Roosevelt Papers
The Acting Secretary of State (Stettinius) to the President
Telegram to the President
Subject: Resignation of Prime Minister Mikolajczyk
I assume that you have read Ambassador Harriman’s report of the 23rd (No. 10326) from London,1 regarding his conversation with Mikolajczyk, and that you have noted that Mikolajczyk’s decision to resign was because he was unable to obtain the support of his Government to his program of a settlement of the territorial issue with the Soviet Union.
Mikolajczyk’s resignation will, in our opinion, render the Polish question much more acute and difficult. The Polish Government in London without him, and possibly his like-minded colleagues, will have no basis whatsoever for continued negotiations with the Government or the Lublin Committee. We must anticipate, therefore, that the Soviet Government will be quick to take advantage of Mikolajczyk’s resignation in order to proceed more vigorously with the establishment of the Lublin Committee as the sole representative authority of Poland. We could easily be faced with a most difficult problem in regard to Poland. On the one hand, we would have the Lublin Committee backed by the Soviet Government but which, according to all our information, has very little support inside Poland; and on the other, the Government in London which we recognize, probably led by Polish socialists who adamantly refuse to consider the Soviet proposals.
We are following the situation with the closest attention and we recommend that for the moment our best policy is to take no action but carefully watch developments.
- Not printed.↩