Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, The British Commonwealth, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Volume III

740.0011 European War 1939/26924½

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)

[Washington,] January 4, 1943.

General Sikorski,² the Polish Prime Minister, accompanied by the Polish Ambassador,³ called to see me this afternoon by arrangement.

Refugees

The Prime Minister spoke briefly of his trip to Mexico⁴ where he said he found nothing but evidences of the strongest sympathy and support for the United States and for the cause of the United Nations, and said that he wished to express his warm felicitations to this Government for the complete success of its policy in establishing intimate and friendly relations and collaboration with Mexico. He stated that he had reached a very satisfactory agreement with the Mexican Government covering the admission into Mexico of Polish refugees and added that the Polish Ambassador would conclude his conversations with Dr. Berle⁵ covering the question of credits to be advanced by this Government to Poland in order that Poland might be able to care for her refugees during the war period.

Polish Funds in the United States

General Sikorski then urged that arrangements be made to speed up the granting to his Government of the remaining 7½ millions of the 12½ millions of credits authorized by the President last April⁶ and which sums were to be made available, he said, during the 12 month period after the date of authorization by the President. He said that he was urging speed in this matter in view of the fact that the major part of the money required was for sabotage airplane expeditions from England into Poland and of course the winter season was the only period in which this operation could be successfully carried out. He stated that in the last two weeks four flights had been successfully undertaken to Poland from England and 36 parachutists had been dropped in Poland from these airplanes.

Liaison With the War Department

He stated that his conversations with General Marshall⁷ and the members of the General Staff in Washington could not have been more completely satisfactory and that a continuing liaison was now provided for which would make available to our own War Department the fullest measure of Polish military intelligence and which would also enable the General Staffs of both Governments to maintain continuing and close cooperation.

Territorial Rectifications, Boundary Adjustments, Political Desiderata

The Prime Minister then said that he had inundated me with memorandums during the weeks of his visit to the United States for which he apologized and said that he would be very glad to hear the views of this Government with regard to the aspirations set forth and the considerations advanced in the memorandums in question.

I replied by saying that I felt we should for convenience’ sake divide our conversation into two general headings: the first heading to deal with the questions of territorial rectifications, boundary adjustments, and political desiderata set forth in the memorandums which General Sikorski had given me; and second, the question of the letter which the Prime Minister had asked the President to give him before his departure and which the President had stated that he would hand to the Prime Minister.

With regard to the first heading, I said that the views and considerations of the Polish Government which had been given me in such detail by General Sikorski had been of the utmost value to the Government of the United States and had naturally been given the most careful and friendly study and consideration. I said that it was of the greatest value to the United States to have at this stage so clear an exposition of the point of view of the Polish Government and that obviously detailed information of this character regarding the desires of the governments so closely associated with us as the Polish Government was in the highest degree helpful.

I stated, however, that as the President had already informed General Sikorski, this Government was not prepared to make any commitment at this period with regard to territorial or boundary adjustments to be undertaken by the United Nations after the close of the war. For that reason, I said, I was not prepared to make any commitment whatever with regard to the desires of the Polish Government covering the western, southern, or eastern frontiers of the future Poland when Poland was once more reconstituted. I said, however, that it was perfectly clear already to General Sikorski from his conversation with the President that the President was deeply concerned in the restoration in the future after Germany had been defeated of a strong and independent Poland, and that the view had already been made clear to General Sikorski that this Government did not believe the Polish Corridor afforded any practicable solution in the interest of the Polish people or in the interest of European and world peace and stability. I stated that if the Government of the United States now, however, undertook to make commitments with regard to future territorial adjustments to Poland it would be doing so without agreement or even prior consultation with other members of the United Nations vitally interested in this question and would thereby greatly prejudice the objective which this Government had in mind, namely, the closest and most friendly understanding and agreement between all of the United Nations both during the war period and in the postwar period. Furthermore, I said that if the Government of the United States made such commitments in the case of Poland, it would immediately be called upon to make similar commitments in the case of many of the other United Nations now occupied by the Axis powers. For all of these reasons, I said, it was impossible for this Government at this point to do more than make it entirely clear to the Polish Government that the Government of the United States had as one of its war objectives the reconstitution of a strong and independent Poland, but believed that the precise details of frontiers and territorial adjustments should be left for a future time when such matters could be determined by common agreement on the part of all of the United Nations concerned in this matter.

