Office of the Historian

195. Memorandum From the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Dillon) to Secretary of State Dulles0

Washington, November 18, 1958.

I am in agreement with the attached EUR memorandum1 with the exception of paragraph 6, which proposes that we reserve $15 million of Mutual Security Funds for aid to Finland. The only place from which this can come, short of a supplementary appropriation which is doubtful, is from the $20 million presently assigned to Poland. I would recommend that $15 million of these funds be taken from the Polish allocation and transferred for use of Finland. I feel this advisable for two reasons:

1.
The preservation of the western-oriented government in Finland is more important to us than the volume or regularity with which we give aid to Poland. From Gomulka’s recent actions2 it is clear that aid [Page 517] to Poland at this time can at the best only be of very long range benefit to the United States.
2.
If we go up to the Congress for a supplementary appropriation, as I hope we will, our chances of success will be gravely prejudiced if we should have an amount anywhere near $20 million set aside for possible use in Poland. In view of the after effects of Gomulka’s trip I do not see how we can be in a position to negotiate any substantial aid agreement with Poland in the near future.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 760E.5–MSP/11–1858. Secret.↩
  2. This may refer to the attachment to Document 186, which was not found in Department of State files.↩
  3. During his trip to the Soviet Union October 24–November 12, First Secretary of the Polish Central Committee Wladyslaw Gomulka made several speeches in which he criticized certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy. See footnote 2, Document 56.↩