840.48/3228

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Adviser on Political Relations (Dunn)

The Polish Ambassador6 came in this morning and stated that he had talked with Mr. Herbert Hoover in New York yesterday. Mr. Hoover had told him that he was now planning to renew the drive for funds for civilian relief in Poland, and that a large meeting for this purpose was to be held in Chicago on February 10th. Mr. Hoover had told the Ambassador that if no acceptance had been received from the German Government by that date of the proposals Mr. Hoover had made with regard to American supervision of the distribution of relief in German occupied Poland, or if the German Government had, before that date, refused to accept these proposals, Mr. Hoover planned to make a public statement explaining the arrangements he had suggested, thereby putting the German Government in the position of having refused to cooperate in the carrying on of this humanitarian work.

The Ambassador further stated that Mr. Hoover had told him confidentially that he was contemplating making an effort to obtain a Governmental loan from the United States, Great Britain, and France, and perhaps other countries, with a view to obtaining funds for enlarged plans for extending civilian relief to the Poles in occupied [Page 750] Poland, thus permitting the carrying on of the private efforts for civilian relief of Polish refugees who had succeeded in leaving Poland but were in need of relief in the countries to which they had gone.

The Ambassador said that he thought the recent revelations of atrocities in Poland on the civilian population as given out by the Vatican were being given far greater publicity and were much more impressive than any similar reports that might have been given out by strictly Polish sources.

James Clement Dunn
  1. Count Jerzy Potocki.