7600.61/2239: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 4—10 a.m.]
716. Personal for the President and the Acting Secretary. I was asked to call on Stalin this evening. Stalin again made it plain that he would not deal with the Polish Government in London as now constituted. Although at one point he indicated that he would deal with [Page 1265] them if the Government was reorganized he later stated that he considered they were fooling Churchill and that he did not believe Churchill would be able to accomplish anything.
I explained to him your concern over the reaction in America and asked him what alternatives he had in mind. He stated that the Poles were welcoming the Red Army as it advanced and would continue to do so. Either Mikolajczyk’s Government would change or another Government would emerge in Poland. Although I pressed him he did not indicate that he had any moves in mind at this time except to say that Molotov had already given me in January his suggestions for a possible solution.
I explained that, as you had indicated, this proposal would not be a representative government but would be a hand-picked group with no popular movement behind it. He replied that there were no grounds for this assumption saying “Poland needs democrats who will look after the interests of the people, not Tory landlords”.
I explained that what was uppermost in your mind was that all Poles should join in assisting the Red Army rather than for a situation to develop which would lead to civil war. He said that there was no danger of this as Mikolajczyk had no armed forces of any size in Poland and the landlords would not be re-admitted. They would be the only ones to create disorder and revolution.
When Stalin said that the Polish Government in London were a group of émigrés who did not represent their people I asked him what information he had about the sentiments of the Poles within Poland toward the London Government. He said that the attitude was negative and Molotov would give me such detailed information as was available.
In reply to my question as to the size of the Polish underground forces he said that he couldn’t answer exactly but their numbers were not great and “they (the Polish Government) have a few agents.”
I expressed the belief that we all had the same eventual objective of a democratic government through the free choice of the Polish people and raised the question of how he thought this objective could be reached. He replied he didn’t know how the situation would work out, circumstances would show.
He referred to his request which had been submitted to you by Ambassador Gromyko to allow Lange and Orlemanski to come to Russia and asked whether I had your answer. As I had not heard of this request I was unable to reply. I asked him what he hoped would be accomplished by this visit to which he replied that they would meet the Poles in Moscow, find out what was going on in Poland from information here, look the situation over and return to the United States.
[Page 1266]In closing the conversation on this subject I said that I understood he would await developments and take no immediate action to which he replied that the time was not ripe. I reemphasized the unfavorable public reaction created in America. He remarked that he was concerned about public opinion here. When I commented that he was skillful in dealing with public opinion he replied “we have had three revolutions in a generation.”