Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War 1939/17229: Telegram

The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State

Kuibyshev (Moscow), December 9, 1941—3 p.m.
[Received 7:57 p.m.]

2031. Embassy’s 2022, December 8, noon.78 The British Ambassador has informed me that Eden, accompanied by a staff of military and other advisers, is expected to arrive in the Soviet Union within the next few days and to proceed directly to Moscow. Cripps, General Mason McFarlane, Admiral Miles79 and the Counselor and several Secretaries of the Embassy will leave Kuibyshev shortly to meet Eden in Moscow and to participate in his conference with Stalin and other Soviet officials.

Cripps stated that the impending Anglo-Soviet discussions will, of course, deal with problems related to the general strategy of the present war but that they are designed primarily to work out an understanding with the Soviet Government respecting postwar aims.

[Page 196]

In this connection the Ambassador said that he does not feel that any attempt should be made to modify the agreement recently reached80 between Sikorski81 and Stalin (Embassy’s 2024, December 8, 2 p.m.82) inasmuch as in Sikorski’s opinion by yielding with regard to the retention of the Polish forces in the Soviet Union he had assured Stalin’s full acceptance of the principle that a Polish State should be reconstituted. Cripps added that Stalin had not only indicated his acceptance of this principle but had expressed his desire to see “a great and powerful Polish State” established.

Thurston
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. Rear Adm. G. J. A. Miles, member of the British Military Mission to the Soviet Union.↩
  3. A Declaration of Friendship and Mutual Assistance was signed between Poland and the Soviet Union in Moscow on December 4, 1941. A text was sent in telegram No. 2018, December 6, from The Chargé in the Soviet Union, p. 266.↩
  4. Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile at London.↩
  5. Post, p. 267.↩