860C.48/862½
Memorandum by the Acting Chief of the Division of European Affairs (Atherton) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary: The Polish Ambassador has just called on me and expressed appreciation of your kindness in arranging an interview for him with the President last Wednesday44 regarding the fate of certain Polish citizens and relief workers in the Soviet Union. Acting under [Page 171] instructions from his Government the Polish Ambassador explained to the President that this was perhaps such a grave question of relationships that he was seeking the President’s personal intervention in the matter. The President stated his sympathetic considerations of what the Polish Ambassador said and added that as Mr. Harriman45 was on the point of leaving for Moscow46 he would let Mr. Harriman be the President’s spokesman in this matter in the Soviet capital. The President Asked the Polish Ambassador to telegraph to Count Raczynski, the Polish Foreign Minister in London, the full details of his talk with the Polish Ambassador here and ask the Polish Foreign Minister to immediately get in touch with Mr. Harriman before his departure for Moscow and inform him of the nature of the representations intended. Meanwhile the President informed the Polish Ambassador that he would undertake personally to see that instructions reached Harriman authorizing him to make these representations upon his arrival in Moscow.
Immediately after his conversation with the President the Polish Ambassador telegraphed the Polish Foreign Minister in London in the above sense but on Saturday was informed from London that Mr. Harriman had left for the Soviet capital either Thursday evening or Friday morning before the Polish Foreign Sec[retar]y had a chance to approach him and give him the facts of the case. However, all the data had now been telegraphed to the Polish Chargé d’Affaires in Moscow and the Polish Ambassador Asked your good offices to the end that Mr. Harriman might be instructed to get in contact with the Polish Chargé d’Affaires in Moscow and inform himself of the facts and conditions on which he was to base his representations (according to the President’s direct instructions to Mr. Harriman) upon his arrival in Moscow.47 I undertook to inform you in the above sense.
- August 5.↩
- W. Averell Harriman, Representative in London of the Combined Production and Resources Board (Lend-Lease Coordinator).↩
- Harriman caught up with British Prime Minister Churchill, who was on his way to Moscow for conversations with Stalin. For reports concerning these meetings, see pp. 618–627, passim. ↩
- See further in this connection the memorandum printed on p. 178.↩