760C.61/2120
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
The Polish Ambassador called at his request and before giving him a chance to talk I proceeded to receive him in a thoroughly friendly manner and to express regret at returning to find Polish attacks on the Four-Nations Declaration when this agreement means everything to Poland in the future. I brought this out very clearly by reciting the provisions of the Declaration. I expressed further regret at Polish agitation in this country of a thoroughly unfriendly nature in other ways besides the condemning of the Four-Nations Declaration. I made it clear to him that I had emphasized and reemphasized at Moscow my friendly and earnest interest in his country and urged Mr., Molotov to find a basis for reestablishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. I said that it was only through this course of friendly discussion and conference that we could probably get Polish and Russian difficulties worked out. I made some references to statements in my address of yesterday54 explanatory of this Government’s attitude toward the discussions at Moscow, the Four-Nations Declaration and the Italian Declaration, et cetera, and added that I had made it clear to the Russians that I was not undertaking to pass on the merits of the differences between Russia and Poland, but that mine was an earnest appeal for the two countries to get back on speaking terms. I said that I preferred not to make any commitments about any phases of the merits of the Polish and Russian controversy. Once diplomatic relations were reestablished, ways could be found to work out and adjust their differences. I stated to the Ambassador that if I should undertake to make commitments on any controversial question, it would probably be misinterpreted, not by him but by others after he makes his report to his Government.
The Ambassador handed me a communication for President Roosevelt and requested me to send it to him. He then handed me a confidential communication, a copy of which is hereto attached,55 relating [Page 485] to a proposed plan for the Prime Minister of Poland and his associates to call on the President, Mr. Churchill and Mr. Stalin at an early date. I said that I did not believe that that would be possible since they would be busily engaged with military matters of great urgency wherever they might be, whether at home or abroad. He urged me to send the communications to the President and I said again that I was not making any commitments but would give attention to his request.
I finally emphasized that it was sufficient for him and his Government to know what I had attempted to do at the Moscow conference to aid Poland and Russia to resume diplomatic relations and added that as a friend of Poland I would continue to watch every opportunity, just as I did at Moscow, to be of service to both Governments along the lines already mentioned.
He at least went away in good humor.
- For address of November 18 by the Secretary of State before Congress regarding the Moscow Conference, see Department of State Bulletin, November 20, 1943, p. 341.↩
- These two communications are, except for a few minor changes in wording, the same as those quoted in telegram No. 82, November 17, from the Ambassador to the Polish Government in Exile, supra.↩