General Sikorski said he fully understood the point of view of this Government and desired to raise no question with regard thereto. He said, however, that he wanted to make one point very clear and that was that he believed that the question of Poland’s eastern frontier was a question which was in the nature of a precedent in so far as the relations of the United States and the Soviet Union were concerned. He stated that if at this stage Stalin were definitely informed that the Government of the United States would not agree to the submerging of eastern and southern Poland in the future Soviet Union, Stalin would accede to that point of view without any material difficulty since intrinsically the territory involved was of no great importance to Stalin. But, General Sikorski went on to say, if no opposition to such imposition on the part of Stalin were evidenced now, he will take it for granted that neither the United States nor Great Britain are going to lift a finger to prevent the domination at the close of the war of most of eastern and southern Europe by the Soviet Union, and the imperialistic ambitions of the Soviet Union will be greatly accelerated and enhanced as the result of any present failure on the part of the United States to make its views known.

I inquired of General Sikorski whether any further conversations had taken place in London between the Soviet Ambassador⁸ and the Polish Foreign Minister⁹ with regard to the eastern frontier of Poland and he replied that these questions were still under desultory discussion but that every time the Soviet Government made known its views in this regard, the proposed rectification of the Polish eastern frontier became very much larger than the “slight rectification” which Stalin himself had mentioned to General Sikorski when the latter was last in Moscow.¹⁰

General Sikorski then inquired whether he could understand that this Government officially favored a federation or union of eastern European states, including Poland. I replied that as I had endeavored in a previous conversation to make clear, certain officials of this Government were studying very carefully the possibility of the creation of an eastern European union of which Poland could be a member, but that so far as I knew, the matter had not been discussed with the President and I could not therefore give him any indication about such an objective officially favored by this Government.

General Sikorski then read to me a telegram which he had just received from the Polish Ambassador at Ankara¹¹ stating that the relations between Poland and Turkey had never been so close or understanding as they now were and that the Turkish Government desired the Polish Government to know that Turkey was very strongly in favor of an eastern European union running from Poland in the north down to Turkey in the south of which, to use the Turkish Government’s phrase, “Poland would be the anchor in the north and Turkey the anchor in the south”.

I stated that this information was very interesting to me but that I felt it necessary for me to say that in my judgment such a plan, if understood in the terms used by Turkey, would without the slightest shadow of a doubt create the utmost measure of suspicion in the minds of the Soviet Union and could only be interpreted by the Soviet Union as a cordon sanitaire of a purely military character directed squarely against the Soviet Union. I said that the creation of such a federative union which would have under its control the Dardanelles and access to the Black Sea would inevitably be regarded by Stalin as a direct threat to the future security of the Soviet Union and would result, in my judgment, in the most bitter and consistent opposition to any federative project of this character on the part of Russia.

General Sikorski said that he was forced to agree with my point of view. I added that in so far as the views of the officials of this Government were concerned, the views which favored the creation of an eastern European federated union were based solely on the belief that the economic prosperity of the nations involved would be greatly enhanced as the result of such a union and that such a union would offer opportunities for the development of natural resources which otherwise could not be achieved. It was further believed that for these reasons the political stability of the region in question would likewise be safeguarded.

President’s letter

I then said with regard to the letter which the President had said he would give to General Sikorski¹² that I had not yet submitted any suggested draft to the President and that before doing so I wished to ascertain whether the views of this Department as to the nature of the letter in question would be satisfactory to General Sikorski. I then read to him a draft which had been prepared. General Sikorski listened very attentively and made merely one suggestion, namely, that specific reference be made to the continuing resistance to Germany of the Polish armed forces.

I said that of course I was very happy to include an additional phrase to that effect.

The Prime Minister made no other suggestions for changes in the draft as prepared and stated that he was completely satisfied with the draft which I had read to him and that such a letter if given to him by the President would be of the greatest value and encouragement to the Polish Government.

I told the Prime Minister that the President hoped to be able to receive him tomorrow, Tuesday. General Sikorski said that he was planning to leave Washington on Thursday night for New York with the intention of returning immediately thereafter to London.

S[umner] W[elles]

2. Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile, at London.
3. Jan Ciechanowski.
4. General Sikorski had interrupted his visit in the United States with a visit to Mexico City, December 27, 1942–January 1, 1943.
5. Adolf A. Berle, Jr., Assistant Secretary of State.
6. See telegram No. 2291, May 21, 1942, to the Ambassador to the Polish Government in Exile, at London, Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. iii, p. 147.
7. Gen. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.
8. Ivan Mikhailovich Maisky.
9. Count Edward Raczyński.
10. Prime Minister Sikorski had conferred in Moscow with Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (Premier), early in December 1941. See Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, pp. 264–268.
11. Michal Sokolnickl.
12. On December 4, 1942, the Polish Prime Minister had handed to the Under Secretary the draft of a letter which he proposed that President Roosevelt address to him before his departure from the United States; for draft of proposed letter, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. iii, p. 202.