740.00/1821: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Grummon) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 29—9 a.m.]
349. I am informed in strict confidence by a member of the Polish Embassy here that, following Molotov’s speech on May 31,8 the Ambassador inquired here as to the attitude of the Soviet Government in the event of a German attack on Poland and that Molotov gave the Ambassador the most formal oral assurances that in the event of such a conflict the Polish Government could count upon economic support from the Soviet Union. It was added that similar assurances had been given by Mikoyan9 recently during conversations in connection with certain economic questions such as transit rights arising out of the Polish-Soviet commercial agreement.10 My informant stated that similar assurances had been given by Potemkin11 to Beck during the former’s visit to Warsaw last spring. He indicated that these assurances of support involved little more than the right to obtain certain raw materials from Soviet Union and to enjoy transit facilities through the port of Murmansk in the event of a conflict. It was added that the Polish Ambassador here and the Polish Government were inclined to accept these assurances at their face value as representing the real interests of the Soviet Union which in the last analysis coincide with those of Poland in resisting German expansion eastward.
- For outline of speech, see telegram No. 282, June 1, from the Chargé in the Soviet Union, Foreign Relations, The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, p. 764.↩
- Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, People’s Commissar for Foreign Trade of the Soviet Union.↩
- See Polish communiqué of February 19, 1939, Polish White Book, doc. No. 162, p. 182.↩
- Vladimir Petrovich Potemkin, Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.↩