Editorial Note
On August 14, the Polish Foreign Ministry delivered to the Embassy in Warsaw a note which accused the United States Information Service of engaging in “war-mongering” and other alleged offenses and charged that the United States demand for the closing of the Polish Research and Information Center in New York (see Department of State Wireless Bulletin, supra) was a baseless and illegal reprisal. The Polish note also alleged that the closing of the Polish information service proved that “the United States wishes to separate its community behind the Iron Curtain from all news of peace and activities of the Polish nation.” For text of the Polish note of August 14 as translated by the Embassy in Warsaw and released to the press by the Department of State on October 9, see Department of State Bulletin, October 22, 1951, pages 651–652. For text of the Polish note as officially translated by the Polish Government, see Polish Documents, pages 174–178.
In a note of September 20 to the Polish Ambassador in Washington, the Secretary of State rejected the charges and characterizations raised in the Polish note of August 14. The note denied that the United States Information Service in Poland had gone “beyond the accepted scope of normal activity of a diplomatic mission or were against the interests of peace,” and rejected the Polish assertion that it had spread war propaganda and propaganda hostile to Poland. It reminded the Polish Government that the United States [Page 1507] carried on activities of its Information Service as part of its diplomatic functions in 64 nations, and that only in Communist China, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Poland had it been compelled by government action to suspend operations. The note of September 20 concluded by warning the Polish Government that “history abundantly proves that governments which adopt the policy of denying their peoples access to all the avenues of truth have done so at their own loss.” For text of the note of September 20, see Department of State Bulletin, October 22, 1951, pages 652–653 or American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1950–1955, volume II, pages 2138–2140.
On October 16 the Polish Foreign Ministry addressed still another note to the Embassy in Warsaw seeking to respond to many of the points raised in the Secretary of State’s note of September 20. A translation of the Polish note of October 16, which was published in the Polish press, was transmitted to the Department of State as an enclosure to despatch 140 from Warsaw, October 18. (511.48/10–1851)