Huh? I wrote: “Eastern Europe, remember, wasn’t just unconditionally handed over to Stalin”
How is that saying or assuming that Poland was handed over to the Soviets?
That might have been the effect, though. At least that, correct or not, is how many people think. Poland was our ally, no?
Here is an example of one of the men we “Sold Out” to Stalin
Witold Pilecki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki
I don’t want to nitpick, but you said that Poland wasn’t “unconditionally handed over to the Soviets,” from which one could conclude you believed that Poland was “conditionally handed over to the Soviets.” But you may not have meant that.
On the other hand, there are many people who contend that we “handed Poland over to the Soviets.” Again, Poland was never in our hand to give to them.
The other issue regards Poland’s status as our ally. I’ve come to the conclusion that by breaking off diplomatic relations with the London Poles, the internationally recognized government of Poland, and not installing it when the Red Army ejected the Germans from Poland, Stalin committed an act of war against Poland. Thus, one of our allies, the USSR, committed an act of war against another, Poland.
The only way to redress this hostile act was to go to war with the USSR. That simply was not going to happen. And Stalin knew it.
So I go back to my original position. The USSR was going to turn Red Army-occupied Poland into a Soviet vassal state. We could not to stop it from happening.