October 11, 1944: President Roosevelt greets PAC delegation headed by Rozmarek
(right) for Pulaski Day ceremonies while Polish uprising in Warsaw is being obliterated
Posted on 09/27/2004 5:11:39 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
In 1944 anxious Polish ethnic leaders formed the Polish American Congress, an umbrella organization of twenty thousand Polish fraternal lodges, parishes,cultural associations, sports and youth groups, veterans’ posts, newspapers, and fraternal insurance companies. The Congress dedicated itself to winning American support for a free and independent Poland within its prewar boundaries, which included the half of Poland which Stalin had annexed. The call for the founding convention stated that, “the Congress will declare the wholehearted cooperation of support of Americans of Polish descent of the declarations of our President pertaining to the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter, that nations, large or small, might exist by themselves free of all interference and aggression.”
Polish voters were among the New Deal’s most loyal constituencies, with many Polish districts habitually turning in 70 percent or better Democratic majorities. Any disquiet that might reduce these majorities was was a major political problem. During the 1944 presidential campaign, Roosevelt held two highly publicized meetings with the Polish American Congress, one in the White House and one in Chicago. The president promised the anxious Poles that the Atlantic Charter would be upheld and, though refusing top formally commit himself on the question of Poland’s borders, he held his Washington meeting in front of a huge wall map of Poland showing its prewar boundaries. Based on these meetings, Charles Rozmarek, head of the Polish American Congress, endorsed Roosevelt for reelection In the 1944 election Polish precincts turned in their usual overwhelming Democratic majorities. While these assurances served Roosevelt’s and the Democratic party’s short-term political purpose, they were not fulfilled.
Although Roosevelt told Polish American leaders that he had made no concession to Stalin on Poland at the Teheran Conference of Allied leaders, in fact he had. Roosevelt agreed to the Soviet annexation of Eastern Poland (with German land given in partial compensation) but explained that the deal must not be formally announced because, as he told Stalin and Churchill, “there were in the United States from six to seven million Americans of Polish extraction, and as a practical man, he did not want to lose their vote.”
During 1944 Roosevelt met with Prime minister Stanislaw Mikolajczyk of the Polish exile government. roosevelt urged Mikolajczyk to drop anti-Soviet members from his cabinet and assured them that the Soviets did not intend to interfere with Poland’s internal governance if Polish foreign policy accommodated Soviet security needs. On the margins of the memorandum describing Mikolajczyk’s meeting with Roosevelt, Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, wrote, “The President will do nothing for the Poles, nothing more than [U.S. Secretary of State] Cordell Hull did in Moscow or the President did himself in Teheran. The poor Poles, it is sad that they delude themselves if they believe in those vague and lavish promises. Later the President will not keep them at all.”
In 1944 Stalin set up the Polish Committee of National Liberation run by Communists, with nominal non-Communist figureheads, as an alternative to the government-in-exile. Although the United States officially recognized the government-in-exile, Averell Harriman, the U.S. ambassador in Moscow, met with the Committee of National Liberation, thus signaling American willingness to treat it as a legitimate force.
In January 1945 the Soviet Union ignored the Polish government-in-exile and recognized the Polish National Liberation Committee as the provisional government of Poland. In February 1945 at the Yalta Conference of Allied leaders the only concessions Stalin would make were vague promises to include members of the government-in-exile in the Communist-dominated provisional government and to hold free elections. Even then Roosevelt did not prepare Americans for what was to come. Instead he told the American people that the Yalta Conference assured a peace “based on the sound and just principles of the Polish state.” Privately, William Leahy, the president’s chief of staff, told Roosevelt that Stalin’s promise was “so elastic that the Russians can stretch it all the way from Yalta to Washington without even technically breaking it.” Roosevelt replied, “I know, Bill – I know it. But it’s the best I can do for Poland at this time.”
In January 1947, after a campaign of terror, intimidation, and blatant fraud, the provisional government announced that the people of Poland had voted overwhelmingly for Communist rule. Stanislaw Mikolajczyk fled into exile. Poland remained a tyranny for another forty years until the regime was overthrown Atlantic Charter” and called the accord “the most hopeful agreement possible for a free, independent, and prosperous by the Solidarity labor movement.
A bitter representative John Lesinski (Democrat, Michigan), who appealed to Polish Americans to support Roosevelt in 1944, announced that at Yalta the president had betrayed the Atlantic Charter for which American soldiers had died. Charles Rozmarek, head of the Polish American Congress, had endorsed Roosevelt in the 1944 presidential campaign: in 1948 and 1952 he pointedly endorsed the Republican presidential nominees. Also endorsing the Republican candidates in 1948 and 1952 was was the former ambassador to Poland, Arthur Bliss Lane. Lane had served as American ambassador after World War II and had observed firsthand the methods used to establish Communist rule. deeply embittered by his experience, Lane resigned in 19947 as a protest against the bankruptcy of America’s Polish policy.
Several previously safely Democratic districts with large Polish American constituencies swung to the Republicans when the local Democrats did not switch to an anti-Communist stance swiftly enough. In 1950, for example, Republiacn Timothy Sheehan, campaigning on the betrayal of Poland at Yalta and promising to investigate the Katyn massacre, won election in a heavily Polish and usually Democratic Chicago congressional district.
