860C.002/5–2444
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Eastern European Affairs (Bohlen)
| Participants: | Polish Ambassador, Jan Ciechanowski; Charles E. Bohlen, Chief, EE,9 and Mr. Durbrow, EE. |
At Mr. Dunn’s request I saw the Polish Ambassador this morning to tell him that the President had invited Prime Minister Mikolajczyk to come to the United States on June 6.10 The Ambassador expressed great gratification at this news and said that he thought this visit would be extremely helpful.
I asked the Ambassador how long he thought the Prime Minister would be here, and he said that he understood he would not stay in the United States more than a week. The Ambassador went on to say that as he had already told Mr. Dunn, the Prime Minister would make no public speeches nor meet with any groups of Polish-Americans in the United States and in general would exercise the utmost discretion in order not to have his visit become involved in internal political matters.
I told the Ambassador that I thought that was a very wise decision since there would undoubtedly be groups in the United States who would be quick to seize upon any indication that the Prime Minister’s visit in this country was connected with Polish groups in America or the coming election. I added that the Polish Information Center and any Polish organization in the United States should be equally careful to avoid creating any wrong impression of the purposes of the Prime Minister’s visit.
The Ambassador assured me that in so far as any official Polish organization in this country was concerned this would be so.
The Ambassador then said that he hoped to avoid in every way any premature publicity in regard to the Prime Minister’s visit and hoped that every precaution would be taken to this end. He felt that the first news of the Prime Minister’s visit should be made after his arrival here by the White House or the Department of State. I assured the Ambassador that no word of the Prime Minister’s impending visit [Page 1273] would come from the Department of State and that every precaution would of course be taken to avoid premature publicity.
The Ambassador then asked if it would not be possible to have the Prime Minister come from England and return by Air Transport Command as he felt that this would be the quickest, safest and generally most desirable. I told the Ambassador that we would be glad to take up this question with ATC and that I anticipated no difficulty in this regard particularly since the Prime Minister was coming as a guest of the President.
- Division of Eastern European Affairs.↩
- The Department of State in Polish Series telegram 15, May 23, 1944, instructed the Chargé to the Polish Government in Exile at London to extend the invitation to Premier Mikolajczyk (033.60C11/T3). The Chargé replied in Polish Series telegram 48, May 27 (033.60C11/74⅔), that the invitation was accepted and that Mikolajczyk would arrive by June 6. He would be accompanied by Gen. Stanislaw Tabor, Deputy Commander in Chief of the Polish Underground Army; Witold Kulerski, member of the Polish National Council in London; and Josef Zaranski, Counselor of the Polish Embassy in the United Kingdom.↩