761B.00/10–3051
Memorandum by David H. Henry of the Office of Eastern European Affairs to Robert G. Hooker of the Policy Planning Staff1
Subject: Radio Free Europe
Attached are a letter to the Department from the Ukrainian National Council, protesting against a Radio Free Europe broadcast [Page 1306] on the subject of Poland’s eastern frontier, and a copy of the broadcast in question which you secured from NCFE.2
You will note that the Council’s complaint is based on a misunderstanding of what the RFE actually said in its broadcast of March 22. The Council alleges that the National Committee for a Free Europe declared that “nothing prevents the restoration of Poland’s eastern frontiers of 1939” and that the State Department “has the same opinion” but for tactical reasons has not yet expressed it.
In fact, the broadcast simply stated that the Yalta provisions on the Polish boundary are no longer binding on the United States in view of Soviet violation of other clauses of the Yalta agreement, that therefore the United States Government should be free to reopen the Polish eastern frontier question at any time, and that representatives of a liberated Poland should be given an opportunity to advance their frontier claims at some future peace conference at which these claims would be finally settled. Far from associating the State Department with this opinion, the broadcast stressed that RFE in no sense could speak for the Government.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Council’s complaint is based on an almost complete misunderstanding of the broadcast, this may be a good example for RFE of how to make enemies without winning any friends. Insofar as this broadcast gives Polish listeners the impression that the United States favors a redrawing of the Polish eastern frontier in Poland’s favor, it must give Ukrainian listeners the impression that such a revision will be at Ukrainian expense. And although RFE emphasizes that it does not speak for the Government, it seems difficult for European émigré groups to believe that our private American committees don’t reflect official views.
In view of the above, we believe RFE operations might be more successful if boundary questions of this kind were avoided.