Office of the Historian

113. Memorandum of Conversation0

Washington, November 28, 1960.

SUBJECT

  • Polish-United States Relations

PARTICIPANTS

  • Jozef Winiewicz, Deputy Foreign Minister of Poland1
  • Romuald Spasowski, Polish Ambassador to the United States
  • M—Mr. Merchant
  • Mr. Richard W. Tims, EE

Mr. Winiewicz expressed his government’s gratification at the course of United States-Polish relations. He mentioned their satisfaction at the recent United States extension of most-favored-nation treatment to Polish exports.2 They hoped that relations would continue to improve, he said, but it was necessary to bear in mind that this largely depended on the progress made in United States-Soviet accommodation, [Page 303] as small countries such as Poland could hardly, in the long run, preserve an independent course between great powers who were antagonistic.

Mr. Merchant took the occasion to express similar gratification at the positive achievements in United States-Polish relations. He went on to add that there were specific areas where we hoped these relations could improve. One of these was the exchange program, which we would like to see kept as free and as broad as possible in scope. Regarding economic ties, we were glad that the claims negotiations were successfully completed this year,3 and we were giving sympathetic study to Poland’s current request for industrial credits, notwithstanding the difficulty posed by the fact that the needs for such credits abroad exceed our available supply. There was one thing, however, which did not help our relations, he said, and that was the occasional occurrence of attacks on the United States in the public utterances of Polish leaders. The United States hoped that, despite our disagreements on certain issues, unnecessary acrimony could be avoided.

Mr. Winiewicz commented that he believed such attacks had occurred only in connection with the German question, on which, he said, “You cannot expect us to change our principles.”

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.48/11–2860. Official Use Only. Drafted and initialed by Richard W. Tims, Officer in Charge of Polish, Baltic, and Czechoslovak Affairs, and approved in M on December 6.↩
  2. Winiewicz was in Washington November 27–28 principally to talk with officials of the Polish Embassy.↩
  3. See Document 112.↩
  4. See Document 103.↩