Memorandum, State Department Summary of Telegrams

the OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE DECLASSIFIED WASHINGTON E.O. 12065, Sec. 3-402 1982 State Dept. DEB Guidelines, NLT, Date March 9-11-85 6, January 5, 1953 By SECRET SECURITY INFORMATION SUMMARY OF TELEGRAMS USSR The British Ambassador to Warsaw has informed our Embassy there of a conversation between him and a Polish Foreign Office official regarding Soviet-American relations. The Polish official stated it was his view that only the United Kingdom was in a position to mediate helpfully at this juncture and intimated that British good offices would be welcomed. The Polish official also stated that more importance should be attached in the current situation to Stalin's reply to the questions submitted by James Reston, and inquired whether Churchill's plans for conversations in the United States had been modified in this connection. The British Ambassador thought that the Polish official had intended to convey the intimation of a Polish (Soviet ?) hope that the suggestion would be sent to London that the Soviets would welcome a mediation effort by Churchill with the new US administration and that the Polish official was probably acting under instructions on behalf of the USSR. Quite independently of the above, the Yugoslav Charge in Warsaw expressed to our Embassy the view that importance should be attached to the Stalin replies. He believed the Soviets may be in a mood to compromise with the United States but not prepared for reasons of prestige to do so in multilateral nego- tiations. His reasoning was that the Soviets were embarrassed by the serious deterioration during 1952 of economic conditions in the satellites plus the growing strength of the NATO countries to such an extent that Soviet commitments in the Far East were becoming burdensome. He also believed that Soviet relationships with other Communist regimes, including China, was such that the USSR thought it must keep the control of Communist foreign rela- tions strictly in its own hands and negotiate directly with the United States any compromise deemed expedient. SECRET SECURITY INFORMATON