Office of the Historian

760C.61/998: Telegram

The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Matthews) to the Secretary of State

London, March 2, 1943—midnight.
[Received March 2—10:55 p.m.]

1533. I inquired of Mr. Eden this afternoon whether there was any foundation of fact to the New York Times story of a suggested plebiscite to solve Polish and Russian difficulties (Department’s telegram No. 1315, March 1, midnight47). He replied categorically that Clark Kerr had no instructions whatsoever to make any such proposal. He said that the British Ambassador’s instructions are merely to do what he can in a general way to try and improve Soviet-Polish relations. I asked whether the statement issued this morning by the Soviet news agency48 would, in his opinion, create further serious difficulties between those two countries and he replied that it was too early yet to tell. He did not seem, however, unduly perturbed at the moment. He remarked that the Poles must bear some of the responsibility for their present state of relations with the Russians in view of the amount of indiscriminate talking in which they have been indulging.

Matthews
  1. Not printed; it instructed the Embassy in London to endeavor to ascertain whether Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, British Ambassador in the Soviet Union, had “been instructed to make any such concrete proposal.” (760C.61/996)↩
  2. Tass.↩