760C.61/2–843

The Polish Ambassador (Ciechanowski) to the Under Secretary of State (Welles)33

Dear Mr. Welles: Enclosed I am sending you a telegraphic message which I received from General Sikorski this morning in reply to my telegram after our last conversation on February fifth.

I am [etc.]

J. Ciechanowski
[Enclosure]

The Polish Prime Minister (Sikorski) to the Polish Ambassador in the United States (Ciechanowski)

1) General Sikorski expresses his thanks to the President for his friendly understanding of the gravity of the situation created in Polish-Soviet relations by the sudden and illegal decision of the Soviet Government to withdraw Polish citizenship of the Polish deportees in Soviet Russia.

2) The General lays great hope in the President’s intervention in this matter and realizes that the choice of time and method for this intervention must be entirely left to the President’s decision.

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3) At the same time, General Sikorski takes the liberty to point out the importance of the element of time. It appears to him inevitable that delay in defining an appropriate attitude on the part of the United States and Great Britain cannot fail to encourage the creation of accomplished facts detrimental to Poland’s rights and interests and difficult to readjust in the future.

4) The Polish Government will remain calm being aware that this new attempt on the part of the Soviet Government to exercise pressure on the Polish Government must be regarded as a direct result of the present military successes of the Red Army which may be of a temporary nature.

5) Soviet tactics at present consist in depriving the Polish deportees of relief and in treating them as hostages—in anticipation that such action would undoubtedly arouse the Polish community.

This action has as its ultimate purpose to prepare the way for pressure on the Polish Government with regard to the problem of Poland’s Eastern boundaries.

It makes the situation of the Polish Government especially difficult at a time when it has to encourage the population in occupied Poland to keep up its heroic resistance to German pressure and to German promises to renounce all terrorism in exchange for collaboration of the Polish population in the struggle against “the Polish [Soviet?] danger”.

6) The refusal to grant permits to leave the USSR. to the families of Polish officers and enlisted men, as well as orphans, and the threat to deprive them of further relief, causes great bitterness particularly in the ranks of the Polish Army in the Middle East and may seriously affect its morale.

  1. A copy of this message was sent promptly by the Under Secretary to President Roosevelt.