760C.61/2282: Telegram

The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Hamilton) to the Secretary of State

1477. Wolna Polska for April 16 contains an interview with Andrzej Witos52 in which he is quoted as stating that the recent banquet at the Kremlin in honor of the establishment of the Polish Army in the Soviet Union had been followed by political talks from which the Union of Polish Patriots obtained a clear impression of Soviet views on Polish affairs which are based on lasting friendship between the two countries during and after the war. These talks confirmed his view that the Soviet leaders had no intention of interfering in internal Polish affairs. It is contrary to the principles of Soviet policy to force their form of Government on other peoples. This was evidenced by Molotov’s recent statement on Rumania.53 Witos stated that the Union of Polish Patriots was not endeavoring to set up a Communist or Soviet Poland, but a democratic parliamentary Poland, and asserted that the Soviet Union entirely respected that point of view.

Hamilton
  1. Vice Chairman of the Union of Polish Patriots; later in the year, Vice President of the Polish Committee of National Liberation and Director of the Department of Agriculture and Agricultural Reform.
  2. For statement of April 2, 1944, by Molotov on the occasion of the Soviet forces entering Rumania, see vol. iv , section under Rumania entitled “Negotiations leading to signing of armistice …”