760C.61/8–1844: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom ( Winant ) to the Secretary of State

6672. Please see Schoenfeld’s No. 73, August 18, Polish series.96 I have just left Mr. Eden’s office. He wanted to check with me on the Soviet-Polish situation in relation to Warsaw and showed me a memorandum which O’Malley, the British Ambassador in London to the Poles, had given him after a conversation with Romer, Polish Foreign Minister, at noon today. I asked him if he would let me have this Foreign Office memorandum in order that I might forward it to you. He gave it to me with the understanding that it would be given no distribution and that it was for your personal information.

The text of the memorandum follows:

“I saw M. Romer at midday on August 18th.

He said M. Mikolajczyk had been knocked down by an American car and was in hospital. He will be at work again tomorrow, but the accident had delayed the deliberations of the Polish Cabinet.

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M. Romer then read to me telegrams exchanged with Moscow, of which the following is a summary, leaving out all the trimmings:

1.
From M. Mikolajczyk to Marshal Stalin, August 13. M. Mikolajczyk referred to his conversation with Marshal Stalin on August 9, during which he had asked (a) for bombardment of Warsaw aerodromes, armoured trains, et cetera; (b) Russian fighter patrols to operate against the Luftwaffe, and (c) extensive droppings. M. Mikolajczyk had reiterated his request for such assistance and had urged that it was very desirable from a political point of view that the Red Army should enter Warsaw as liberators instead of capturing a town in which the large part of the population had been massacred.
2.
From Marshal Stalin to M. Mikolajczyk, August 16, which arrived during the night of the 17th/18th. Stalin said that after the promise which he had given to M. Mikolajczyk he had ordered extensive droppings to be made on the city and for a liaison officer also to be dropped. The officer had been killed. After reexamination of the whole position Stalin had come to the conclusion that the fight in Warsaw was a reckless adventure undertaken by the Poles without consultation with him. (As M. Romer read a French translation of the Russian text I recognized that the words were identical with those in our telegram from Sir A. Clark Kerr). The telegram went on to say that calumnies in the Polish press had now made it clear to the Soviet authorities that they had been deluded about the motives from which and the spirit in which the rising had been made. Marshal Stalin concluded by saying that he had finished with any idea of giving assistance to Warsaw and that he could not and would not take any share in the responsibility for what was occurring there.
3.
From M. Mikolajczyk to Marshal Stalin. This telegram was going off this afternoon. M. Mikolajczyk said that he understood that Stalin was in no way responsible for a rising which had turned out to be premature. So far as Polish newspapers were showing themselves to be over-excited, he was taking appropriate counteracting action. He was confidently expecting Russian collaboration in Warsaw. The rising had been ordered by the commander of the underground army in response to fervent appeals remitted by the Russian radio system (dates were given). He asked Marshal Stalin whether if, in the face of these appeals, the population of Warsaw had been made passive he would not have been exposed afterwards to a charge of failing to comply with the reiterated and urgent appeals of the Soviet Government. He had informed M. Molotov on 2nd August that the rising had begun at a moment when the Soviet armies were only 10 kilometers distant. It was a fact that the Poles in Warsaw had now been fighting for 18 days and also that they were fighting the Germans in many other parts of Poland. Russian assistance was not only due on the merits of the case but was extremely desirable in view of M. Mikolajczyk’s hopes of lasting friendship between Poland and Russia. He therefore issued this further appeal for technical contact and assistance. He also begged that the Soviet Government would quickly agree to the American proposal to send help to Warsaw.

I cannot remember the exact words used in this telegram but it gave me the impression of being couched in very conciliatory language.

I asked M. Romer why he thought Marshal Stalin had gone back on his promise. He said he thought that the reason was that Stalin [Page 1381] now realized the strength of the underground army and administration and that successful action by it in Warsaw would get much credit for Poland all over the world. This would not assist Marshal Stalin in getting unilateral solution of the Polish question which he desired. M. Romer said that this was, of course, pure speculation.

He went on to say that he was not unduly cast down by Stalin’s telegram. He knew the Russians well and he thought it would not be inconsistent with the capricious manner in which they often conducted their affairs for Stalin to change his mind once again. At any rate, there was nothing to do for the moment but to hope that this would happen. Meanwhile, he was grateful for British and American efforts on Poland’s behalf and hoped that this would be persisted in.

I asked whether he thought the Americans would get permission to land in Russia, and he said that he had no indication of what the Russian answer would be.

M. Mikolajczyk’s discussions with other Poles in London were still going well but he had nothing definite yet to tell the Secretary of State and would not, therefore, ask for an interview at the moment.”

Winant
  1. Not printed; this telegram reported information given by Polish Prime Minister Mikolajczyk and Foreign Minister Tadeusz Romer about their conversations with Stalin. Both reported that they felt that Stalin understood the difficulties and that he wanted a “satisfactory arrangement.”