Democrats reacted to the anti-Soviet anger among Polish-Americans by embracing it and making it their own. In 1948 President Truman, like FDR before him, met with Polish-American leaders at the White House in front of a huge map of Poland with its prewar boundaries. President Truman supported the House’s Katyn hearings and instructed executive agencies to assist in the investigation. This largely succeeded in turning Polish-American rage about Katyn away from the Democrats and Roosevelt. Even so, the hearings produced evidence to reinforce the belief that some American officials had acted with duplicity by covering up evidence about the massacre. In its official report the House Katyn Committee concluded that during the war, the U.S. government had collected evidence of Soviet guilt for Katyn but had “brushed aside” the information for fear that the truth would “hinder the prosecution of the war to a successful conclusion.”
bump
I get the feeling the author has no comprehension about the limitations of negotiating power Roosevelt had at Yalta. Russian troops occupied half of Poland, what the heck was the USA supposed to do, start a war to force them out? What concession would the author hope for to make his goal happen, give away West Germany perhaps? Ridiculous to second judge Yalta in hindsight without some consideration of the situation...
FDR displayed an unfortunate naivete failing to see the Soviet Union's Stalin for what he was: worse than the gangsters of Hitler and Mussolini. Of course having Commie sympathizers all around him didn't help matters.
World politics seemed to be nothing more to Roosevelt than local ward politics.
Excellent read:
ROOSEVELT AND STALIN: THE FAILED COURTSHIP
by Robert Nisbet
Thanks Joe.
BUMP
No. We were supposed to finish the war and free Europe from tyranny. Patton's armored divisions were ready and waiting for the orders to send the Reds packing all the way back to Moscow - orders which never came. Millions were condemned to starvation, enslavement, death.
None of which changes the fact that there was no national will in 1945 to begin a new war against the Soviets. Not from the President, the congress, or the american people. Not an option.
New war? We were already at war! Patton wanted to conduct a "mop up" operation to rid Europe of the mrderous tyrants who helped start the war - the corroborators with Hitler who in 1939 invaded Poland. And, Patton would have succeeded. However, FDR had a love affair with "Uncle Joe" which blinded him from the reality of what communism is - the same love affair which even today infects the U.S. left. FDR sold out the freedom-loving peoples of central and eastern Europe to another holocaust surrounded by an Iron Curtain.
I'm sorry, do you believe FDR could snap his fingers and make communist government in Poland go away? How exactly was he supposed to make Stalin do what he wants, please be specific. How do you evict the troops from Poland. It would take a new war. Stalin would have given up Poland in negotiations at Yalta, but at what cost in concessions elsewhere? West Germany? Japan? Do you people have any grasp of how negotiations work?
Stalin was our ally in WWII, and the American people had no interest in 1945 for more fighting with a new enemy. It was never an option, it could never have happened, please stop dreaming.
I forget this polish prisoners of war in Soviet army, they weren’t real soldiers but civilians with guns! Probably similar situation was with big part of Soviet army.
I am from Poland, and I had to live under the bastard communists for many years, until they were overthrown. I can't believe how some people think that communism is simply "uncomfortable." It is the worst system ever devised by mankind.
Did you know that the russians and even the Polish communists forbade us from honoring those murdered at Katyn, but still said that the soviet union was Poland's liberator and best friend?
The Katyn victims weren't even given a tombstone or memorial. We honored them and remembered them anyways.
One way we did this was to put flowers on an unmarked cobblestone in a cementary in Warsaw. It was our Katyn square.
If some dim-wit who doesn't know much about anything tells you that the communists saved Poland from the nazis, know that for many living in towns where the nazis were replaced by soviets, it went from systematic, brutal murder and rape, to a bloody chaotic rampage. The soviets were even worse than the nazis!
What makes me really angry is that in Canada, where I am currently living, most people seem to think of communists as just another party, if not "cool." Right here, where I am sitting and typing in a university computer lab, there hangs a poster of the student's union events commisioner. Written at the top, in large block letters, is "vive le dickie."
Below, there is a big picture of guy wearing a baseball cap, and a t-shirt with a huge hammer and sickle on it. The guy looks proud of himself, with his hands behind his back, and his chest displaying the communist flag. Don't these people get that nazi=communist=evil?
I just bought an absolutely excellent book about Poland and World War Two. It is called "A Question of Honor," and was written by two Americans, Stanley Cloud, and Lynne Olson, who thoroughly researched and asked many involved in the fighting, the decision making, and the betrayals.
I most strongly reccomend this book to anyone interested in truth, not simply what they wish to hear. Once you read it, I am sure that you too will also reccommend it to everyone you know, and to those you don't.
There is a website for the book, with an excerpt, and info.
This is at www.questionofhonor.com
enjoy!
Thank you for the link to http://www.questionofhonor.com.
Brave men of honor.
Betrayed by the free world.
My pleasure. It is always good to know there are people like you who want to know the truth, not just what they are "supposed" to believe. I hope everyone gets a chance to read this book. It is really that good.
Also, thank you for supporting Poland you guys. It is easy to think that nobody gives a damn when many are purposely ignorant. When we here that others do in fact care, it shows us we are not alone.
God Bless
My pleasure. It is always good to know there are people like you who want to know the truth, not just what they are "supposed" to believe. I hope everyone gets a chance to read this book. It is really that good.
Also, thank you for supporting Poland you guys. It is easy to think that nobody gives a damn when many are purposely ignorant. When we here that others do in fact care, it shows us we are not alone.
God Bless
There was no need for national will to send relief to Warsaw in September '44.
Wow you responded to something I typed 9 years ago
about something 69 years ago ;)
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