File No. 861.48/588a
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Russia ( Francis)1
121. The Department is faced with the urgent problem of determining whether the relief remittances now allowed to go from the United States into Poland at the rate of $300,000 a month shall be extended to Lithuania and all the other portions of Russia occupied by the enemy. The Department feels that the matter must be judged from the political no less than from the humanitarian point of view. The question therefore arises whether American relief money paid to the inhabitants of the occupied Russian provinces other than Poland would have the effect of rendering the people more friendly to the Allied cause or whether the withholding of this relief would work a similar effect by rendering the people hostile to Germany by the destitution caused them through the German régime. From your knowledge of the situation the Department will be glad to have an expression of your views to consider in determining its future policy.
- The same, on the same date, to the Chargé in Denmark (No. 856) and to the Minister in Sweden (No. 767).↩