500.CC/3–2645: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:50 p.m.]
3117. ReEmtel 3052, March 24, 1 p.m.34 In a reply dated today on the question of Polish representation at San Francisco, Eden states that he is in entire agreement that the present regime in Warsaw could not be invited in any circumstances to be represented and he adds that he had already asked Halifax to inform the Department that such was his view.
Regarding the Department’s proposed instruction to Harriman, Eden feels that the draft instruction as outlined in the Department’s 2018, March 15, midnight, should meet the case Very well with the one exception that it is his view that our inability to invite the Warsaw Government flows as a matter of principle from our general attitude toward it and he therefore suggests the omission of that part of the first sentence of the second paragraph of the Department’s telegram 2018 reading “as we believe that … at the Crimea Conference”.
Eden confirms that the Foreign Office received a communication from the Soviet Ambassador here similar to that delivered to the Department and he tells me that the Soviet Ambassador was left in little doubt that the British would not agree to the suggestion of the Soviet Government.
Eden adds that he now proposes sending the Soviet Ambassador a formal reply to the effect that His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom agree that Polish representation at San Francisco is most important but that in their opinion this could only be accomplished by a united Polish Government formed in accordance with the decision reached at the Crimea Conference. It is therefore hoped that such a government may be formed in time to send representatives to the Conference. The note will add that His Majesty’s Government could not in any circumstances agree to extending an invitation to the present Provisional Government in Warsaw since the policy agreed upon in the Crimea would be thereby stultified. It will also be stated that no analogy is perceived between the position of Poland, which [Page 160] at the present time has two rival governments disputing for recognition, and the position of the other governments to which reference was made in the Soviet Government’s communication.
- Not printed.↩