was considered be one of the leaders of the liberalising wing of the United Workers' Party that was known for favouring an ease of repression and censorship, which gave him a certain popularity.

[5] In 1956, the Hungarians followed the advice of Radio Free Europe and rose up, only to be crushed by the Red Army: the US did not intervene for fear of causing a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

[5] From the Polish perspective, the hollowness of the claims of Radio Free Europe, together with crushing of the Hungarian uprising, showed there was no point in trying to overthrow the communist regime, and the best that could be done at present was to improve the it.

[5] At the same time, the Polish October uprising, which seen the Stalinist leadership in Warsaw overthrown by a reformist faction of the United Workers's People over the face of Soviet objections, gave hope that Poland would become more independent.

That certainly gave Rapacki hope that disagreements between Britain and France with the United States might be exploited by Polish diplomacy to achieve its goals, the most important of which was to prevent West Germany from acquiring nuclear weapons, which might someday be used against Poland.