760C.61/1018
The Polish Prime Minister (Sikorski) to President Roosevelt 68
My Dear Mr. President: I am writing to thank you, Mr. President, most sincerely for your message,69 which I received through our Ambassador in Washington.
Both the Polish Government and myself have the highest regard for your viewpoint and we are prepared to do all in our power in order to prevent the breaking off of Poland’s relations with Soviet Russia if only we are met with good will and some response on the other side. Meanwhile, however, as you know, the situation has deteriorated still further since my return from the United States.
I would like, therefore, on behalf of my Government to describe to you, Mr. President, the difficult position in which the latest Russian declarations have placed us. We are expected to fight side by side with Russia at a time when the Soviet Government are making claims to one half of our territory and to one third of the people of Poland, and when in their note of January 16th, 1943,70 they once more insist on the Ribbentrop–Molotov line. The Soviet Government is invoking for this policy the Atlantic Charter, which is to justify their present imperialist designs. The denial to Poles, forcibly deported to the U.S.S.R., of all rights, including the right to live, completes the measure of their affliction. The men, women and children concerned are on the verge of physical exhaustion. The interruption of all humanitarian activities organised for the benefit of the deportees with the generous help of the United States would be tantamount to a condemnation to death.
Many of the Polish soldiers, airmen and sailors have relatives in the U.S.S.R. or in that part of Poland to which Russia—our Ally—is making her unprecedented claims, contrary to all the principles proclaimed by the United Nations and it requires great efforts on my part to keep their feelings under control.
On February 27th, the Polish Ambassador in Moscow had a three hour conversation with M. Stalin, who appeared somewhat less exacting than it might have been expected from previous semi-official Soviet enunciations. I am afraid, however, that we cannot rely on [Page 350] vague assurances that there is no enmity in Russia towards Poland, but that we must take into account the hostile manifestations of Soviet policy consistently conducted by M. Molotov.
The Polish people suffered beyond measure in this war. It would be an incomprehensible wrong, if at a time when the development of war is taking a turn to the advantage of the Allies, the Polish people were to realise, that the imperialist claims of Allied Russia are to be met at the expense of Poland.
At this distressing time I find support in your friendship and your understanding, Mr. President, which you expressed so often towards my country and myself. I believe that the solid front of the United Nations will be maintained and that acting together the British and American Governments will find the means to confirm their solidarity with us.
In this connection I take the liberty to make the suggestion that the Governments of the United States and Great Britain may agree, either publicly or by means of notes addressed to the Governments of the United Nations, to reaffirm the principle of non-recognition by them of any accomplished facts, effected after September the 1st, 1939, on the occupied territories of States, belonging to the United Nations.
The confirmation of this principle would strengthen the position of Poland during the diplomatic negotiations, which the Polish Government are conducting at the present time in Moscow. The publication of such a declaration would, moreover, find a favourable echo throughout the Continent of Europe, especially in the countries adjoining the U.S.S.R., and supply a valuable counter-weight to German propaganda and German agitation on behalf of the war effort of the Axis Powers, which are exploiting Soviet territorial claims against Poland for their own purposes.
Believe me,
Yours very sincerely,
- Sent to President Roosevelt by the Ambassador to the Polish Government in Exile, at London, with a covering letter dated March 17, 1943, which read in part: “As to Russian attitude towards him [General Sikorski], I doubt whether Moscow would press its campaign against him personally to the point of causing his political downfall—for Moscow would more than likely figure that it would result in his replacement by someone far less realistic and more violently anti-Moscow.” (760C. 61/1018)↩
- See the third paragraph of the Polish Ambassador’s letter of April 4, to President Roosevelt, p. 365.↩
- See telegram Polish Series No. 3, January 28, midnight, from the Ambassador to the Polish Government in Exile, p. 323.↩