760c.61/66: Telegram
The Chargé in Poland (White) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 13—2:10 p.m.]
323. Military attaché informs me Kief was yesterday evacuated for strategic reasons: namely, first a desire to concentrate troops for the capture of Bolshevik army which has crossed the Dnieper to the north of Kief, and second, a desire to be freed from the cares of supervising a large urban population which contains some Bolshevik sympathizers. See telegrams from military attaché,8 who feels with other military men that the situation hardly warrants the evacuation of the city.
The Poles are now experiencing a feeling of depression such as the Slavic temperament is subject to: disturbing factors are the Cabinet crisis, the Warsaw strike, the great numbers of the monopolized [sic] Bolshevik army, the Krassin negotiations in London,9 and the general lack support in the west.
The Czechs in particular are stated to be holding up several ammunition trains destined for Poland. I understand that the Czech Government lays the responsibility for this action at the door of the railroad labor union. However, if the Department shares my views that the Poles are fighting the battle of civilization against [Page 385] the Bolsheviks, I think it would be desirable, in view of the credit which the American nation enjoys with the Czechs, for the Department to address pointed inquiries to Prague.