740.00113 European War 1939/1189: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Bucknell) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9 p.m.]
8415. The Foreign Office today informed us that they have cabled instructions to the British Embassy in Moscow regarding the Russian-Polish problem referred to in Embassy’s 7864, of November 11. We were not shown draft of British cable as previously agreed because of some confusion and misunderstanding arising from the fact that Ward of the Foreign Office who deals with this question, only recently returned from Moscow. However, the telegram, a paraphrase of which has been handed to the Embassy, was along the broad lines previously discussed with Embassy and transmitted to Department in Embassy’s 7864.
[Page 456]The telegram was sent on November 27 and began by summarizing the developments in the Inter-Allied Sub-Committee on Acts of Dispossession which led to the refusal of the Soviet delegate to sign the draft report unless all references to Poland were eliminated. It explained the grounds upon which the Soviet delegate based his objections to the report and the position he took on the committee. This information is contained in Embassy’s 6833, October 8, 7387, October 26, and 7864, November 11.
The telegram explained that the British felt unable to put pressure on the Poles since it would conflict with the British policy of not recognizing territorial changes occurring after the outbreak of war and that deletion of all references to Poland would spoil the report and provoke a dispute between the Poles and the Sub-Committee. It was made clear that the Soviet delegate was acting on rigid instructions and unless these instructions could be modified the choice was between producing no report or producing a report without the concurrence of the Soviet representative, who might be supported by other governments who would also withhold signature.
The Foreign Office stressed that they wanted very much to avoid this situation and they instructed the British Embassy to take up in the most appropriate manner the question of modifying Mr. Istchenko’s instructions. The British Embassy was also instructed to explain the concern of the Foreign Office at the development of this unfortunate controversy, partly because they deplored anything which further impaired Russian-Polish relations and particularly because of the British interest in the discussions resulting in the declaration of the 5th of January, 1943 and the setting up of the Sub-Committee with a British chairman. The Foreign Office pointed out that political disputes should not hold up the work of fact finding technical committees and that the British Government hoped that the Soviet Government also considered that the activities of such a committee engaged on the preliminary study necessary for dealing with enemy acts of dispossession were important. The British Government expressed the belief that the Soviet Government would agree that politics had no place on the work of the committee and hoped, therefore, that the Soviet representative would be authorized to sign the draft report since it in fact did not mention either the disputed territory or the disputed Polish Government paper. The fact that the Sub-Committee had agreed to emphasize that no political implications should be drawn from the report and was also willing that the Soviet representative should if he liked specifically dissociate himself from all references to Poland, was mentioned.
[Page 457]The telegram ended by stressing the urgency of the matter and requesting that the Soviet Government be approached. It also expressed the hope that the American Ambassador in Moscow would receive instructions to approach the Soviet Government.36
Mr. Ward explained orally that although the British telegram mentioned that if political disputes could not be eliminated from technical committees inter-Allied collaboration on a technical level would become impossible, the Embassy in Moscow was not instructed to raise this general issue but is not precluded from doing so. He felt that confining the approach to the specific issue of Mr. Istchenko’s instructions would be the better course. He also mentioned that an appearance of combined action on the part of the British and American Governments would be looked on with suspicion by the Russians. He hoped, however, that the American Embassy in Moscow would receive instructions in line with those of the British Embassy. Until the question is settled in Moscow there will be no further meetings of the Sub-Committee and if the approach to the Soviet Government is unsuccessful, it will probably be preferable to drop the entire matter and wind up the work of the Sub-Committee. This would be an unfortunate development since valuable work has been done.
Penrose,37 who has been handling this question here, is now in Washington. I suggest he be consulted in the matter and request that whatever instruction is issued to Moscow be repeated to London.
- No record of such instruction found in Department files; for correspondence on Soviet-Polish political relations, see vol. iii, pp. 314 ff.↩
- E. F. Penrose, Special Assistant to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom.↩