Matthews Files

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

secret

Dear Ed: Since I have not had an opportunity to see you, there are two matters that I would like to bring to your attention before the coming Conference.

One has to do with Prisoners of War. The Russians feel deeply about this problem, which affects hundreds of thousands of their people who have been brutally treated by the Germans and who are now being liberated in growing numbers by the Allied Armies. As you know, the Russians are pressing the American and British Governments, through their Military Missions in Moscow, to sign bilateral agreements providing for reciprocal treatment by each Government of each other’s liberated nationals on the standard applied to its own soldiers. In this respect the Russians regard both soldiers and civilians as being in the same category.1

One of the factors which have made this question difficult to handle with the Russians, and which has great psychological and political importance for future Allied relations, is that we have been unable to get to grips with it in the European Advisory Commission. At the end of November the British, the Russians and the French were ready to discuss it in a special subcommittee set up by the Commission. The subcommittee was unable to meet since I was left totally without instructions. Other Delegations were naturally unwilling to treat with an American Delegation which could only sit and listen.

In October I sent back a draft directive on United Nations Prisoners of War,2 based on the latest and most authoritative JCS policy papers, thinking that it would be quickly cleared for my use. On December 1 I sent an urgent appeal for instructions,3 and was informed that they were held up by disputes within the War Department. Since then I have cabled repeatedly, trying to get some action in a matter which has such great humanitarian importance and which may deeply affect our relations with our Allies. Only yesterday I received a message from the Department, sent on January 26,3 that it expected to transmit a statement of policy on prisoners of war “within a few days”. I realize that the delay has not been due to the Department, but the political consequences are equally important for all parts of our Government, civil and military alike.

Concurrently, ten commissioned and ten noncommissioned U. S. officers are waiting in London for visas to go to Russia and look after [Page 420] the welfare of our liberated prisoners of war in Soviet-occupied areas. If their Soviet visas have not come through by the time of your meeting (General Deane and Harriman are pressing for them in Moscow), you may want to take this up directly with Molotov.

It is also very important for us to have an instruction or an approved draft directive on treatment of Displaced Persons, since the Russians and our other continental Allies are also deeply concerned about their civilian deportees and political prisoners in Germany and will want to deal with this question along with that of Prisoners of War. I have been asking Washington for an instruction on Displaced Persons since November, and have had no indication that it is being prepared there for presentation in the European Commission along with the Prisoners of War paper.4

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I wish you every success in the coming Conference.

John G. Winant
  1. See Deane, pp. 188189.
  2. Not printed. This draft was designed as a general policy directive to be implemented by the Allied Commanders in Chief in Germany after the German surrender (740.00119 EAC/10–2344).
  3. Not printed.
  4. Not printed.
  5. For the paragraphs here omitted, see ante, p. 133.