Office of the Historian

760C.61/2153: Telegram

The Chargé to the Czechoslovak Government in Exile (Schoenfeld) to the Secretary of State

London, January 13, 1944—5 p.m.
[Received 9:28 p.m.]

Czechoslovakia 1. I saw Acting Foreign Minister Ripka24 yesterday. He referred to Beneš’ recent return from Moscow and said Beneš had been most satisfied with his trip.

Ripka spoke first of Beneš’ impressions regarding Soviet-Polish relations. He said Stalin and Molotov had spoken to him along the lines of the Tass declaration of January 1125 but somewhat more specifically. Beneš had recently given his impressions to Eden and Mikolajczyk.26 Ripka then got out a memorandum of Beneš’ conversation with Mikolajczyk the main points of which were: (1) Stalin and Molotov had told him that the Soviet Government was not against an arrangement with the Poles and the resumption of diplomatic relations. (2) They had no desire to see a Bolshevized Poland. (3) They did not insist on the 1941 frontier. They desired the Curzon Line with some rectifications so that in the north the Poles should have the area around Bialystok, in the center the area around Lomza and in the south the area in Eastern Galicia which included Przemysl. The Soviets would not give up Lwow. (4) They would support territorial compensation for Poland in the west. This could extend as far as the Oder if Poland, Britain, the United States and Czechoslovakia agreed. (5) Changes in the Polish Government were essential. They were not opposed to Mikolajczyk. They objected to General Sosnkowski.27 (6) They desired that the Poles should associate themselves with the policy of alliance against Germany represented by the Czechoslovak-Soviet pact of December 12 last, as envisaged under the protocol thereof.

I inquired whether Ripka was optimistic about a settlement. He said he personally was skeptical. Mikolajczyk had said to Beneš that the settlement suggested would be difficult.

[The remainder of this telegram is printed in volume IV, section under Union of Soviet Socialist Republics entitled “Reports on developments of significance concerning Soviet relations …”]

[Schoenfeld]
  1. Hubert Ripka, sometimes Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs in place of Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, of the Czechoslovak Government in Exile.↩
  2. See footnote 8, p. 1218.↩
  3. Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile and leader of the Peasant Party of Poland.↩
  4. Gen. Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Commander in Chief of the Polish Armed Forces.↩