Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- PART I STRENGTHENING THE TIES: THE EFFORT AND THE PROBLEMS
- PART II FOREIGN CRISES THAT DEMONSTRATE GREAT BRITAIN'S PROBLEMS
- INTRODUCTION
- 5 Background and build-up
- 6 Involvement of Great Britain and the United States
- 7 Yalta and after
- 8 Truman: the new factor
- 9 The gathering for the San Francisco Conference
- 10 Between San Francisco and Potsdam
- 11 Concluding thoughts on the Polish crisis
- 12 Background of the crisis
- 13 1944, the critical year
- 14 The role of the press
- 15 The crisis peaks
- 16 America dives in
- CONCLUSION
- NOTES
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX
6 - Involvement of Great Britain and the United States
from PART II - FOREIGN CRISES THAT DEMONSTRATE GREAT BRITAIN'S PROBLEMS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- PART I STRENGTHENING THE TIES: THE EFFORT AND THE PROBLEMS
- PART II FOREIGN CRISES THAT DEMONSTRATE GREAT BRITAIN'S PROBLEMS
- INTRODUCTION
- 5 Background and build-up
- 6 Involvement of Great Britain and the United States
- 7 Yalta and after
- 8 Truman: the new factor
- 9 The gathering for the San Francisco Conference
- 10 Between San Francisco and Potsdam
- 11 Concluding thoughts on the Polish crisis
- 12 Background of the crisis
- 13 1944, the critical year
- 14 The role of the press
- 15 The crisis peaks
- 16 America dives in
- CONCLUSION
- NOTES
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX
Summary
In 1944 the situation between the Soviets and the Poles became too exacerbated for the United States to maintain its detachment. Furthermore, as Britain was being sucked incessantly deeper into Polish affairs and assuming more and more the role of Poland's defender against Soviet encroachment, the British Government looked increasingly to the US for support.
The next principal event for America in the Polish drama was the visit to the United States of Polish Premier Stanislaw Mikolajczyk in June 1944. The visit had been delayed for months at Churchill's insistence because he feared that the appearance of the Polish Government lobbying for US support would further irritate relations with the Kremlin. By June, he decided Polish–Soviet relations could hardly be worsened and that perhaps it would be useful for Moscow to see that the Poles had other champions besides his government. In Washington the Polish Premier received little more than ‘moral support’, but Roosevelt did give him to understand that after the elections he would help Poland with its territorial problems. Roosevelt, however, urged upon Mikolajczyk the necessity of changes in the Polish Government as called for by the Soviets, eliminating certain ministers who were particularly offensive to them. Meanwhile, the President wrote Stalin asking that he receive Mikolajczyk in Moscow, to which Stalin equivocated because the Pole had made no 'step forward' regarding the émigré government or ‘recognition of the Curzon Line’.
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- Information
- The Vision of Anglo-AmericaThe US-UK Alliance and the Emerging Cold War, 1943–1946, pp. 80 - 86Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987