President Roosevelt to the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (Stalin)35
Your telegram was received by me while on my inspection trip36 out West. Your problem is well understood by me but I do hope that in this present situation you can find means to label your action as a suspension of conversations with the Polish Government-in-exile rather than a complete severance of diplomatic relations.
In my opinion Sikorski has in no way acted with the Hitler gang [Page 396] but instead he has made a mistake in taking up this particular matter with the International Red Cross. Also Churchill will find ways and means, I am inclined to think, of getting the Polish Government in London to act in the future with more common sense.
If I can help in any way, please let me know, particularly with reference to looking after any Poles which you may desire to send out of the Soviet Union.
In the United States, incidentally, I have several million Poles, a great many of them being in the Navy and Army. All of them are bitter against the Nazis, and the situation would not be helped by the knowledge of a complete diplomatic break between yourself and Sikorski.
- Copy of telegram obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. Secretary of State Hull stated in his Memoirs (vol. ii, p. 1268): “The President cabled me with reference to Stalin’s message, suggesting we send an immediate message to Stalin in his name, requesting the Soviet leader not to create a formal rupture of relations with Poland. I dispatched this message to Moscow on the morning of April 26.” The Ambassador in the Soviet Union reported to the Department that he transmitted the President’s message for Stalin to Molotov on April 27, 1943 (760C.61/1049). A copy of this telegram was also sent to Prime Minister Churchill.↩
- See footnote 26, p. 390.↩