CHAPTER I

Antecedents

Although it had been universally customary for warring powers to exchange captured military personnel once peace had been made, in 1919 the Bolsheviks established a precedent by using Allied prisoners of war as pawns in an attempt to force the Allied powers to extend diplomatic recognition. Because these Bolshevik actions set the stage for Soviet machinations following World War II, a brief account of them is necessary.

The 1918-1919 Anglo-American Winter War with Russia, or the Intervention in Russia, occurred as a direct result of the Bolshevik coup that overthrew the legitimate post-Imperial government. The United States, already involved in the war in Europe, was supplying the Allies with war materiél, some of which had been sent to the Russians at Archangel, Murmansk, and Vladivostok, along with the military personnel to guard it. (1)

After the coup in Moscow, the Allies were faced with the dilemma of "Who's in charge in Russia?" When the Bolsheviks seized power, they initially maintained contact with the Allies. (2) The Allies strengthened the Bolsheviks' bargaining position with the Germans, but Lenin's promise to the Russian people of "Peace, Bread, and Land" made it impossible for the Bolsheviks to continue fighting on the Allied side. (3) Lenin had to make peace with the Germans in order to consolidate his power and turn his forces against the growing anti-Bolshevik military threat. (4) Before the Soviets signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in 1918, however, Trotsky had ordered the Murmansk Soviet to cooperate with Allied forces to protect the vast amounts of supplies stored there. (5) The German occupation of the Baltic countries and landings in Finland threatened the supplies. To protect the materiél and keep it from the Germans, the Allies landed more troops at Murmansk, Archangel, and Vladivostok. (6) Although Trotsky had originally ordered cooperation with the Allies to prevent a German attack on Murmansk, after March 3 the Bolsheviks no longer feared a German attack. (7) The treaty did, however, raise the Allies' fears that the supplies would go to the Germans. (8) On the Western Front the Allies now faced German troops who had been withdrawn from Russia and sent there. (9) The Germans were no longer suffering as severely from the Allied blockade because the treaty with the Bolsheviks gave them access to many sorely needed items. (10) Because of this, after March 3, 1918, the Allies sent even more reinforcements to Murmansk, Archangel, and Vladivostok.

After the war in Europe ended, the Allies were concerned lest these supplies fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks. There was growing fear among the nations of the West that the Bolsheviks were planning to carry their revolution to neighboring countries. (11) As an alternative to Bolshevik domination, the Allies supported various anti-Bolshevik groups. After signing the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, the Bolsheviks viewed the increased number of Allied troops on Russian soil as a threat to them and to Russia. (12) The Allied presence did serve the Bolsheviks as a propaganda device in their war with the Whites. (13) Accusing the Allies of territorial designs on Russia, they protested the stationing of Allied troops in Russian territory. The Bolsheviks also appealed to the "masses" of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan to overthrow their bourgeois governments and stop the intervention, then began arresting Allied citizens. The Allies responded by arresting Bolsheviks, although the United States deported rather than detained the Russians. (14)

The American forces sent to Russia were placed under British command in violation of President Woodrow Wilson's original intent and despite his warning that:

^{Military intervention there would add to the present sad confusion in Russia rather than cure it [and] would be of no advantage in the prosecution of...the war against Germany. [The United States could not, therefore,] take part in such intervention or sanction it in principle.... Military action is admissable...only to help the Czecho-Slovaks consolidate their forces and to steady any efforts at self-government or self-defence in which the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance....the only legitimate object for which American or Allied troops can be employed...is to guard military stores and to render... aid...which may...be acceptable to the Russians in the organization of their own self-defence.} (15)

United States forces were, nevertheless, used in combat missions.

During the fighting, the 339th Infantry Regiment suffered casualties, including both KIA (killed in action) and MIA (missing in action). The 339th departed in the summer of 1919, and by the following spring all United States and other Allied troops were out of Russia. (16) As the British withdrew they seized a number of hostages to trade for British POWs and MIAs held by the Bolhseviks. (17) There were several hundred unaccounted for British, American, and French troops. The official history of the American expedition states that there were "hundreds missing from our ranks." (18) First Lieutenants Dwight Fistler and Albert May of I Company attempted to secure the release of captured Allied servicemen. "We had 500 Russian prisoners. They had seven of ours. We were worried about hundreds missing from our ranks and arranged a truce to effect an exchange....Negotiation was difficult....But the Reds learned what we were up for, and haggled. The end was, they traded us two of the seven Americans for the 500 Russian soldiers, and we had to toss in a round of cigarettes to seal the bargain. We never did learn what had become of the missing." Official United States military cables cited only about 70 MIAs, ignoring the hundreds mentioned in Fistler's and May's account. (19)

Negotiations for the repatriation of the missing failed. Colonel J.A. Ruggles, the United States military attaché in Archangel, reported on April 14, 1919, that "negotiations for the exchange of prisoners have been terminated by orders from General Pershing, after having been delayed, although under discussion from both sides, through the failure of the Bolshevik commander to obtain authority from Moscow." The Bolsheviks' refusal reflected their realization that the MIA/POW issue could be used to their advantage. (20)

The withdrawal of the Allied military forces left the POW issue in diplomatic hands. Russian intransigence over the return of the POWs was a Bolshevik attempt to force the United States and other Allied governments to deal directly with them, which would constitute de facto recognition and tacit withdrawal of support for the White forces.

The United States refused, however, to fall into that trap. On May 12, 1919, the Secretary of War informed Acting Secretary of State Frank L. Polk that with regard to "negotiations with the Bolshevik government in Russia for the exchange of Allied prisoners...a cablegram was sent to the Military Attache on May 1, reminding him that the United States has not recognized the Bolshevik regime as a government either de facto or de jure." (21) This United States' non-recognition policy made it difficult for the Bolsheviks to obtain credits and loans that would have helped stabilize their economy and, indirectly, the Bolhsevik regime. The United States did not, however, give in to emotional, political, financial, or any other type of blackmail or extortion in order to facilitate the release of its citizens. (22) As Secretary Polk wrote on June 24, the United States had no intention of recognizing "the so-called Soviet Government of Russia" and did not contemplate "recognizing any Government in Russia not based on democratic principles." (23)

Despite being adamant on the issue of recognition, the United States continued to press for the release of its citizens. The government refused, however, to "deal" for just one or two individuals. As acting Secretary of State Davis would inform the United States Minister in Czechoslovakia in 1921, "The Department has deemed it unwise to single out any one individual American citizen for special consideration, but based its endeavors on the broad ground of principle." (24) The government made many attempts to obtain the release of American citizens. The United States also made no distinction between military prisoners and civilian detainees, for to do so would have complicated an already maddening situation. The British and French governments had also tried to obtain the release of their nationals from the Bolsheviks. After the reported arrest of French nationals, Polk ordered the United States Ambassador to France to "learn...what...cooperative action on the part of Great Britain, France and the United States might be effective in obtaining the release of subjects of...the three governments." (25) A similar telegram was sent to the British, and Davis reported that they had made a proposal to the Bolsheviks an exchange of prisoners. "It is not thought that it will be accepted but that a counter proposal will be made in reply to which the British government would like to make a demand which would include our nationals who are imprisoned, as well as their own." Consequently, the Foreign Office would "like to be informed as soon as possible [as to] the number of American citizens imprisoned in Russia and where they are....[It is believed] there is but one British civilian prisoner at Petrograd and 50 or 60 military officers and men at Moscow." (26) Polk responded that the Department would be very glad to have included in the proposed demand for exchange the American citizen Kalamatiano...[but] the number of American military prisoners in Russia, if any, is not yet definitely known. (27)

According to G.J.A. O'Toole in Honorable Treachery (New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1919), p. 294, Xenophon Dmitrevich de Blumenthal Kalamatiano had worked in Russia for the Case Company, a manufacturer of farm equipment machinery. While in Russia he married a Russian woman who was a member of the Tsarina's court. This gave him an entree into the closed circles of the court. He left Case and became an independent agent for some thirty American and European firms. It was during this time, in 1914, that he was approached by an agent for Secretary of State Lansing and asked to report any court gossip he might pick up, which he agreed to do. A mail drop was established in New York and when the United States entered the war in 1917 his intelligence role was expanded and he was given a State Department salary of $2400 a year. He was also given other funds to open safe-houses and hire agents in Russia. Eventually, his role having grown, he was given a case officer, DeWitt Clinton, who was a foreign-service officer attached to the American Legation. Kalamatiano (and other sources) proved to be invaluable, providing important insights and information about the Bolsheviks. This information showed for example "that the Sisson documents linking the Bolshevik leaders to the German government were bogus." (p. 265) Unfortunately for Kalamatiano, he had been "made" by the Cheka. Due to a former spy of the Tsarist secret police who worked in the Embassy and "whom Dzerzhinski [head of the Cheka] had coerced into working for him...from about October 1917 onward Dzerzhinski had read all of Kalamatiano's intelligence reports." Kalamatiano and his network were arrested by the Cheka, and he and his "principal sub-agent, Lt. Col. Alexandr [sic] Friede, a Russian officer, were sentenced to death. Friede was shot, but Kalamatiano was confined in Lubianka...apparently on the orders of Lenin, who saw him as a potential pawn in dealing with the United States." Kalamatiano was eventually freed in August 1921 and returned to the United States. According to Ernest Volkman's Warriors of the Night (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1985), "Kalamatiano returned to the United States and took up his teaching again, but was later killed in a hunting accident." Ft. #28, p. 383. See also Telegram No. 4589 To: The Ambassador in Great Britain, From: The Acting Secretary of State, February 21, 1919, in FRUS 1919, Russia, pp. 173 -174.

The United States government continued to try, through other intermediaries, to obtain the release of American prisoners, but without success. On February 10, 1919, the State Department received a new Bolshevik offer to trade an American citizen and an English missionary (although it is unclear whether it was an English missionary or English mission) for Bolsheviks held by Allied troops. The United States refused to consider the proposal unless it included the American Consul Tredwell. (28) Again the Bolsheviks inquired if the United States government had agreed to the proposal "made by the Bolshevik government for the exchange of Russian prisoners at Vladivostok against simultaneous delivery of Kalamatiano at [Moscow]." (29) The United States had, however, no Bolshevik hostages and sought substitutes. When they asked the French government for help, the American Consul in Paris reported that the "French Government would be most happy to cooperate in every way possible with the United States in obtaining the release of the citizens of the two nations...[but] the only effective manner of dealing with the situation was the exchange of imprisoned citizens and...unfortunately the French have just effected such an exchange with Russia." Consequently, there were no "important Bolshevist persons remaining in France" who could serve for the exchange. (30)

On March 31, 1919, Chargé Grant-Smith in Denmark informed Polk that Bolshevik Commissioner Karasu Khan (31) had informed the Danish Red Cross that "all civilian and military Americans...now arrested in Russia will be liberated as soon as the Russian subjects now arrested at Blagoveshchensk [and] Vladivostok are liberated. All...who might desire to leave Russia will be exchanged with the previously mentioned Russian subjects and will be able to cross the Russian frontier at the proper place simultaneously with return...of the Russian subjects." (32) In the meantime, Consul Haynes at Helsingfors reported that he had worked out a way to obtain the release of prisoners by allowing the Bolsheviks to "purchase from America at current prices...about $260,000 [worth] of drugs" for which the Bolsheviks would be "required to deliver to me on [the] border about one hundred American, British and French prisoners." He also requested full discretionary power to make [the] bargain. (33) Secretary Polk refused, however, as one of the prisoners was the American Consul Tredwell, whose detention was a gross violation of international law. "His release and safe delivery outside the territory under Bolshevik control must be insisted upon as a condition to entertaining proposals for negotiations with Bolsheviki for release of other prisoners...[your] plan cannot, therefore, be approved....[Furthermore] proposal has not been communicated Nav[al] intel[ligence] [sic] and that so far as the Department of State is concerned no proposal to effect the release of American prisoners, including civilians improperly detained, in return for right to purchase drugs in this country would be approved." (34) Consul Tredwell was released, along with twenty-one other prisoners, eleven days later on April 25, 1919, without any bribe or promise of reward to the Bolsheviks. (35)

Unfortunately, the freeing of Tredwell did not presage a general release of American prisoners, either military or civilian. The Bolsheviks continued to hold other Americans as well as other Allied nationals, and they still demanded the release of "arrested Bolshevik Russians." A report from the Moscow office of the Danish Red Cross on April 4, but not received by the U.S. State Department until May 15, 1919, informed the U.S. Chargé in Denmark that the Bolshevik Commissioner of Foreign Affairs had asserted "that contrary to reports of the American State Department....there are beyond dispute arrested Bolshevik Russians with the Americans at Vladivostok and Blagoveshchensk and...remaining Americans...will not be released before these arrested Russians have been released." A later report from the same source, dated April 26, stated that "chances for exchange and departure are growing worse and worse, so that the Allies ought to accept proposals as soon as possible. It is almost too late even now concerning Kalamatiano and the other arrested Americans." The Danes proposed that the United States authorize them by telegram to agree to the release of "all Russians arrested for political offenses in east Asia, Vladivostok, and Blagoveshchensk" in return for the Americans. If the Bolsheviks accepted the proposal and released the Americans without waiting for the arrested Bolsheviks to arrive, the United States was to "permit Russia to buy and import American medicine through the Danish Red Cross." The Danes were sure the Russians would accept the proposal if it were "forthcoming from the American government in the very near future." (36)

On May 27, however, Polk informed the Chargé in Denmark that the "Department has positive report from American consul, Vladivostok, confirmed by General Graves, that Americans have not taken any Bolshevik prisoners in Siberia either at Blagoveshchensk or elsewhere." (37) In response to a second dispatch from Grant-Smith and dated May 15 (but not printed), Polk ordered the Chargé to "reiterate to Danish Red Cross that American authorities in Siberia hold no Bolshevik prisoners whatever." Polk also said that the United States had "no objection to Danish Red Cross purchasing in this country medicines for needy population in European Russia." Polk added that the United States government could not possibly object to a "humanitarian matter of this kind...proposed through neutral agency such as Danish Red Cross....[but] in these circumstances endeavour to secure the release of Kalamatiano." (38)

On June 25, 1919, Polk informed the Commission to Negotiate Peace in Paris that the Danish Red Cross would try to include Kalamatiano in its negotiations for British and French prisoners whose release was being arranged in return for the repatriation of Russian soldiers in France. It had been suggested that shipping be provided for the exchange of the prisoners, which Polk agreed to. Polk also inquired as to what action was "being taken by the French government for the repatriation" of Russian soldiers. The American Mission in Paris informed Polk that the "French Foreign Office considers that negotiations for the exchange of the French subjects now prisoners in Russia have come to a standstill and that nothing is to be expected from the Bolsheviks." The French were, nevertheless, going to "repatriate the Russian soldiers in France as soon as possible" even without "reciprocal action on the part of the Bolshevik government." (39)

The return of all Russians outside of Russia or with Allied forces was something that the Bolsheviks had insisted upon in all their dealings with the Allies. In 1919, William C. Bullitt, on his "unofficial" mission to Russia, attempted to discover under what conditions the Bolsheviks would agree to a cease-fire in the ongoing hostilities. The Bolsheviks responded that they would accept only their own proposals provided they were "made by the Allied and Associated Governments on April 10th." In the proposals the Bolsheviks had demanded that the "Allied and Associated Governments [were] to give a general amnesty to all Russian political opponents, offenders, and prisoners, and to assist their own nationals who have been or may be prosecuted for giving help to Soviet Russia." And in return for the Bolsheviks giving "full facilities for repatriation" of those "prisoners of war of non-Russian powers detained in Russia" as well as "all nationals of those powers now in Russia," the Allied governments were to repatriate "the Russian prisoners of war in whatever foreign country they may be, likewise all Russian soldiers and officers abroad and those serving in all foreign armies." Upon the signing of the agreement, the Allied governments were to withdraw immediately "all troops of the Allied and Associated Governments and other non-Russian governments...from Russia and military assistance [was] to cease to be given to anti-Soviet Governments" that had "been set up on the territory of the former Russian Empire." (40)

This March 16, 1919, document, although couched in diplomatic terms, demanded the repatriation of Russians, especially Russian officers, whether prisoners of war or serving in an Allied army. In addition to the aforementioned demands, the Bolsheviks insisted on formal diplomatic recognition and the repatriation of all expatriate Russian nationals. The United States refused, however, to recognize what was at best nothing more than a minority government, and which had "no mandate from anybody." (41) The United States was not the only country refusing to bow to Bolshevik pressure. The British Foreign Office assured the American Ambassador that Britons were not participating in the Dorpat Conference: although a British officer happened to be at Dorpat, he was "under strict instructions not to discusses politics." And the British representatives in Copenhagen were there only to discuss an "exchange of prisoners between British and Soviet Governments [and] are similarly instructed" not to discuss politics. (42)

The British Mission at Copenhagen under James O'Grady had been instructed to "enter into negotiations with Litvinoff [who was] representing Soviet Government Russia for exchange of war prisoners, military and civil." (43) O'Grady informed the American Ambassador that he expected the negotiations to last about a week, or longer if Litvinov brought an armistice proposal. O'Grady's personal opinion was that stopping aid to Denikin and Kolchak "would logically imply raising [the] blockade." In Denmark, American Minister Hapgood concluded his report on his talks with O'Grady by stating that "outside arrangement for prisoners...[O'Grady] has power only to examine proposal[s] and report." (44)

Secretary of State Lansing believed, however, "that the negotiations for the exchange of prisoners may become the forerunner of more general discussion with the Bolsheviki." He therefore ordered Hapgood to remain "entirely aloof from the negotiations...and in no circumstances come in contact with Litvinoff." Reports had reached Lansing that the Commissar of the Interior at Petrograd had "reported to the Council of Peoples' Commissars at Moscow that [because of a] lack of cooperation among workmen and their failure to grasp communistic principles, the early fall of the Soviet Government is inevitable unless recognition can be obtained from the Allied and neutral countries." Lansing also suspected that reports of Lenin and Trotsky holding democratic elections for an assembly, and the talk of an alliance with the moderates as well as rumors that they would make peace overtures to Kolchak and Denikin, were nothing more than an attempt to create "public sentiment abroad favorable to a composition with them." Lansing was concerned that the British government would "give to the Bolsheviki at this critical juncture the moral support they would derive from negotiations of a general nature...or an expectation of recognition." He believed that this would give the Bolsheviks the false assumption that they would not have to make concessions to their opponents in order to maintain their grip on power. (45)

In response to Lansing's concerns, on November 28, 1919, the British government stated that British representatives at the Copenhagen conference were "most emphatically instructed not even to listen to any peace proposals from Bolsheviks." (46) The next day, however, Polk informed Lansing that he had met with Lloyd George. In the course of their conversation, Lloyd George informed Polk that the British would "give no further aid to Kolchak or Denikin" after the current supplies were disposed of. Lloyd George was convinced that it was no use to continue helping them, for they were losing ground in the fight against the Bolsheviks. His view was "that the time has arrived to see whether it is not possible to reach an agreement with the Soviet Government." Lloyd George also believed that the Bolsheviks who were "anxious for peace...were prepared to recognize their international obligations." (47) On November 30, Hapgood informed the Secretary of State that the situation in Russia was such that four courses of action were open to the United States, but that probably the most effective course was to do nothing. The prevailing opinion at the Paris Peace Conference was to treat the "Russian situation as a civil war and to favor no faction." Hapgood's opinion was "that Bolshevism must inevitably be increased, strengthened and spread by war and must inevitably disappear in peace and prosperity." (48) On December 2, 1919, he informed the Secretary of State that Litvinov's credentials, which had been signed by Lenin and Chicherin, had turned out to be "extremely sweeping....[giving] him full power to conclude peace with any country on general terms indicated and also to alter such terms....O'Grady has applied [to] London [for] greater powers. [In addition] difficulties in the negotiations about prisoners [were] caused by Litvinov's wish to include Russian prisoners in Germany and Austria." Hapgood also informed the Secretary of State that O'Grady was beginning to concentrate on foreign trade. (49) At the same time Ambassador Davis reported that the British Foreign Office had assured him that all "negotiations with Litvinoff have so far been confined entirely to proposed exchange of prisoners. No reports have been received from British representative regarding Bolshevik peace offer." (50) It was obvious that the Bolsheviks were using the prisoner question as leverage to force diplomatic discussions, which would include trade, an exchange of consuls, and then full diplomatic missions. On December 10, the Allied missions in Denmark all received letters from Maxim Litvinov that should be regarded as "a formal offer of peace on the part of the Russian government." (51) Chargé Schoenfeld in Denmark informed the Secretary of State that he, in concert with the other Allied Embassies, had returned Litvinov's note with a statement that "I am not authorized to receive communications of this character from him. This decision was based on the grounds that Litvinoff's mission here was directing [sic] in connection with exchange of prisoners and that this attempt to open peace negotiations [is a] violation of [the] ruling under which he was allowed to come to Denmark." (52)

For more than a year there was no movement in the negotiations for prisoners, but by January 1921 the situation was beginning to change. (53) That month the Czechoslovakian government offered to assist "in repatriating Americans in Russia or help them in other ways....There are several hundred Russians in Czechoslovakia many of whom are prisoners who have not been returned to Russia nor are they included in the numbers of prisoners of war [now] being repatriated to Russia." The Acting Secretary of State ordered the American Minister in Czechoslovakia to thank the Foreign Office for the offer of "assistance in repatriating Americans in Russia and...Department would appreciate any efforts they might...make." (54) By February 26, 1921, however, it had become apparent that there would be no movement on the prisoner issue, as Litvinov was now a "strong factor in foreign policy and [he is] determined to request recognition of Soviet Russia before dealing with foreign powers."(55) A month later Nansen inquired as to whether or not "there is any likelihood that the Government of the United States will soon be willing to negotiate direct as the Soviets have frequently intimated a desire that it do so and, [as] negotiations have been quiescent for several months, this seems a favorable occasion" for doing so. (56)

On March 30, the U.S. Minister to Czechoslovakia (Crane) informed the Secretary of State that the Czechs were of the opinion that the Soviets expected the United States to "treat with them directly on the question [of American POWs] and that the Americans are held more or less as hostages." The Czechs would, of course, keep trying, but neither they nor Crane expected success. (57) On April 7, 1921, Nansen, still acting as agent for the American government in the matter of prisoner repatriation, telegraphed Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs George V. Chicherin that he had been requested to try to obtain an agreement concerning the release of American prisoners held in Russia. Nansen hoped that the Soviets would "allow all Americans [to] leave Russia, in which case, I feel certain it will be possible to bring all Russians you desire back from United States." Nansen also had new lists of Americans known to be in Russia and whose release was desired. The Soviets replied on April 9 that "as for American Government we will wait until it enters itself in negotiation with our Government upon matter referred to....We cannot see why [American Consul] should not enter in negotiations reciprocal repatriation." (58) The American Minister in Norway informed the Secretary of State that the French had been treated in the same manner. The French government "had been promised the release of all French in Russia but they were not released and negotiations were conducted through a French official owing to Russian insistence and the French Government at once stated that its fleet would bombard the towns on the Black Sea if the persons retained were not forthcoming immediately. As a result all were promptly released." (59)

In May 1921, the Secretary of State ordered Schmedeman to inform Nansen that the United States would not even communicate with the Soviets until all Americans were released. The American public was beginning to lose patience with the Soviet refusal to repatriate American citizens; therefore "it would be desirable to make the foregoing message to him public...[but] ask if he believes...[that] this will interfere with his efforts to secure the release of Americans or if it would embarrass him." (60) Nansen replied that not only should the reply be published but that he was thinking "of sending the text to the Soviets." (61) Whether or not Nansen sent a copy of the United States telegram is unrecorded, but if he did, and there is no reason to believe that he did not, it received a prompt response. Nansen's reply to the Secretary of State had been sent on May 10; the Soviet reply to Nansen's subsequent communique was received on May 15. "Answering your wireless of May 13th [are we] to understand that the detention of American citizens in Russia is the only hindrance to the resumption of trade and de facto relations between Russia and the United States of America?" Nansen asked the United States for approval "to reply personally and not on behalf of the Government of the United States that such detention is not the only hindrance but is a very serious one." (62) The next day, May 20, the Secretary of State replied that "Nansen should reply personally that this Government declines to discuss any question of hindrance to resumption of trade or to consider such resumption in any aspect until American citizens detained in Russia are released unconditionally." (63)

In June the Secretary of State learned from a letter sent by two Americans confined in a Moscow prison hospital that "American prisoners...[were being] held for exchange purposes....Americans are continually changed from place to place and information [on] their whereabouts withheld." The letter indicated that "Americans in prison have received especially cruel and inhuman treatment following Cooper's escape...some of the them...cannot survive under present conditions." (64) The Secretary of State asked the American Ambassador to Great Britain if the British might be able to bring "effective pressure...upon the Bolhseviki." Secretary of State Hughes ruled out direct negotiations with the Bolsheviks because he was convinced "that the Bolsheviki would make such negotiations the occasion for discussing innumerable unconnected issues involving the general relations of the United States with the Russian Soviets." (65) On July 1, 1921, Schmedeman informed the Secretary of State that Nansen had "received no reply to his telegrams [and] that Litvinoff seems opposed to the release of American prisoners....Also suggest following the plan adopted by France to force the release of French prisoners. [April 12, 1921, Cable 12]" (66)

Conditions were soon to change, seemingly in favor of the United States. On July 15, 1921, Secretary of State Hughes was informed that Maxim Gorky had appealed to Nansen to help obtain supplies from the United States to feed the "Russian people...[many] of whom are doomed to hunger and death." Nansen replied on July 14 that only the Americans would be able to help the Russians, owing to their "unique charity work during and after war," but warned him that a "serious obstacle will be that Americans [sic] citizens are retained in Russia and in Russian prisons....Urgently advise that they be released at once, otherwise...you cannot expect much help from America." (67) Of all the openings in the process of getting Americans home, this seemed to offer the most promise. The United States appealed again to the British, who were quite willing to help. American Ambassador Harvey informed the Secretary of State that Lord Curzon had "expressed most warmly his desire to help us in this matter. He is giving instructions to Hodgson, who is head of the Trade Commission leaving here for Moscow tomorrow, to do everything he can to secure the release of Americans detained in Russia or betterment of their conditions at least. Full lists and data [emphasis added] are being supplied to Hodgson for his confidential use." (68) Unfortunately, during this time Nansen informed the Americans that he had received a telegram from Chicherin in which he reiterated the Bolsheviks' refusal to discuss releasing any Americans. (69) The only hope, therefore, was trading aid for prisoners. The Bolsheviks would "win" no matter what. If the United States refused to send aid, then the Bolsheviks could use that as propaganda to emphasize how the West was trying to destroy Russia. If the United States did send supplies, the Bolsheviks could return as many prisoners as they wished. They could claim that the lists that the United States supplied were erroneous, or that they had no control over their field officers, as they had done in the Tredwell affair. (70) Aid even without recognition would supply the Bolsheviks with exactly what they wanted, an infusion of food and medicine, which they would not have to purchase with hard currency on the world market. They would have to make no concessions other than to return some prisoners. Except for recognition, the Bolsheviks would get everything they wanted and manage to keep the upper hand by returning more prisoners than the United States had asked for; this implied not only that there were still more Americans being held but would also embarrass the United States government. Reports indicate that there were indeed more Americans being held, but none ever came home.(71) Most of the prisoners returned in the Aid agreement were women and embassy and business employees. (72)

On July 25, Secretary of State Hughes sent a personal telegram to Litvinov through Albrecht, the Consul at Reval, in which he told Litvinov that there would be no relief until all American prisoners were released. (73) Three days later Gorky informed Herbert Hoover, Chairman of the aid program, that the Russian government found the "proposal quite acceptable as to its basis including the release of American prisoners." (74) According to Hoover, on August 2 Chicherin had sent a telegram to the foreign offices of Europe and the U.S. State Department asking for help. Except for the U.S., no concrete offers of help were made in response to the appeal. (75) On August 8, Litvinov informed the American mission in Reval that "all Americans in prisons and camps in Moscow are being sent to the frontier in number of six....If other additional are found in Petrograd they will be included in the party." (76) Two days later Consul Albrecht notified the Secretary of State that the six had arrived. Albrecht noted that one of the prisoners, who had been listed as Hazlewood, was actually Russell Pattenger, who had been "captured on January 22nd, 1920 while five hours from Red Army at Vladivostok while member of Company A, Siberian replacement detailed to temporary duty base hospital 17 and gave name Thomas Hazlewood because [he was] required to sign paper he could not read." (77) On August 12 Izvestia reported that Chicherin had announced that all "American citizens may leave Russia after presenting satisfactory proof [of] citizenship to Anglo-American division commission Foreign Affairs." (78) It seems apparent, however, that the United States was suspicious of Bolshevik promises. Commissioner Young at Riga reported to Secretary of State Hughes that "Keeley, whose arrival [is] expected shortly, should be able [to] give us accurate information regarding Bolshevik real attitude in matter [of] Americans still in Russia." (79)

On August 20, the United States and the Soviets signed the Riga Agreement, which spelled out the conditions under which the United States would undertake to carry out relief work in Russia. Among the conditions was the return of American prisoners. Specifically, the Agreement stated that

^{The Soviet Authorities having previously agreed as the absolute siné qua non of any assistance on the part of the American people to release all Americans detained in Russia and to facilitate the departure from Russia of all Americans so desiring, the A.R.A. reserves to itself the right to suspend temporarily or terminate all of its relief work in Russia in case of failure on the part of the Soviet Authorities to fully comply with this primary condition or with any condition set forth in the above agreement.} (80)

It should be pointed out that the U.S. authorities knew there were more than the six prisoners who had been most recently released or the US would not have needed this clause after the August 8 release, nor would Chicherin have announced on August 12 in Izvestia the aforementioned statement on citizenship proof.

On August 22, Secretary of State Hughes, in response to Young's warning, informed him that Hoover had also expressed doubts about Bolshevik veracity. Chairman Hoover had telegraphed John C. Miller, Chief of the American Relief Administration Mission to the Baltic States, that the Bolsheviks/Soviets might be using "satisfactory proof of citizenship" to "permit further detention of American citizens on technical grounds as many Americans have no doubt lost their identification papers." Hoover also noted that others, whom the Bolsheviks would seek to retain, "are wives and children of naturalized American citizens now in this country....Relief Administration anticipates liberal interpretation of clause in agreement covering release of Americans. Inform Litvinov." (81)

On September 1, the Soviets released more than 100 Americans. This number was many more than the American government had officially estimated as being prisoners, despite the military reports of numerous American military men being held.(82) In his memoirs, published in 1961, Hoover stated that Secretary of State Hughes had told him that "the Department knew that there were about twenty of them....the number [released] was a surprise." Hoover also claimed that those who were released were Russian naturalized American citizens who had fled to Russia "to escape from crimes committed in the United States." (83) If that were true, then it still begs the question as to what happened to the Americans captured in the so-called Winter War. The published documents for 1921 have no further information on American prisoners in Russia after September 1. Indeed the last printed document that deals specifically with prisoners is dated August 22, 1921. One may infer that the United States realized that it would never get back its citizens without recognizing the Soviets as the legitimate government of Russia. This the administration had already refused to do, and it would continue to refuse to do so until 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the Soviet government. Unfortunately for Americans still being held prisoner, there was no quid pro quo. In return for recognition, the Soviets delivered nineteen sets of remains. (84) Given the relatively primitive nature of forensic science in 1933 and the decomposition of the remains, it was impossible to determine that the remains were actually those of American soldiers or soldiers of any other Allied nation.

Exactly how many Americans were prisoners, MIAs, or dead? The Secretary of War published figures of 137 Killed in Action (KIA) (including 28 presumed killed), 43 dead of wounds, 122 dead of disease, 46 dead of accidental causes, and 5 suicides, for a total of 353. (85) These figures, however, "conceal the fact that out of the 144 combat deaths of American soldiers officially reported in 1919 in Northern Russia, 127 of those deaths, or 88% of those official combat death figures," included "some 70 MIAs declared dead, and...57 soldiers who were declared KIA-BNR [Killed in Action-Body Not Recovered, emphasis added]." This mixing of MIA and BNR figures with the KIA figures makes it impossible to gauge the credibility of the official count, which the government itself admitted in 1930. In a War Department memorandum to the Acting Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, Subject: Alleged confinement of American Officers and Soldiers in Russian prisons: "An administrative determination has been placed on each of their records that they were killed in action on the date they were reported as missing." All of the men who had been designated MIAS were thus "determined to be KIA-BNR on the date they were reported missing." It was an admission that there were still American prisoners of war in Soviet hands in 1930, and that the United States had no way of getting them back. They were, therefore, written off as dead. (86) This practice established a precedent for World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

In this same period another precedent was being established, and that was the problem of Russian prisoner of war repatriation. With the defeat of the Central Powers, the Allies were faced with cleaning up messes left in Germany. One of those messes was Russian prisoners of war. Sick, starving, and longing for their families, the Russians could not be repatriated as the British and French prisoners were. There was a revolution ending and a civil war beginning and these men were in no shape emotionally, physically, or politically to return to Russia. Many of the former Tsarist officers were offered repatriation to any place they wished to go, including destinations outside Russian territory. Most expressed, understandably, a desire to return home, but as J. Stuart Castle (87) stated:

^{Before the final dispersal, we had already heard reports of ex-prisoners being executed on return to Russia. Apparently, the Bolsheviks were in a frenzy of suspicion about those who had spent time abroad, and these ex prisoners were considered 'politically unreliable'. Soon I received a letter from the inter-Allied Commission, instructing me to warn them of the dangers facing them if they returned to Russia. Carrying out this instruction, I particularly remember the response of some officers of the Guards Regiments of St. Petersburg and Moscow. "But we are Russians!" they insisted. "We are going back to our own country, our own people. How could such things happen?" I could only repeat the warning. Many went back. What happened to them was learnt from a few survivors who passed the news to Russian emigre circles in the Netherlands: they were herded into the square of a small town and machine guns were turned on them.} (88)

If these Russians, both officers and enlisted men, were not to go home, then where were they to go? No other country expressed a willingness to accept large numbers of them simply because they would constitute a potential Bolshevik fifth column. (89) That concern is apparent from the documents printed in the Foreign Relations series of 1920-1922.

The precedents for tragedy were established. The ingredients of war, POWs, diplomacy, and threats would provide for an even greater tragedy in subsequent wars.

CHAPTER 2

The Agreement

In 1944 it was apparent that the Germans were losing the war. The Allies began their preparations for peace. Among the preparations made were those dealing with the prisoners of war. Both Allies and Axis had many prisoners and it was becoming apparent that the Allies were going to have to come to some agreement or protocol in order to facilitate the repatriation of Allied POWs.

Chapter II

Although before December 1941 the United States was not a participant in the European war, nor officially at least, contemplating declaring war on Germany or the Soviet Union, for reasons the protagonists found difficult to appreciate, the American Government was deeply concerned over the treatment accorded to German and Russian pws. It was, ostensibly, a humanitarian concern underlaid by the fear that Soviet mistreatment of German prisoners would cause Germany to retaliate against Soviet prisoners. It would not, US officials suspected, end there, for it could lead to mistreatment of British, French, and other Allied pows, some of whom quite possibly might one day be Americans. The government, whatever its underlying and unexpressed reasons, set out to persuade both Nazis and Soviets to treat their pows according to the humane terms agreed on in international conventions. For US diplomatic officials, this proved to be a frustrating enterprise. In addition, US fears were not shared by the British. (1)

On August 9, 1941, the US Ambassador Harriman informed Secretary of State Cordell Hull that he had received a note from the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. It stated that the Soviet Union would observe the Hague Convention of 1907 regarding warfare on land, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 regarding chemical and bacteriological warfare, and the Geneva convention of 1929 regarding care for the wounded and sick of warring armies. The Soviet Government would, however, observe the agreements "with respect to Germany...only insofar as they are observed by Germany." (2) From the US point of view that left much to be desired.

On August 19, Hull asked Ambassador Steinhardt if the Soviets would observe either the 1929 Geneva Prisoner of War Convention or the Geneva Convention of 1906. (3) On August 26 and on October 21, he repeated the query. (4) In the October 21 telegram Hull informed Steinhardt that the War Prisoners' Aid Committee of the Young Men's Christian Associations had requested State Department aid in securing Soviet permission to serve German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. Steinhardt replied that the Soviets had not responded to any of his queries. He had learned, however, that whenever American Red Cross representatives had attempted to discuss their adherence to Geneva with Soviet authorities, the Soviets noted that they found it unnecessary to adhere to the Geneva Convention. The Soviet Government said it was treating German prisoners much better than the German Government was treating Red Army personnel. Steinhardt observed that "the point of view was also expressed that the Soviet Government is unwilling to adhere to this convention because of its attitude toward Switzerland, whose failure to recognize the Soviet regime has long been resented."

Steinhardt also pointed out that the Soviets had refused permission to observe military operations to the British Military Mission, the British Military Attachés, and the American Military Attachés; they had also refused the American Red Cross limited supervision over its own supplies, much less freedom of observation or movement. Why, Steinhardt asked, did the YMCA think it would receive any different treatment? (5)

The Secretary of State evidently was of the opinion that perseverance would sway the Soviets. Accordingly, on November 7, Hull instructed Steinhardt to approach the Soviet government again. He pointed out the Geneva Convention was not being applied to Soviet prisoners in Germany because the Soviets were not a signatory of the Convention and the Nazis, therefore, felt there was "no obligation upon Germany to apply its provisions to Soviet prisoners under German control." Hull feared that if the situation continued, "the treatment not only of Soviet prisoners of war but of all other prisoners of war in Germany may become worse." Even though Hull knew the Soviet Union was "extremely reluctant because of the nature of its relations with the Swiss Government to adhere to the Prisoner of War Convention in the manner prescribed," he felt Soviet compliance would be the most effective step that could be taken "toward the humanitarian objective the Department has in mind." Steinhardt was to take up the matter with the appropriate Soviet authorities and urge them to consider the matter most seriously. The United States was prepared to act as "a friendly intermediary for the delivery to the Swiss Government of an act of adherence to the Convention by the Soviet Government." If this approach failed, then Steinhardt was to suggest that the Soviets conclude a reciprocal treaty between themselves and the Germans. Hull suggested the two use the first 88 Articles of the Geneva Convention as the basis for their reciprocity, and added that the US would be willing to act as intermediary in this also. (6)

On November 14, Hull ordered the US Ambassador to Great Britain to inform the British Government that the US had suggested to the Swedes that as the representatives of Soviet interests in Germany they do everything they could to convince the Soviets that a reciprocal treaty with the Germans would enable Sweden to act as the protecting power for Soviet pws just as it was already doing for the Belgians and the British. Hull hoped that the British Government would "communicate with the Soviet Government in this matter in view of the possibility of deterioration of the treatment of British prisoners in German hands" if conditions continued to deteriorate for Soviet prisoners. Hull also noted that the General Secretary of the International YMCA, Tracy Strong, had discussed this subject with Lord Halifax, British Ambassador to the United States. Strong had informed Lord Halifax that there was a possibility of "a general deterioration of the treatment of prisoners of war arising from non-observance by the Soviet Government of the Geneva Convention." (7)

On November 12 the Swedish Government had ordered its representatives in the Soviet Union to discuss the matter with the Soviets. It also informed the US that it had approached the German Government in October on the same subject. The German Government replied that it had attempted to obtain just such a reciprocal agreement with the Soviets. In late July it had attempted to approach the Soviet Government through the Bulgarian Government. The Soviets claimed, however, that "no such proposal had been received from the Bulgarian Government and that the Soviet Government did not feel obliged to take the initiative." (8) The Soviets had informed the Germans that they had "no intention whatever of concluding any kind of convention with the German Government regarding prisoners of war, and made only the demand of the German Government that the internationally recognized provisions regarding the treatment of prisoners of war," particularly those in the Hague Convention of 1907 regarding the rules and usages of land warfare, "be precisely observed." (9)

The Germans responded to the Soviet demand that before "Germany could reach an agreement with the Soviet Government regarding the prisoners of war, the Soviet Government would have to change thoroughly its treatment of the German prisoners of war." The Soviet Government had stated, furthermore, that "in its relations with Germany in the matter of prisoners of war it merely wished reciprocal observance of the rules of land warfare and did not intend to conclude any other agreements." The final nail in the coffin for the prisoners was that although Ribbentrop, the OKW, and even Dr. Goebbels had urged Hitler to accept the Swedish proposals, Hitler had refused for two reasons. One was that he did not want German troops on the Eastern front to think that if captured they would be treated in "accordance with treaties." The second was "that the Russian Government, by comparing names could discover that not all Russian soldiers who had come into German hands were alive." (10) Neither the Soviets nor the Germans had any intention of treating the other's soldiers in accordance with any international treaty. Neither country showed the least concern over the welfare of its own captured soldiers.

Both countries continued, nevertheless, to use the prisoners for propaganda purposes. The Swedish Government felt that while both countries were interested "to a certain degree" in an agreement, "neither is generally willing to permit actual inspection of prisoner of war camps and...both will probably find further excuses as time goes on to avoid any definite agreement permitting such inspection." (11) When the Swedish Minister, Per Vilhelm Gustaf Assarsson, approached Assistant People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Andrei Yanuaryevich Vyshinski about the pw issue, Vyshinski complained about German "atrocities being inflicted...not only [on] Soviet prisoners of war but on Soviet civilians in the occupied areas." The Soviet Union could not possibly have any dealings with a state that committed such atrocities, and had already said that it would observe the Hague Convention of 1906. When Assarsson suggested that the Soviets issue a declaration regarding this stance, Vyshinski was noncommittal but said he would "refer it to his superiors for consideration." (12)

On November 25, the Soviets replied to the American note of November 13 on prisoners of war and expressed their gratitude for US efforts on behalf of Soviet prisoners. The Soviets disagreed, however, that the Germans mistreated Soviet prisoners simply because "the Soviet Union is not a participant of the Geneva Convention of 1929 and that Germany is not under obligation to apply the regulations of this convention to prisoners of war in Germany." The Soviets pointed out they had informed the Germans that they would observe the 1907 Hague Convention, but the Germans had systematically violated "all international treaties and agreements including those concerning the treatment of prisoners of war." The Soviet Government also desired to "direct the attention of the Government of the United States of America to the circumstances that Germany, which is a party to the Geneva Convention, is obliged regardless of whether the Soviet Union is also a party to the Convention completely to observe all rules and regulations of the Convention by virtue of Article 82 thereof, which establishes that in time of war if one of the belligerents is not a party to the Convention, the Convention's regulations will nevertheless remain as obligatory as between belligerents which are parties to this Convention." (13)

The Soviets also pointed out that the only reason they were not signatories of the Geneva Convention of 1929 was because of article 9, "which establishes the distribution of prisoners of war in the camps according to their race, which is in direct contradiction with Article 123 of the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Precisely on this basis, the Soviet Government cannot give its assent to the adherence of the U.S.S.R. to the Geneva Convention of 1929."

Thurston, the American Chargé in the Soviet Union who had received the note, inquired of Vyshinski if the Soviets were issuing a "formal and definitive refusal" to adhere to the Geneva Convention. Vyshinski agreed that was what the Soviet Government had intended. Thurston then suggested that the Soviet Government might wish to announce its willingness to apply articles 1-88 upon terms of reciprocity to prisoners of war in its control. Vyshinski said that he would report Thurston's suggestion, but that this would entail acceptance of Article 9, which the Soviets ostensibly found so offensive. (14)

The German and Soviet governments both found their own prisoners of war a major embarrassment. For their part the Germans had not expected the war to last very long in the East, and they certainly did not expect German soldiers to surrender to the Red Army in any appreciable numbers. (15) The Soviet Government could not help but be embarrassed by the numbers of Red Army personnel who surrendered without even firing a shot. Whole companies, to a man, surrendered to the Germans in hope of being able to fight the communists. (16) By the time the Soviets began to mention the plight of their prisoners, their motive was not so much a humanitarian concern as damage control. The fact was that the Soviets were embarrassed to admit that 2,053,000 Red Army personnel had been taken prisoner before November 1, 1941; by March 1, 1942, 3,600,000 had surrendered to the Germans. (17) Alfred Rosenberg, in a report to the Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (OKW), noted that on February 28, 1942, the Germans had taken "3.6 millions of prisoners of war, only several hundred thousand are still able to work fully. A large part of them has starved...." Translation of Document 081-PS, 1/1 /41 g.Ks, The Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces [OKW], Berlin W 35, Tirpitzufer 72-76; Subject: Prisoners of War; from The Reich Ministry of the occupied Eastern Territories [Rosenberg], quoted in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol. III, Office of US Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, 1946 (Washington D.C., 1946), p. 117. Also the first major defection of Russian soldiers to the Germans occurred on August 22, 1941. Nikolai Tolstoy, The Secret Betrayal, 1944-1947, (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1977), p. 40

Some of these prisoners had been captured during battles, but others had surrendered because they saw the Germans as liberators and not conquerors. This was an admission the Soviet Government could not make, nor could it admit to the mounting losses. Either the Red Army was poorly led, poorly trained, and generally inadequate, or the German army was so overwhelmingly superior that it was all but irresistible. Stalin could never admit that millions of his soldiers hated living under communism so much they preferred to surrender to the hated Germans. (17) Prisoners were therefore traitors, and Soviet resources were not to be wasted on them. (18) At best, as prisoners of the Germans, they would be a drain on German resources . That is probably why the Soviets, other than for propaganda value, demanded that the Germans live up to the Geneva Convention of 1929 in their treatment of Soviet prisoners.

The Nazis for their part were faced with explaining how "sub human Slavs" could defeat "Aryan Supermen." A few prisoners could be explained away as having been taken while unconscious or wounded, but more than a few meant either cowardice on the part of the Germans or that the Slavic Soviet Army was as good as the Wehrmacht. (19) Both were unthinkable for the Nazis. Neither side, therefore, had any desire to have outside parties oversee how they were treating their prisoners or to admit how many of their nationals were prisoners of war. As the Swedes pointed out, neither the Germans nor the Soviets would consider allowing outside inspection of their prisoner of war camps. (20) The Germans had no intention of treating the "sub-human Slavs" humanely, but did not care to publicize it. (21) The Soviets had no intention of allowing any outside power to see the inside of a Soviet prison camp and learn how miserably their prisoners fared.

On November 25, the Soviet Government released a note to all the embassies in Moscow and also published it in the Soviet press. It described Germany's mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war and also its inhumane treatment of Soviet peasants in occupied territories. Soviet soldiers and peasants, the note stated, were being tortured with hot irons; eyes were gouged out; amputations "of legs, arms, ears, noses, and fingers, disemboweling and quartering by tanks [sic]." The note also stated that Soviet prisoners were also used as human shields, the sick and wounded were deprived of medical treatment, and all were being starved. Buried in the note, however, was an attempt by the Soviets to counteract revelations of Soviet personnel working for the Germans. The Soviets "alleged...that...Red Army prisoners are driven by threats and beatings to serve as wagon drivers, chauffeurs, and in other capacities to carry munitions to the front and as porters carrying munitions to firing positions." (22)

What was most important was not German atrocities or the starvation of Soviet prisoners, but the fact that Soviet prisoners were working for the Germans. If it were not already evident to the world it soon would be, because the Soviets were aware that these prisoners would be an effective propaganda tool for Germany. The Soviet Government therefore presented these prisoners as forced labor and not as willing participants. The truth was that they were not forced labor, for most had volunteered almost from the moment of capture or surrender. Despite Hitler's orders that the Ukrainians and the Russians were to be enslaved and Russia occupied, German front line commanders welcomed these hilfswillige (23) with open arms as there was a shortage of personnel on the front lines. Some "all-German" units contained up to 10 15% Russian pows, and many Russians were employed in paramilitary maintenance, supply, transport, engineer, and labor battalions. "Also in 1941, the Abwehr...began organizing several one- to two hundred-man companies of Russian scouts. These grew so rapidly that they soon lost their reconnaissance character and took on regular, antipartisan assignments." (24) This was a huge embarrassment to Stalin and the Soviet regime. Evidently, the significance of the November 25th note was either lost on the American government or it was politely ignored.

The United States continued to attempt to ameliorate conditions for Soviet prisoners. On December 9, Secretary of State Hull optimistically telegraphed Thurston that "Department is pleased to note that there appears in the final paragraph of your report [No. 1977, November 26, 1941,] ground to hope that means may eventually be found of obtaining the mutual application" of the Geneva Convention to both sets of pws. Hull referred to Thurston's suggestion that the Soviets make an "official declaration to the effect that the Soviet Government was prepared upon terms of reciprocity to apply to prisoners of war" the Geneva Convention using "some revision of phraseology" to avoid conflict with the Soviet Constitution over Article 9. Hull also hoped that the agreement "would include the guarantee established in Article 86 of that [Geneva] Convention for the effective application of its terms, namely the periodical inspection of the camps by the representatives of the protecting powers." Hull and the State Department considered Article 86 "of primary importance." Hull ordered Thurston to communicate to the Soviets the importance of the inspection of prisoner of war camps as integral to guaranteeing good treatment of the prisoners. (25)

Chargé Thurston responded on December 16. He asked if he was to continue working on the prisoner issue now that the US had entered the war. He told Hull that he had asked Vyshinski about the November 26 suggestion. Thurston had been surprised to learn that Vyshinski had considered the matter closed because of his government's stated objection to Article 9, but he would again "lay the suggestion before his Government and inform me of its suggestion [decision] [sic]." Thurston expected the compromise to be rejected again as would "the final alternative suggestion...in Department's 1199, November 7. 1941" of a bilateral agreement between the two belligerents based on the Geneva Convention. Thurston was of the opinion that the real problem was not Article 9, but the "fear that adherence to the Convention or acceptance of the suggestions would entail the inspection of prison camps in the Soviet Union." (26)

On December 23, Chargé Dickerson telegraphed Secretary Hull that he had called upon the Chief of the American Section of the Foreign Office, Georgy Nikolayevich Zarubin. Vyshinski had ordered him to inform the United States that the Soviet Government had issued its definitive response to Hull's suggestions on November 25. The Soviets reiterated that except for article 9 of the Geneva convention and certain other "very insignificant [points] to which the Soviet Government raises no objection, the Geneva Convention is identical to the Hague Convention." One of those "very insignificant points" was on site inspection of the prisoner camps, something that did not fail to pass the notice of the Secretary of State. (27)

On the same day Secretary Hull ordered Thurston to point out to the Soviets that the Hague Convention was "much more restricted in scope than...the Geneva Convention and that...the difference" lies in the obligatory inspection clause required by the Geneva Convention. Hull also assured Thurston that US participation in the war did not change his orders, and that the US Government "intends to apply the Geneva Prisoner of War and Red Cross Conventions, both of July 27, 1929, to all prisoners of war that it may take and, in so far as the provisions of the Prisoner of War convention are adaptable, to any enemy aliens that may be interned by this Government." Hull concluded by again insisting on on site inspections of pw camps. (28)

On December 24, 1941, Joseph C. Green, Chief of the Special Division, sent a memo to Assistant Secretary of State Long suggesting that he bring up the subject of pws, and the Geneva Convention with Soviet Ambassador Maxim Litvinov. Green hoped that Long could persuade the Soviet Ambassador "to prevail upon his Government to apply the Geneva Convention or a regime similar thereto in all respects." (29) Ambassador Litvinov was no stranger to negotiations concerning pws but it is unlikely that he would have proved sympathetic in the matter. Evidently, from published documentation, the US finally concluded that the matter was, for the moment, a futile cause. On December 30, Assistant Sec. of State Long issued a memo indicating that the Sec of State agreed that it was "inopportune to pursue further at this time the question of the adoption by Russia of proposals to agree to the Geneva Convention." The US' continued efforts to get the Soviets to honor the Geneva Convention had failed; it was now felt that the United States "should refrain from any particular urging upon the Russian Government." (30)

It was not until May 29, 1942, when President Roosevelt personally inquired as to the treatment of Soviet pws, that the US again tried to find a way to help Soviet prisoners. At a meeting with Molotov and Litvinov at the White House, Roosevelt inquired of Molotov as to German treatment of Soviet pws. Molotov replied with the usual stories of cruelty, torture, starvation and general inhumane treatment. The Germans he said evidently felt that they did not have to abide by any rules while the Soviets were following the Hague Convention "to the best of their ability." When Roosevelt suggested that at the very least, there should be some way to exchange pw lists, Molotov replied that they would not give the Germans the "slightest pretext for claiming that they [the Germans] were observing any rules whatever, because the fact was, they were not doing so." (31) Molotov showed no interest in any suggestion for ameliorating conditions for Soviet pws. Harry Hopkins' notes on this meeting state that it was evident the State Department wanted the Soviets to adhere to the Geneva Convention, and that the inspection clause probably was the biggest sticking point for both Germany and the Soviet Union. "You don't have to know very much about Russia," Hopkins wrote, "or for that matter Germany, to know there isn't a snowball's chance in hell for either Russia or Germany to permit the International Red Cross really to inspect any prison camps." According to Hopkins, Molotov said that the Soviets would not give the Germans any diplomatic advantage by allowing them to claim they were living up to the Geneva Convention when in fact they were not doing so, and the Soviets knew the Germans would lie about it anyway. (32)

The Soviets were consistent, if not humane--their non-concern about prisoners was general, not specific. During 1943 the United States attempted to transship Red Cross parcels, medicines, and mail to pws of the Japanese. Soviet responses to American pleas for help are filled with the typical Soviet responses of agree and delay, agree and pass the buck, agree and fail to do it. (33) Nothing was done until Secretary of State Hull informed the Soviet Government that its failure to implement transhipment of supplies to prisoners was causing a serious backlash in America. According to Hull, the increased public pressure on the United States Government brought by the relatives and friends of the prisoners "is becoming politically embarrassing." Hull noted further that it was being "pointed out that since substantial shipments of lend-lease materials are being sent in American ships across the Pacific to the Soviet Union, it should be possible" to arrange with the Soviet Government for the shipment of the "comparatively modest amount of relief supplies" for transshipment to the prisoners. The US public failed to make the distinction "between the furnishing of lend-lease materials to Soviet Russia and the shipment of relief supplies to American prisoners of war...and the Government is finding it increasingly difficult to make this distinction clear in a way which will not reflect upon the Soviet Government's cooperative spirit." (34)

Evidently the implied threat to the Lend-Lease shipments, however vague, was enough to impel the Soviet Government to send a strong note of protest. It stated that the American public criticized the Soviet Government because of "insufficient or incorrect information [received by] sections of American public regarding actual position of Soviet Government in matter." Therefore it was quite "clear that the Soviet Government cannot assume responsibility for situation." Because the Soviets saw no direct connection between Lend-Lease and relief supplies they could see no "basis for the statement that American Government finds it embarrassing to explain distinction...in such a way as not to reflect upon cooperative spirit of Soviet Government." (35) At this time, nevertheless, the Soviets reluctantly began the actual business, albeit slowly, of gathering and readying relief supply shipments. (36) Unfortunately for the prisoners, the Japanese refused to accept the shipments. (37) Later, however, it would seem that the Soviets would view this understated (to the point of non-existent) threat to Lend-Lease as very real. (38)

Soviet non-concern over prisoners of war soon changed. In 1943 the Western Allies began to capture Russians in German uniform in North Africa, and during the invasion of Italy still more were captured. (39) The Soviets had feigned ignorance of Soviet soldiers serving in the German Army but, after the capture of these soldiers they could no longer pretend that any Soviets serving the Germans were doing so under duress. (40)

The Germans, through the Swiss, had threatened to retaliate against American and British prisoners in their control if the Soviets were returned to the Soviet Union. (41) The United States and British governments informed the Soviets that any Soviet in German uniform who claimed the protection of the Geneva Convention would not be repatriated to the Soviet Union, for the time being. (42) It became apparent that some type of agreement would have to be reached concerning the disposition of Soviets captured in German uniform and repatriation of respective citizens in general. (43)

On July 13, 1944, the Soviets issued a stern note concerning an alleged press conference held on July 9 in London by one of General Eisenhower's staff officers. At the press conference the officer had reputedly made an observation about Soviet soldiers serving in the German Army. The officer had characterized 90% of the soldiers as being anti-Nazi and only 10% as "pro-German and [having] joined the German Army at their own free will....[With] former officers of the Red Army, serving now as officers in the German Army, this percentage should be considered as somewhat higher." According to the Soviets, the officer had also stated that at the start of 1942 Russians who had gone over to the Germans had been "organized into separate battalions." The Soviet Government through Chargé A. Kapustin characterized the July 9 statement as containing "a number of improbable and evidently fictitious data...drawn...from German sources. Arises a lawful question, what common Allied interests could have prompted such a statement, defaming Soviet people and casting a shade on Soviet citizens in military service who found themselves in German captivity?" (44)

Secretary of War Stimson, in response to a query by Secretary of State Hull, assured him that not only had no such statement been made by anyone on General Eisenhower's staff but that those individuals who had been present had assured General Eisenhower that "no reference to Soviet Russia was made." The only stories that mentioned Soviets in German uniform had been "filed from Normandy by Associated Press and United Press war correspondents. These stories were passed by SHAEF censorship since security was not involved." Stimson would, however, "take further action on this matter" if the Soviets provided more information. (45) Wherever the information came from the story was essentially true and the first time it had become public knowledge. The Soviet government was exceedingly sensitive on the subject and demanded that those individuals captured in German uniform be segregated from the Germans and treated as Nazi prisoners. (46)

The question of what should be done with Soviets captured in German uniform remained a pressing one. On August 7, 1944, Chief of the Special War Problems Division James H. Keeley, Jr. informed Assistant Provost Marshal General Bryan that the State Department had decided to go along with the recommendations of the Combined Administrative Committee. Those recommendations were

^{1) Soviet personnel captured with German para-military units should be categorized as prisoners of war; 2) their treatment should be governed by the requirements of the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, signed at Geneva, July 27, 1929; 3) Soviet authorities should be offered an opportunity to take over such personnel as they find acceptable for incorporation into the Soviet forces; and 4) dealings with the Soviet authorities on this subject should be through military channels and any screening should be done in the United States or Great Britain and not in Normandy.}

Keeley added that the British wanted to know if the "practice followed by the United States Government in dealing with this problem diverges substantially from that outlined in the Foreign Office's telegrams." (47)

The Soviets demanded that any Soviets captured were to be separated from the German prisoners and accorded liberated personnel status. (48) This would eliminate their being able to claim protection under the 1929 Geneva Convention on prisoners of war.

On September 9, 1944, Ambassador Gromyko informed the Secretary of State that Soviet citizens were among the pws Allied forces were capturing in Europe. Gromyko emphasized that the Soviet citizens were not there by choice but had been "taken by force" by the Germans. The Soviet Government, therefore, wanted its citizens "returned to the Soviet Union at the earliest opportunity." The Soviets insisted, furthermore, that the Allies aid and assist their repatriation officers who were attached to Allied HQ MTOUSA [Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army] as well as the members of the Military Mission of the Soviet Union who had "been entrusted with the task of repatriating the Soviet citizens mentioned." Gromyko also asked that the United States cooperate in the repatriation of Soviet citizens who had been sent to pw camps in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. The US should also provide transportation for the "repatriation of these Soviet citizens to the USSR." (49)

Gromyko also made repatriation a topic of the Dumbarton Oaks conference. Under Secretary of State Edward Stettinus reported that Gromyko had broached the subject of Soviet citizens who had been captured in German uniform and brought to the United States as German pws. Gromyko wanted to know where these prisoners were, how many there were, and when more might arrive. (50) In response, on September 15 Hull wrote Gromyko that any "claimants to Allied nationality found among German prisoners taken by American forces" would continue to be treated according to the Geneva Convention as German prisoners of war, that this policy would continue in order to avoid German reprisals against American and British prisoners and any Soviets captured in German uniform who wished to be returned to Soviet control were so returned. Hull noted that such cases were to be handled not on a government to government level but "through military channels." He pointed out that this was at odds with what the British were doing. The British had taken up the case of "Soviet citizens or Russians captured in France...through diplomatic channel[s]."(51)

The United States State Department had informed the Soviets as early as December 13, 1943, that Soviets captured in German uniform would be accorded pw status unless they specifically requested return to Soviet control. This policy had been followed in order to decrease the risk of reprisals against American pws for forced repatriation. (52) The United States Government was aware that the British had approached the Soviets about a diplomatic solution to the growing repatriation problem. On September 16, Kirk informed the Secretary of State that an agreement had been reached with the Soviet Government concerning "repatriation of Soviet citizens now or in future held as prisoners of war in Mid East irrespective of whether the individuals desire to return to Russia or not." Kirk further pointed out that individuals would not even be questioned as to their "willingness to return" to the Soviet Union. The Mid-East command had received "instructions from London to implement this agreement and arrange as soon as possible for transfer of these persons to Tehran. Macmillian is apparently receiving instructions to this effect from Foreign Office." (53) The following day Kirk asked Hull if he were aware "of the nature of methods which may be applied in compelling those Russian prisoners of war, who under previous arrangements were given option of retaining prisoner of war status, to return to Russia, especially in view of fact that...some were taken by our forces and delivered to British under arrangement whereunder that option prevailed." The methods used included force. (54)

Despite the State Department's stand on repatriation and the Geneva Convention, the United States Government's position on repatriation of Soviets captured in German uniform changed to follow the British lead. The event which seems to presage the change in attitude was the rescue of US pws from Romania.

Most of the German pw camps which held American and British prisoners were located, for strategic reasons, in the east, primarily Poland and Eastern Germany. This was to curtail escape attempts on the part of the prisoners. Both the United States and Great Britain were aware that the Red Army would be liberating many of these camps. There was no way to ensure the safety or care of the prisoners. The United States and Great Britain had little confidence in the treatment that the Soviets would mete out to liberated prisoners. In addition there was no formal agreement as to how Allied pws would be returned to their respective countries. The Soviets had already issued veiled threats tying treatment and repatriation of Soviet pws to treatment and repatriation of US and GB prisoners.

In August King Michael of Romania permitted the United States to fly out Allied prisoners who had been held in Romania. On August 29, 1350 American fliers who had been held in various prison camps in Romania were rescued by the United States Air Crew Rescue Unit, when the Red Army was only days away. The Americans were under Frank Wisner, head of the OSS operations in southeastern Europe. The group was actually an OSS unit using the cover of rescue of pows in order to capture German intelligence records. When Gen. Donovan, head of the OSS, learned that King Michael's new government was willing to release the prisoners to the Allies, he contacted Ira C. Eaker, commanding general of the US 15th Air Force at Bari, Italy. It was decided that, despite continuing fighting between Romanian and Red Army forces as well as the presence of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe in the immediate Bucharest area, the rescue team would use Popesti Airfield. Twelve US B-17s removed the prisoners in hourly shifts until all were evacuated.

The team that rescued the prisoners had other duties: to "secure intelligence for the Air Force on the results of the bombings of Ploesti Refineries, and on future targets...[and] to secure general political military and economic intelligence from secret sources." (55) The evacuation of the pws was further enhanced by the detection "of an additional 350 airmen in Bulgaria...[who] were exfiltrated to Cairo....During [Operation] Gunn, therefore, about 1,700 American airmen were rescued...with the help of the Rumanians [sic] and without opposition from the Red Army." (56)

The removal of the prisoners by air and the intelligence operation were probably ambiguous enterprises as far as the Soviets were concerned. Donovan was most expedient in sharing with the Russians the wealth of information gleaned from the intelligence operations. However, the insertion of an intelligence team into a prisoner repatriation/rescue operation could not help but raise the suspicion in the minds of the Soviets that future repatriation teams would also be composed of intelligence agents, whether OSS or military. The rescue of the prisoners was to be a singular event, for the Soviets would not cooperate in such an enterprise again. They had not really had much say in the Romanian operation and thus were unable to stop it. In future operations, however, they would exercise considerable control. (57)

Secretary Hull was aware of this and it probably contributed to the change in US policy to which had Kirk referred. After Kirk's September 17 telegrams [Nos. 411 and 428 above], Hull ordered Ambassador Harriman to convey "the appreciation of the Government of the United States for the assistance rendered by Soviet military authorities in arranging for the evacuation of American prisoners of war....Special assistance...given in evacuation of American airmen...by General Burenin who was most cooperative." As Burenin's assistance consisted of not stopping or hindering the evacuation, it can only be assumed Hull's note was an attempt to placate the Soviets. (58) In addition, the change in American repatriation methods can only be a reflection of the realization that the Soviets were going to liberate several thousand of American and British prisoners as they advanced on Germany from the East. Failure of the Western Allies to repatriate Soviets could lead to Soviet non-repatriation of Allied prisoners of war.

The British government had evidently come to that conclusion earlier. On September 24, Harriman informed Hull that the British Ambassador in Moscow had received a copy of a telegram dated September 14 from the Foreign Office to Lord Moyne. Lord Moyne "was informed that so far as the Middle East was concerned all Soviet nationals held there as prisoners of war would be delivered to the Soviet authorities whether the individuals concerned desired to be repatriated or not." Harriman pointed out that this would have implications for American policy. He wanted to know the "exact nature of the policies established by the Combined Chiefs of Staff." Did this mean, asked Harriman, that the Combined Chiefs proposed "to have Russians taken as German prisoners delivered to the Soviet authorities against their will?" If that were so then what, he asked, "was the meaning of their statement that the purpose of their policy is to avoid risk of reprisals?" Finally Harriman wanted to know how the British Government would order its Middle East command to carry out forced repatriation. (59)

On September 26, Gore-Booth of the British Embassy transmitted to Bernard Gufler of the Special War Problems Division a memorandum prepared by British military authorities in Washington. The memo reported an agreement between British and Soviet negotiators had been reached. It said that the large numbers of Soviet prisoners being held would be released to the Soviets "contingent upon enlistment in the Russian forces in the United Kingdom." Since it was expected that the majority, if not all, would volunteer, no decision needed to be made as to repatriation unless "any substantial numbers refused to volunteer." The memo went on to say that the British government had been "influenced by the fact that when the Soviet overruns Germany they are almost certain to come across a number of our prisoners of war, whom, naturally, we want properly treated. It is felt very strongly in London that the treatment of our men in Germany will depend very largely upon the way in which the Russians are treated in the United Kingdom [emphasis added]." (60)

Secretary Hull was concerned about the different approaches to repatriation being taken. On October 6, he asked Admiral Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, to clarify the problem of Soviet repatriation. Evidently, repatriation policy was not being set by the State Department but by Leahy's office. Hull wanted an "expression of [Leahy's] views concerning the matters referred to in the notes of the Soviet Ambassador" on non-consensual repatriation. Hull was also angry that policy was being formulated without his knowledge. He suggested "in view of the political complications involved in this problem...it might be useful if representatives of the Department of State might be included in whatever subcommittee of the Combined Administrative Committee you may set up to make recommendations on this matter." (61) The British Embassy informed Hull that the British military would suggest to the CCS that representatives of both the State Department and the British Embassy be included on the sub-committee dealing with the question of Soviet repatriation in order that the combined military agencies would not be "working without coordination with the diplomatic side." (62)

The British, voluntary repatriation having failed, were forced to embark upon total, forced repatriation. On October 7, they informed the US that "despite terms of Geneva convention it is not possible for a soldier captured by his own forces while he is serving (willingly or unwillingly) with enemy forces to claim protection of Convention vis-à-vis his own Government....[There fore] if such a man is captured by an Allied Force, the Allied Government has a right to deliver him unconditionally to his own Government without being held responsible for violation of Convention....In any event, Moscow Government has requested the men ...sent back to Soviet Union...and since these men will no longer be treated as prisoners, the Geneva Convention will no longer apply [emphasis added]." (63) On October 11, the British Embassy officially informed the State Department that the British were no longer treating any Soviet as a prisoner of war. (64) Charles Bohlen, Chief of the Division of Eastern European Affairs requested a clarification of the new policy. Bernard Gufler of the special War Problems Division responded that the "adoption of this new policy towards the Soviets will result in the delivery to the Soviet authorities of persons hitherto withheld from them because they were unwilling to return to the Soviet Union." (65) There was, evidently, a split between the State Department and the CCS as to how repatriation should be handled. Bohlen, despite Gufler's response, told Alexander Kapustin that "all persons captured in enemy uniform were treated as prisoners of war in accordance with the provisions of that Convention" and any exception was made only when the individual himself made the distinction. (66)

The split in decision-making on pw repatriation had occurred some time before. The British had been carrying on diplomatic negotiations with the Soviets over repatriation as had the United States, evidently without notifying Hull. The CCS ordered General John R. Deane, head of the Military Mission to Moscow, to finalize negotiations on repatriation with the Soviets. On September 4, 1944, Harriman informed Secretary Hull that "on August 20 pursuant to instructions received by General Deane I addressed a letter to Molotov in which I submitted definite proposals regarding...working out of advanced plans for the prompt return of American or Soviet prisoners of war [and an] exchange of intelligence regarding the location of prisoner of war camps in hostile territory," the despatch of repatriation teams to the liberated territories, and collecting and transmitting to the appropriate governments the names of individuals "claiming Soviet or American nationality." Harriman also requested that the Soviets assist "with the planned evacuation to Istanbul of American prisoners of war who have been released in Bucharest." (67) Both Harriman and Deane claim in their respective memoirs that the idea for a repatriation agreement originated with Deane, despite the fact that Harriman specifically says that "pursuant to instructions received by Deane" on August 20, 1944, he had approached Molotov on August 30 concerning a prisoner of war repatriation agreement. (68) In addition, on January 28 Acting Sec of State Grew informed Harriman that "SHAEF is working out combined British-American text of agreement to be submitted to big three meeting...inform American representatives working on SHAEF draft that...before making any commitments on our behalf they await further instructions which...will be sent through joint [sic] Chiefs on January 29." (69)

Soviet nationals were scattered throughout the prison camps run by the Allies in the West. The Soviets demanded immediate access to all the camps and the right to interview any individual whom they said was a Soviet citizen. They also demanded that Red Army representatives be assigned to all Allied HQs so that they would have immediate access to any prisoners taken. Given the Soviet demands and the fact that many Western Allies' prisoners in Eastern European German pw camps were to be liberated by the Red Army, it was obvious that a written agreement spelling out in specific terms exactly what was to be done for and to pws liberated by each side was necessary. The US insisted that the agreement ostensibly be between military commands and not a government to government diplomatic treaty, for treaties were subject to review by the US Senate. (70)

General Deane was instructed to open negotiations. The agreement, however, had already been worked out between the US and the Soviets. When Deane submitted the document to the Soviets he reported that they accepted it without any revision other than minor rewordings, which surprised him. (71) It was signed by Deane and General Gryzlov at Yalta on February 11, 1945. The Soviets and the British signed a similar but separate agreement, and the Soviets and the French signed one some months later.

There was little doubt that the Soviets were tying the repatriation of American and British pws to that of the repatriation of all Soviet nationals. On January 2, 1945, Admiral Leahy, FDR's Chief of Staff, in response to a query from Sec. Stettinus regarding forcible repatriation noted that "also bearing on this matter is the request made by the Soviet Government to the American Ambassador in Moscow for negotiations there on a governmental level regarding the same subject, in connection with arrangements for the disposition of American personnel liberated by the Soviet forces...." (72)

Secretary of War Henry Stimson was also aware that the Soviets were threatening non-repatriation of Allied pws if the West did not repatriate all Soviets in their possession. In a memo "Problems of Our Relations With the Russians," he pointed out that though the Soviets "have already threatened to refuse to turn over to us American prisoners of war whom they may get possession of in German internment camps, [and have] claimed that this is a parallel situation with the other...it is not and the Russians have no earthly basis for withholding them from us" therefore he did not think that the US should allow such a threat to "interfere with our judgement in not giving up the Russians." (73) Both Stimson and former Secretary of State Hull were against forcible repatriation. (74) Admiral Leahy could not possibly have established a policy at odds with ranking Cabinet officers unless he was merely carrying out the orders of his Commander, FDR.

In addition the US could not take an opposite stand from the British. The British had already decided on forcible repatriation and it would have been a major break for the United States to oppose the British in this. The British had already reached an agreement with the Soviets concerning repatriation, the United States was expected to concur. The Joint Logistics Committee concluded that "it would not be advisable for the United States Government to proceed vis-a-vis the Soviet Government substantially differently than as agreed by the British Government." (75)

Hull and Stimson were not the only Cabinet officers to oppose forcible repatriation. Attorney General Frances Biddle demanded that forcible repatriation from American soil stop. (76) It was illegal as it was a violation of a treaty to which the United States was a party, the Geneva Convention. On February 3, 1945, Secretary Stettinus sent a telegram to the negotiators in Moscow. He pointed out that the Departments of War, State, and Justice were "convinced that the clear distinction should be preserved between former US or Soviet military personnel liberated while being held as pws by Germany and claimants to Soviet nationality captured by the US forces while collaborating with Germany in German formations in German uniforms." (77) Their views were disregarded by the negotiators because they had received their instructions from the President; only his authority could override three cabinet officers. (78)

General Deane had voiced fears that the Germans might carry out reprisals against American pws if the Soviets found in German uniform were forcibly repatriated. However, General George C. Marshall noted "the question of reprisals by Germans on U.S. POWs of Slavic origin, State Department believes the greater danger lies in the possibility of Soviet reprisals against such nationals in U.S. uniform if we exercise undue discrimination in determination of Soviet citizenship." (79) Secretary Stettinus responded to Acting Secretary of State Grew's concerns about the failure of the United States to apply the Geneva Convention to Soviets captured in German uniforms. He stated that "the consensus here [Yalta Conference] is that it would be unwise to include questions relative to the protection of the Geneva Convention and to Soviet citizens in the U.S. in an agreement that deals primarily with the exchange of prisoners liberated by the Allied armies as they march into Germany. With respect to 'claimants,' notwithstanding the danger of German retaliation, we believe there will be serious delays in the release of our prisoners of war unless we reach prompt agreement on this question." (80)

CHAPTER III

No agreement on all aspects of the repatriation of POWs had been reached when the principal participants gathered at Yalta in February, 1945. The British were pressuring Washington to accept the agreement they had reached with the Soviets. The British agreement was, however, really nothing but a more palatable version of the Soviet agreement worked out with the British some months before the meeting at Yalta. (1)

The British were becoming ever more concerned over the liberation of their POWs by the Red Army; considerations of international law were less important to them than the welfare of their POWs. In a letter to Secretary of State Stettinius, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden pointed out that the Red Army was already overrunning POW camps where large numbers of British and American POWs were held, and it was "really urgent to reach agreement with the Soviet Government on this draft Agreement during ARGONAUT." He hoped to ask Molotov for a meeting of the "experts of the three parties concerned" as quickly as possible so they could agree "upon a satisfactory text." (2)

The major problem, as Eden saw it, was repatriation of Soviet personnel. He pointed out to Stettinius that "as SHAEF have already reported . . . the only real solution to the problem . . . is to repatriate them as soon as possible." It would help the British and U.S. Governments' positions substantially if the negotiators could "inform the Russians at a suitable moment of our plans to repatriate their citizens." Eden was aware that there was a split in the U.S. Government over the matter of forcible repatriation, and he urged Stettinius to make a decision. General Eisenhower had, Eden noted, again asked the CCS to "provide two ships to take 3,000 each from Marseilles, until the present large numbers have been cleared. No doubt," he added, "your experts have been examining the position in the light of General Eisenhower's telegram" and should be able to give him and the British Government an answer so they could go to the conference with a mutually satisfactory agreement. (3)

Eden's frustration was growing, for he knew that reaching an agreement with the Soviets on repatriation was critical for U.K. and U.S. POWs. At the Moscow Foreign Ministers Conference in October 1944, "Stalin had told Eden that he regarded the exchange of prisoners purely as one of reciprocity. If the West kept Soviet citizens back on the grounds, unacceptable to Stalin, that they did not want to return, the Soviet authorities would keep British and American prisoners as hostages." Eden's view was shared by nearly everyone in the Cabinet. War Minister P. J. Griggs remarked that "if the choice is between hardship to our men and death to Russians the choice is plain." (4) It was not that the British were unfeeling, but as realists they knew that an idealistic stance would be costly to British prisoners.

On February 7 the JCS approved the British text of the agreement. When General Marshall notified the State Department of the approval, Acting Secretary of State Grew wrote Stettinius, who was at Yalta, that although it was "not definitely clear what preliminary British text is referred to, if it is the preliminary text included in JCS 1266," then it was unacceptable as it did not include those items about which the State Department had been adamant. Grew was primarily concerned that the agreement did not take into consideration those individuals who fell under the protection of the Geneva Convention, those who were no longer in the custody of the US, and those who were not citizens of the Soviet Union prior to June 1944 and who did not claim Soviet citizenship. (5) Stettinius was aware of the problem of Soviet repatriation of Allied POWs, but he believed it could be divorced from the repatriation of Soviet POWs and citizens. On January 3 he ordered Harriman to make sure that the negotiations being conducted in Moscow differentiated between "Americans found in German pw" camps and Soviets "found among German pws taken by the American forces." Under no circumstances was there to be a connection between the two, he insisted. Repatriation of one was not to be tied to repatriation of the other. (6) Stettinius also informed Harriman that "some difficulty has arisen here" as to whom the "Government is prepared to turn over to Soviet authorities for return to the Soviet Union.". (7) It is unlikely that Harriman communicated Stettinius' concerns to General Deane. The telegram was routed to Edward Page, who represented the State Dept at some of the negotiations, and not to Deane, who received his instructions independent of the Embassy. Under "Action taken," Minister Counselor George Kennan wrote "file." "File again" would have been more appropriate, as Stettinius had tried before to get the negotiators to address the issue. Ignoring the Secretary of State's orders on this constituted gross insubordination, something that could be done only if Roosevelt, through the Joint Chiefs Staff, was actually conducting the negotiations from the American side. (8)

On January 21, 1945, General Deane notified the War Department that the Soviet definition of "the word 'citizen' in this agreement includes those civilians forcibly removed from Russia for labor purposes, those Russians who were fighting with the German Army, and actual Soviet soldiers who were prisoners of war." The Soviets insisted that the agreement extend "also to citizens of the USSR who are located in the territory of the USA at the moment of the signing." (9)

Despite Grew's concerns, Stettinius caved in to the combined pressure at Yalta. On February 9 he notified Grew that although the points Grew mentioned were not covered in the agreement, he was of the opinion that "we can accept [it] without reservation." Stettinius added that "the consensus here is that it would be unwise to include questions relative to the protection of the Geneva Convention and to Soviet citizens in the US....We believe that there will be serious delays in the release of our prisoners of war unless we reach prompt agreement on this question." (10)

On February 9 American, British, and Soviet negotiators met to discuss the proposed agreement. Article 4, as approved by the CCS on February 8, stated that:

^{Either of the contracting parties shall be at liberty to use such of its own means of transport as may be available for the repatriation of its citizens (or subjects) held by the other contracting party. Similarly each of the contracting parties shall be at liberty to use its own facilities for the delivery of supplies to its citizens (or subjects) held by the other contracting party.} (11)

The Soviets objected to the wording of the CCS document and insisted that the phrase "in agreement with the other party" be added after the phrase "liberty to use" where it occurred in the document. (12) The U.S. and U.K. Governments had planned to airlift their liberated POWs from the camps to freedom. (13)

Ironically, it was probably the U.S. State Department's insistence on observance of the Geneva Convention legalities that brought the Soviets to take this a hard-line position. The original draft of the Soviet agreement with the British contained no such qualifier of Article 4. The British had already begun forcible repatriation, aware that Stalin would not return U.K. POWs if he felt that the British would not return Soviets POWs. The Soviet draft of the agreement with the British, therefore, made no mention of a bilateral agreement on means of transport. (14)

The February 9 change of Article 4 in effect gave the Soviets total control over the movement of American and British POWs. The Soviets did not allow the repatriation of American or British POWs by air except for the Barth airlift, which resulted from the return to the Soviets of General Vlasov. (15) All others were supposedly to be repatriated through Odessa or overland through occupied Germany. In effect the United States and the British, despite their intentions, had agreed to a hostage situation. American and British POWs, as well as other Allied POWs, would be held at Odessa and returned to U.S. or U.K. control when the U.S. or U.K. repatriated Soviet POWs. (16)

At the February 9 meeting, aside from discussing changes in the agreement, the U.K. and U.S. negotiators asked for a private session with the Soviets the next day. It is probable that at that meeting the Soviets and the Americans worked out a political repatriation agreement. The agreement between the military negotiators was concerned with the nuts and bolts of repatriation, but the question of who was to be repatriated was the major issue. Secretary Stettinius told Harriman that the Yalta Agreement stipulated that Washington agreed to

a. The return to the Soviet Union of all Soviet military personnel held as prisoners of war by the Germans and liberated while in prisoner of war status from German prisoner of war camps.

b. The return to the Soviet Union of all liberated civilians 'not physically within the territorial limits of the United States' who are Soviet citizens.

c. The return to the Soviet Union of Soviet citizens captured in German uniform, other than those who demand that they be retained as German prisoners of war and thus come under the Geneva Convention. (18) NA, RG 84, 711.4 1945, American Embassy Moscow Confidential File, Box 78, Telegram No. 766, Secretary of State to Harriman, March 31, 1945, p. 2.

This was the very same definition, except for "not physically within the United States," that General Deane had reported the Soviets were demanding. It meant that the United States would forcibly repatriate all Soviet citizens found on U.S.-occupied territory. The Soviets had demanded this on November 25, 1944, when Molotov noted that the Soviet government wanted those "Soviet war prisoners and other Soviet nations [nationals] [sic] who have been previously set free, some of whom were sent to the United States and are there at the present time" to be included in any repatriation agreement. (18) The Soviet Government, in fact, wanted immediate access to all camps in the U.S. even before an agreement was signed, much less negotiated. The Soviets also used this demand to tie the repatriation of Soviets to the repatriation of American POWs. (19) It was merely form. Forcible repatriation of Soviet nationals from the U.S. had begun in December 1944. (20)

Stettinius managed to pretend to legality with regard to forcible repatriation. (21) Those Soviets captured in German uniform who claimed the protection of the Geneva Convention were either to be sent to Great Britain, where the British did the actual dirty work of forcible repatriation, or they would be retained until the end of the war when they would be returned to Germany, discharged from the German Army, and then turned over to the Soviets as displaced persons whose original domicile was in Soviet- occupied territory. (22)

In any event, the Soviets got exactly what they wanted. An agreement on the definition of what constituted a Soviet citizen was something that could be decided upon only by the governments involved. This makes it seem likely that there was a second political agreement. Chip Bohlen stated in his memoirs that Roosevelt signed the agreement, but the published agreement was signed by Deane and Gryzkov. (23) Notes of the February 9 meeting state that "it was suggested that a further meeting be called tomorrow at 3:30 pm and that endeavors be made to have the documents signed by Mr. Molotov, Mr. Eden and Mr. Stettinius no later than Sunday....No minutes of such a meeting have been found." (24)

With the signing of the Yalta Agreement, the U.S. Government tried to begin the process of repatriation of its POWs in concert with the British. Information had been coming into the American Embassy in Moscow that many American POWs were seeking help in getting back to American control. This information came not only from the Polish Embassy in Moscow but also from American POWs who had walked all the way from Poland to Moscow. (25) On January 24, 1945, before the Yalta meeting, Colonel F.W. Drury, formerly a POW in Oflag 64 at Szubin [also Schubin], Poland, managed to get a letter to the American Embassy in Moscow informing it that there were U.S. POWs in Poland. According to Drury, on January 21 the Germans had marched 1400 American POWs from Oflag 64 to the west. It was known, however, that "120 sick and injured American officers and enlisted men from this column were hospitalized at a farm 4 kilometers Northwest of KCYNIA. . . . 90 wounded and sick American officers and enlisted men prisoners of war remain at Oflag 64, SZUBIN, POLAND. This number is constantly being increased by British and American officers and enlisted men who have escaped." Drury reported that there were unknown numbers of American, Italian, Polish, and Russian POWs at Schocken and Wollstein. He requested that steps be taken to evacuate these men as soon as possible. He was particularly concerned about the sick and wounded remaining at Oflag 64. (26)

Drury's letter was most disconcerting to embassy personnel, for the Soviets had failed to notify them of any POWs in Poland. On January 27, George Kennan notified the Secretary of State, in response to a query from Senator Tom Connally, that "as yet, no American prisoners have been reported as found by the Russians in their present drive." (27)

Pressure was being brought to bear on the U.S. Embassy for there were several POWs who were close relations of powerful men in the United States. Prominent Texan Amon G. Carter's son, General George Patton's son-in-law, and Ambassador Winant's son, to name a few, were POWs. Lists were sent to the U.S. Embassy asking General Deane to inquire as to the whereabouts of these particular POWs. (28) The pressure worked, as the Soviets began conveying what information they had about U.S. POWs to the U.S. Embassy. On February 8 the Soviets informed the embassy that Colonel John K. Waters, General Patton's son-in-law, had been evacuated to the West from Schubin. (29)

On February 5, 1945, Major Edwin C. Haggard, who had been a POW in Oflag 64, sent copies of a letter to the president of the Polish republic and the Russian commandant of the Lublin Sector. He pointed out that on February 3, three American officers had arrived in Lublin and reported to the military authorities for repatriation. The Soviets made no attempt to identify the three officers, Haggard, and Lieutenants H.H. Abrahams, and A.F. Bucci, and held them under guard "like enemy aliens instead of Allied Officers." Haggard also reported that there were at least "three to four hundred American officers who have escaped from the Germans into Poland, and who must be identified and returned to American control."

That proved, however, to be a formidable task, as the "Polish army is unable to identify an officer [even] with complete papers." Major Haggard, who knew personally most of the officers now free in Poland, wanted to send the three officers to Moscow "to be accredited by the American Ambassador." He was also concerned about the sick and wounded at Wollstein who needed medical care that could be obtained only in America. Haggard was clearly upset but knew that he could not afford to offend the Russians, so he blamed the Polish Army for the failure to help the POWs: "It is considered that this delay is due to inefficiency and lack of interest on the part of the Polish Army and that such delay is unwarranted by any practical consideration. The fact that four British have been held here four days in similar confinement with nothing done indicated a complete lack of interest by the Polish Army in its allies." As the Red Army was totally in control of the area, the Polish Army could only have been following orders. A copy of this letter was given to the American Embassy. (30)

Embassy staffers knew as early as January 24 there were American POWs in Poland without help or support, who needed food, clothing, and medical care. None of these was being supplied by the Red Army. Haggard's report only confirmed the situation. Yet General Deane stated in his memoirs that his first "information concerning them came from the Polish Minister in Moscow on February 14, 1945, who sent word to me that there were about one thousand Americans in various Polish cities." Deane reported that this information was supplemented by the reports of three American officers who had gotten to Moscow by "hitch-hiking across Poland and western Russia. This was almost a month after they had escaped from the Germans, and yet I had had no notification from [Lieutenant General K.D.] Golubev concerning their release." These three officers had gotten to Moscow with little or no help from the Russians. They had, in fact, been held at a small camp in Wegheim, "where they found a small concentration of American ex-prisoners in a camp under Russian control. They remained at this camp for a few days; they tried to find out what disposition was to be made of them but obtained no satisfaction from the camp commander. They escaped [emphasis added] from the Wegheim camp on February 3, 1945, and started east." Deane noted that these officers embarrassed the NKVD by getting to Moscow. (31) This did not happen again, for the NKVD seized any other Americans or British making their way to Moscow, then imprisoned and interrogated them before releasing them to Deane or British Embassy custody. (32)

Deane reported that when he next met with Golubev he asked for authority to send contact teams to gather and repatriate US POWs from Poland. He also stated that the February 14 information from the Polish minister and the February 17 arrival of the three officers constituted "my first information concerning" U.S. POWs. (33) (That was despite the letters from Drury and Haggard.) In any event, Deane suggested that contact teams be sent to areas that Russian field commanders had already designated as concentration points for POWs. The POWs would gather at these points, from which they could then be evacuated. (34)

Golubev said that only 450 U.S. POWs had been found, and they had already been evacuated to Odessa, where they were awaiting transport. Deane reported that Golubev's statement "came as something of a surprise to me." He asserted that he "knew positively of only the two hundred that had escaped from Szubin," despite Haggard's report of three to four hundred. Deane also noted that the Poles had told him "a thousand Americans were in various Polish cities." (35) The figures did not remain static. Only the fact that the U.S. