123 Gallman, Waldemar J.: Telegram
The Ambassador in Poland (Gallman) to the Secretary of State
1358. Yesterday’s presentation ceremonies,1 as anticipated, took place in a friendly atmosphere. After President Bierut2 and I had exchanged the customary formal remarks and I had introduced my staff, Bierut invited me, as protocol prescribes, to private talk. Bierut throughout showed cordiality one would expect on occasion of this kind. What did surprise me was length of time he wished to give to our talk. It lasted some forty minutes. He confined it to Poland’s economic problems and relations.3
Bierut opened conversation by saying that as I had been in Poland before war I must have been struck on returning now by degree of [Page 573] destruction. I told him I was, but that I was also struck by spirit and industry shown by people of Poland in work of clearing up and rebuilding. Here he said that as we in the US knew from observing Poles who had emigrated there, Poles were an industrious people but fact remained that in spite of much hard work there were still many ruins and much in field of reconstruction to be done and in this work it had been hoped US would help. After some help from US in period following hostilities, help dwindled and that was a disappointment to Poland. Poland was now doing what she could with her limited resources but there was much she needed from abroad, including US. Poland had established close economic relations with Soviet Union and her immediate neighbors and had reestablished economic relations with some countries further removed, notably Sweden. She wished to reestablish all her prewar economic relations. As for her immediate neighbors I would see that close economic relations with them would be considerably extended over next twelve months. While touching on Poland’s disappointment in her trade relations with US, Bierut showed rather detailed knowledge. He cited Poland’s need of slabbing mill equipment, Poland’s advance of money to purchase this equipment in US, and of how our system of export licenses had stalled shipment of this and other machinery and products. At this juncture, I interposed that I was familiar with the slabbing mill question and, of course, with application of our export licensing system and reasons therefor but in spite of these controls I added that I thought there was room for exploring possibilities of trade in certain fields under certain conditions and I would like to see such possibilities explored when they arose. He replied that he was glad to hear me say this and that Polish Government would support every attempt to further trade with US.
Bierut also said that he had feeling that what was being planned and done rebuilding Poland was not fully appreciated in US. Poland seemed to be regarded as poor field with no prospects. Whatever I could do, he continued, to correct that impression would be appreciated.
I replied that Embassy would continue to report as fully as it could on developments in Poland. I then digressed a bit and said that I felt that if war had not come in 1939 and Poland could have continued for another twenty years as energetically as she had from time she was reestablished as an independent country, solid foundations would have been assured. To this observation he replied vaguely that Poland was a peace loving country.
At one point in our talk, I told Bierut I was very much interested in seeing what was being done outside Warsaw in rebuilding country and asked him what places he would recommend that I should visit. As first step, he said I ought to visit exhibition in Wroclaw which [Page 574] showed what already had been done in western territories and what was planned for them.
Bierut is slow, soft spoken and did not impress me as particularly strong character. Wierblowski, acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was also present at talk, appears to be of harder metal and keener and sharper. He ranks high in Polish Communist circles. It was he who said that, as reported in our despatch 705 of September 28,4 when I expressed interest after becoming established in going over with Foreign Office officials problems of interest to both our governments that he and others would be glad to do that but that “question on the tagger political field” could not be discussed as nothing could be accomplished between us in that field. Yesterday during my talk with Bierut he had very little to say.
Sent Department 1358, pouched Moscow, Prague, Sofia, Bucharest, Belgrade, Budapest.
- Waldemar Gallman succeeded Stanton Griffis as Ambassador in Poland.↩
- Boleslaw Bierut, President of the Polish Republic.↩
- Ambassador Gallman’s first conversation with Polish Foreign Minister Zygmunt Modzelewski, on November 10, reported upon in telegram 1509, November 10, from Warsaw, not printed, was also almost exclusively given over to a discussion of Poland’s desire to increase trade with the United States (711.60C/11–1048).↩
- Not printed.↩