Office of the Historian

840.50 UNRRA/3–2445

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Chief of the Division of Eastern European Affairs (Thompson)

[Washington,] March 24, 1945.

The Polish Ambassador said he presumed I had seen the announcement made by UNRRA that a Soviet citizen47 had been made head of its mission to Poland and that the only Polish authority with which UNRRA would deal on Polish relief matters was the “Polish Provisional Government in Poland”. The Ambassador inquired whether the State Department had been concerned in this matter.

I replied that UNRRA was an international organization and that the State Department had not been consulted.

The Ambassador said that the Soviet Union was even more of a receiving country for UNRRA relief than was Poland and that the Polish people would not understand how American relief can be distributed under Soviet auspices. He said he intended to see Mr. Lehman and might be obliged to issue a statement. He hoped, however, that the matter would be brought to the attention of the Secretary and that the Secretary would be able to make some statement on the matter, perhaps at his press conference in reply to a question.48

Llewellyn E. Thompson
  1. Mikhail Alekseevich Menshikov.↩

  2. On the same date, Mr. Matthews sent a memorandum to the Acting Secretary of State (Grew), suggesting that, if he were asked to comment on UNRRA’s appointment of Mr. Menshikov and its statement that it would deal on Polish relief matters with the Provisional Government in Poland, he might wish to reply that UNRRA was an international organization and did not consult with the Department on these subjects.

    A check of records of the Secretary of State’s press conferences has revealed no indication that this matter was brought up.

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