Letter from Harry S. Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt

HARRY S. TRUMAN INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI former August 5, 1959 Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: I was very much intrigued by your letter of July 3rd about Julius Epstein and his 1954 American Legion Magazine article about Russian prisoners of the Allies who had served in the Nazi German army. As you remember, in 1950 and 1951 we prevented the forceful return of prisoners who had been in the Red Chinese and North Korean armies, because we did not want them to be stood up against a stone wall and shot. I refused to sign an armistice agreement on that account, but as soon as I left the White House, that agreement was signed. The Russian prisoners to whom Mr. Epstein referred were those who were shooting not only at their own people but at us and all the rest of our World War II allies, and an agreement was made at Yalta for their return. The Korean prisoners were in an entirely different category, and I never did agree to their return. flood Sincerely yours, Henry Phinage" Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt 202 56th Street West New York 19, N. Y.