811.2222(1940)/563
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The Polish Ambassador,7 in the company of the Polish Acting Foreign Minister,8 called to see me this afternoon. Count Raczyński said he was calling to say good-by since he was flying back to London the end of this week. He said that he wished to be in London a few days before General Sikorski9 started for the United States.
The Minister brought up the question of the recruiting of Polish-citizens within the United States. I said that the view of the President was that any national of a co-belligerent of this country, now within the jurisdiction of the United States, should not be permitted to evade his obligations of military service to his own country just because he was within the United States, and the President desired that proper and effective measures be undertaken so as to meet this objective. I said that we could not, of course, agree to the taking of measures which would be in violation of our own Selective Service Act,10 but that I believed effective measures could be taken which would meet the wishes of the Polish Government in this regard. I said it seemed desirable for me to ascertain what the views of the Department of Justice and of the War Department might be and as soon as this had been done, I would be glad to have word sent to the Polish Ambassador so that he could discuss the details with the appropriate officials of the Department of State.