Nazi White Book

When Foreign Minister Josef Beck and other leaders of a beaten Poland fled from Warsaw last September, they left in a hurry. According to the German Foreign Office, they left behind them some very interesting documents. Last week the Germans published these documents--day after Sumner Welles, just back from Europe, made his undivulged report to the President.

Published in a White Book, entitled "Polish Documents Bearing on Events That Led Up to the War," they purported to be memoranda from Polish diplomats (Count Jerzy Potocki, Ambassador to the U. S.; Jules Lukasiewicz, Ambassador to France; Count Edward Raczynski. Ambassador in London; Trade Councilor Jan Wszelaki) to their chief, Mr. Beck. They reported conversations held with U. S. Ambassador to France William Bullitt, U. S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's Joseph Kennedy. Of the conversations the documents reported:

> That Mr. Bullitt nursed a "strong hatred about Germany and Chancellor Hitler"; that Mr. Bullitt believed the U. S., France and England "must heavily arm in order to be able to oppose German power," that the U. S. would "undoubtedly" participate in a war to force the capitulation of Germany ("but only after England and France had first stirred themselves"), and was (in November 1938) already "in a psychosis similar to that existing before America's declaration of war on Germany in 1917."

> That President Roosevelt's foreign policy would be to: 1) denounce the totalitarian States; 2) accelerate war preparations in the U. S.; 3) tolerate no compromise with the totalitarian States on the part of Britain and France; 4) advance moral assurance that the U. S. would in the event of war "participate ac tively on the side of France and Britain."

> That President Roosevelt "was the first who gave expression to this hatred of Fascism," with a twofold object: "First, he wanted to divert the attention of the American people from difficult and involved inner political problems. . . . Second, by the creation of war opinion and through rumors about the danger threatening Europe, he wanted to get the Amer ican people to accept an enormous arma ment program. . . ."

> That "the President certainly said he would sell airplanes to France since the French Army is the first line of defense for the U. S."

> That Ambassador Kennedy would "insist on the necessity of [Great Britain] aiding Poland immediately with cash."

> That Mr. Kennedy had told Mr. Wszelaki: "You have no idea to what extent my oldest boy, who was in Poland a short time ago, has the President's ear. I might say that the President believes him more than me."

At the White House, the White Book was described as sheer propaganda, to be taken not with one or two, but with three grains of salt. "With even more salt," echoed Mr. Bullitt, before leaving by Clipper for France. Said Count Potocki in Washington: "I have never had any conversations with Ambassador Bullitt on America's participation in the war." Said Secretary of State Hull: "I may say most emphatically that neither I nor any of my associates in the Department of State have ever heard of any such conversations as those alleged, nor do we give them the slightest credence." From Harvard Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. denied that he had Mr. Roosevelt's ear. Said he: "A lot of bunk." In Berlin, some of the foreign correspondents who were shown the documents, written on scratch paper, reported that they looked genuine, were covered with marginal notes, apparently by Polish officials.

Neither the President nor Secretary Hull said in so many words that they were a fraud. They echoed familiar and fre quent public utterances of Francophile Bill Bullitt. On the sore point, the declaration that the U. S. would eventually go to war, they did not indicate that Mr. Bullitt had said much if anything more than most U. S. citizens were saying a few months ago.

If the documents proved anything it was that U. S. diplomats sometimes talk with an unprofessional lack of reticence.But the German Foreign Office tried to draw the nonsensical conclusion that U. S.officials had conspired to foment the war. Evidently indulging in false hope that the publication would set up dissension in the U. S., it hinted at the publication of more documents showing the ugly wiles of U. S. diplomats.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.