860C.00/11–1846: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Chargé in Poland (Keith)
1095. Please deliver following note to PolGov. Dept. has furnished text to BritEmb here and you may consult with your Brit colleague who Dept understands is being instructed deliver note along similar lines. Advise when note is delivered in order that Dept may consider possibility release of text to press.52
“Excellency: I have been instructed to inform you that my Gov has taken note of announcement that Pol Prov Gov of Natl Unity has fixed Jan. 19, 1947 as date on which general elections will be held in Poland. In this connection, my Gov recalls that Amb Lange’s note of Apr 24, 1946 stated that in accordance with Potsdam Agreement of Aug 2, 1945, which provided that elections would be held as soon as possible, elections would take place this year. Although my Gov is surprised that PolGov would fail, without explanation, to fulfill this formal assurance, its chief concern is not with any particular date but with the discharge of its responsibility under the decisions taken at Crimea and Potsdam conferences with respect to the holding of free elections in Poland.
The importance which the USGov attaches to the carrying out of these decisions has repeatedly been brought to the attention of the’ PolGov. In his note of Aug 19, 1946, to which no reply has been received, Amb Lane outlined certain points which USGov considers essential for the carrying out of free elections. In view of the disturbing reports which it has received concerning the preparations for the elections, my Gov has instructed me again to inform Your Excellency that the Gov of the US expects that equal rights and facilities in the forthcoming election campaigns and in the elections themselves will be accorded to all democratic and anti-Nazi parties in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. My Gov could not otherwise regard the terms of the Yalta and Potsdam decisions as having been fulfilled.”
Repeated to London as no. 7775.
- The Chargé delivered the note to the Polish Acting Foreign Minister Modzelewski on November 22. The text was released to the press on November 25; see Department of State Bulletin, December 8, 1946, p. 1057.↩