Office of the Historian

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to President Roosevelt 38

Moscow, 5 October 1944.

Personal for the President. As I received your cable 041815 after my talk with Stalin last night I have sent your message to him by letter.39 I clearly understand your instructions. There is one subject on which I had been hopeful. The Prime Minister might be able to come to a definite understanding with Stalin, namely, the Polish situation. It seems clear that the longer the situation drifts the more difficult a solution becomes. I assume that you will have no objection if the Prime Minister can work something out with Stalin provided you are not involved or committed to any line of policy at this time. I am told that Generals Brooke40 and Ismay41 are accompanying the Prime Minister. There may therefore be talks between them and the Red Army Staff. I will request that General Deane be invited to attend these talks as an observer and I anticipate no difficulty in this respect as when I was here two years ago42 the Army Officers who accompanied me were included at my request in similar discussions at that time.

  1. Copy of telegram obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.↩
  2. See telegram 76, 4 October, Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, p. 6.↩
  3. Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the British Imperial General Staff.↩
  4. Gen. Sir Hastings Lionel Ismay, Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence (Winston S. Churchill) and Deputy Secretary (Military) to the War Cabinet.↩
  5. For reports concerning Prime Minister Churchill’s conversations with Stalin in Moscow in August 1942, which Harriman attended, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. iii, pp. 621–626, passim.↩