760C.61/1000: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Matthews) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:17 p.m.]
1536. We were told at the Foreign Office today that Clark Kerr had reported that when Stalin received Romer on February 2649 the question of Soviet-Polish frontiers was, among other things, discussed. While the respective Soviet and Polish positions were maintained, it was agreed that public discussion of the question should be avoided. On receiving this message from Clark Kerr, Foreign Office says it had the Censorship Bureau send private and confidential memoranda to the editors of London and leading provincial newspapers, including foreign language newspapers, requesting that they refrain from discussing the subject of Soviet-Polish frontiers and [Page 338] limit themselves merely to publishing without comment any statements on the subject that might be issued by the Soviet Government or Polish Government. Soviet and Polish representatives in London have been informed of this action by the Foreign Office.
Clark Kerr also reported that when Stalin and Romer met on February 26, Stalin suggested that negotiations be opened between the Soviet and Polish Governments on the question of the citizenship of Poles who were living in Soviet-occupied Poland in 1939.
- For excerpts from the conversation of the Polish Ambassador in the Soviet Union with Stalin and Molotov at the Kremlin during the night of February 26–27, see Polish-Soviet Relations, 1918–1943, Official Documents, pp. 217–225.↩