Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, Europe, Volume V

860C.01/4–1545

Memorandum by the Secretary of State to President Truman

[Washington,] April 15, 1945.

Mr. Eden²⁴ has given me for transmission to you the attached personal and top secret message from the Prime Minister.

Mr. Eden has discussed with us the point that the Prime Minister has in mind in regard to the joint message to Stalin on the Polish question. It involves only one change of a minor nature which we feel is an improvement and provides greater clarification. This change will be found on page 4 under point 1 regarding the Poles to be invited for consultation. Instead of leaving it up to Stalin to select one Pole from inside Poland we submit a list of four from which he can choose one.

I am attaching, therefore, suggested instructions to Ambassador Harriman in Moscow for him to deliver to Marshal Stalin together with the British Ambassador, if they have not left yet with Molotov,²⁵ the joint message from you and the Prime Minister with the slight revision which the Prime Minister has suggested.

If you approve of the dispatch of the message in the manner suggested you could send it immediately through the Map Room in its present form. We have promised to notify Eden immediately when you have approved this message for transmission. I shall do this when I have heard from you or the Map Room that the message has been dispatched.

Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.

[Annex 1]

The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Truman

[London, April 15, 1945.]

3. It gave me great pleasure to receive your message Number 1 and I am thankful indeed for expressions of friendship and comradeship which it contains. I reciprocate most cordially.

2. I have just read draft of joint message which you propose we should send to Stalin. In principle I am in complete agreement with its terms but there is one important point which Eden will put before you, and as you and he will be able to discuss the text together any points of detail can I am sure be adjusted. I will consult the Cabinet on Monday²⁶ if final draft reaches me by then and I hope we may despatch message with our joint authority on that very day, as I strongly agree with you that our reply is of high urgency. Moreover, it is important to strike the note of our unity of outlook and of action at the earliest moment.

3. Meanwhile Eden will no doubt discuss with you our impressions of what is actually happening in Moscow and Warsaw. As I see it, the Lublin Government are feeling the strong sentiment of the Polish nation, which though not unfriendly to Russia, is fiercely resolved on independence, and views with increasing disfavour a Polish Provisional Government which is, in the main, a Soviet puppet. They are, therefore, endeavouring in accord with the Soviet Government, to form a government more broad-based than the present one, by the addition of Polish personalities (including perhaps Witos) whom they have in their power but whose aid they seek and need. This is a step in the right direction but would not satisfy our requirements or decisions of Crimea Conference.

4. Eden saw Mikolajczyk before his departure and Mikolajczyk promised to make declaration desired of him in Stalin’s private introductory telegram to me dated April 7 which I repeated to President Roosevelt in my No. 946.²⁷ I hope to have this afternoon the form of his declaration which he will publish in his own Polish paper here next Thursday.²⁸ This, if satisfactory, can be telegraphed to Stalin Monday either simultaneously with or as part of our joint message and if it is not satisfactory I will wrestle with him to make it so and thereafter repeat to you.

[Annex 2]

Draft Message From President Truman to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman)²⁹

You are instructed together with the British Ambassador who will receive similar instructions to arrange immediately for an interview with Marshal Stalin and hand to him the following text of a joint message from the Prime Minister and myself. If you are unable to see Marshal Stalin before your departure, you and the British Ambassador should transmit the message to Marshal Stalin through the appropriate channels. (In the event that Ambassadors Harriman and Clark Carr [Kerr] have departed the Chargé d’Affaires with his British colleague should address a joint communication to Marshal Stalin transmitting the message from the President and the Prime Minister.[)]

Personal and Secret from the President and the Prime Minister for Marshal Stalin

“We are sending this joint reply to your messages of April 7 in regard to Polish negotiations for the sake of greater clarity and in order that there will be no misunderstanding as to our position on this matter. The British and United States Governments have tried most earnestly to be constructive and fair in their approach and will continue to do so. Before putting before you the concrete and constructive suggestion which is the purpose of this message we feel it necessary, however, to correct the completely erroneous impression which you have apparently received in regard to the position of the British and United States Governments as set forth by our Ambassadors under direct instructions during the negotiations. It is most surprising to have you state that the present Government functioning in Warsaw has been in any way ignored during these negotiations. Such has never been our intention nor our position. You must be cognizant of the fact that our Ambassadors in Moscow have agreed without question that the three leaders of the Warsaw Government should be included in the list of Poles to be invited to come to Moscow for consultation with the Commission. We have never denied that among the three elements from which the new Provisional Government of National Unity is to be formed the representatives of the present Warsaw Government will play, unquestionably, a prominent part. Nor can it be said with any justification that our Ambassadors are demanding the right to invite an unlimited number of Poles. The right to put forward and have accepted by the Commission individual representative Poles from abroad and from within Poland to be invited to Moscow for consultation cannot be interpreted in that sense. Indeed in his message of April 1 President Roosevelt specifically said ‘In order to facilitate the agreement the Commission might first of all select a small but representative group of Polish leaders who could suggest other names for consideration by the Commission.’ The real issue between us is whether or not the Warsaw Government has the right to veto individual candidates for consultation. No such interpretation in our considered opinion can be found in the Crimea decision. It appears to us that you are reverting to the original position taken by the Soviet delegation at the Crimea which was subsequently modified in the agreement. Let us keep clearly in mind that we are now speaking only of the group of Poles who are to be invited to Moscow for consultation. With reference to the statement which you attribute to Ambassador Harriman it would appear that real misunderstanding has occurred since from his reports to his Government the remark in question would appear to refer to the Polish Government in London and not as you maintain to the Provisional Government in Warsaw.³⁰

You mention the desirability of inviting eight Poles—five from within Poland and three from London—to take part in these first consultations and in your message to the Prime Minister you indicate that Mikolajczyk would be acceptable if he issued a statement in support of the Crimean decision. We, therefore, submit the following proposals for your consideration in order to prevent a breakdown with all its incalculable consequences of our endeavors to settle the Polish question. We hope that you will give them your most careful and earnest consideration.

1. That we instruct our representatives on the Commission to extend immediately invitations to the following Polish leaders to come to Moscow to consult: Bierut, Osubka-Morawski, Rola-Zymerski Bishop Sapieha; one representative Polish political party leader not connected with the present Warsaw Government (if any of the following were agreeable to you they would be agreeable to us: Witos, Zulawski, Chacinski, Jasiukowicz);³¹ and from London, Mikolajczyk Grabski, and Stanczyk.

2. That once the invitations to come for consultation have been issued by the Commission the representatives of Warsaw could arrive first if desired.

3. That it be agreed that these Polish leaders called for consultation could suggest to the Commission the names of a certain number of other Polish leaders from within Poland or abroad who might be brought in for consultation in order that all major Polish groups be represented in the discussions.

4. We do not feel that we could commit ourselves to any formula for determining the composition of the new Government of National Unity in advance of consultation with the Polish leaders and we do not in any case consider the Yugoslav precedent to be applicable to Poland.

We ask you to read again carefully the American and British messages of April 1 since they set forth the larger considerations which we still have very much in mind and to which we must adhere.”

24. Foreign Secretary Eden had arrived in Washington on April 15 to attend President Roosevelt’s funeral and to confer with the Secretary of State prior to the opening of the United Nations Conference on April 25.
25. For information regarding the plans to leave Moscow, see telegram 1151, April 13, 11 a.m., from Moscow, p. 825.
26. April 16.
27. The Prime Minister’s message No. 946 to President Roosevelt, not printed; for text of the message of April 7 from Stalin to Churchill, see p. 204.
28. In the course of an interview on the evening of April 15 at the country estate, Chequers, Prime Minister Churchill persuaded Mikolajczyk to issue a public statement accepting the Yalta agreements on Poland. For accounts of this interview and the text of the resultant declaration, see Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 488–489; Rozek, Allied Wartime Diplomacy, pp. 367–369; and Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, The Rape of Poland: Pattern of Soviet Aggression (New York and Toronto, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1948), p. 114. Mikolajczyk subsequently also published a signed article in his newspaper Jutro Polski on April 19 which tended to accept further the Curzon Line as Poland’s eastern frontier. This second Mikolajczyk statement is quoted in Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 489–490.
29. The date of this telegram as sent was presumably April 16, 1945.
30. This sentence was omitted in the version of the message as delivered to Stalin on April 18, 1945.
31. The clause in parentheses replaced the clause “to be proposed by you” in the draft sent by President Truman to Prime Minister Churchill in telegram 2, April 13, p. 211.