Office of the Historian

Moscow Embassy Files, Lot F–96

President Roosevelt to the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (Stalin)92

undated

The text of the Prime Minister’s message of Feb. 20 to you on the subject of a tentative settlement of the Polish post-war boundary by an agreement between the Soviet and Polish Governments is known to me.

If accepted, the Prime Minister’s suggestion goes far toward furthering our prospects of an early defeat of Germany and I am pleased to recommend that you give favorable and sympathetic consideration to it.

I think, as I intimated before, that the most realistic problem is to be assured that when you get into Poland your armies will be assisted by the Poles.

  1. On February 22, 1944, Ambassador Harriman telegraphed to President Roosevelt that he would hold up delivery of this message until Stalin returned to Moscow, so that it would be received just before a message from Prime Minister Churchill would be delivered by the British Ambassador, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr. The next day the President telegraphed approval of this postponement. The message was received by Stalin on February 28.↩