Office of the Historian

760C.61/2161: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State

London, January 15, 1944—2 p.m.
[Received 2:26 p.m.]

384. You will have already received the Polish declaration dated 14th January through the Embassy forwarded by Schoenfeld and his message No. 8 Polish Series of yesterday.30 Cadogan31 told me last night that a communication has also been forwarded to Halifax32 for transmission to the Department.

In contacting Eden at a later hour he told me that in talking with the Russian Ambassador yesterday evening on the Polish statement Gousev33 was not inclined to be receptive to the Polish position. He wanted to know why the Poles did not accept the Curzon line and made some further statement about the retention of persons unfriendly to Russia both in the Polish Government and in the military. Eden told him that he could not expect the Polish Government to concede in its first statement the frontier position set out by the Russians and that it was only natural that they should expect this issue to be made a matter of discussion; that their willingness to discuss after the Russian position had been publicly stated was in itself a concession in the direction of a reasonable approach to the problem. In regard to the question of personalities Eden said he could not say. There was some discussion as to whether the position taken in the Polish statement would be accepted by those in the Polish Government opposed to Russia or whether it would lead to resignations. I am told through Beneš (see my 386 of today34) that Stalin is friendly to Prime Minister Mikolajczyk. You already know that General Sosnkowski and Kot35 are unfriendly to the Russians and that the Russians distrust them.

I know that including us as an intermediary creates difficulties for us. I do not think Eden could have kept this out of the statement. He had a long hard tussle to get a statement from the Poles that would permit discussions at all. In support the Prime Minister forwarded a statement to be read to the Poles. He wanted the President and you to know that he had done his best to bring about a rapprochement in the hope of possibility of settlement.

Winant
  1. Not printed, but see Polish Series telegram 9, January 14, supra. ↩
  2. Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under Secretary of State in the British Foreign Office.↩
  3. Viscount Halifax, British Ambassador in the United States.↩
  4. Fedor Tarasovich Gusev, Soviet Ambassador in the United Kingdom.↩
  5. Not printed.↩
  6. Stanislaw Kot, Minister of Information of the Polish Government in Exile; former Polish Ambassador to the Soviet Union.↩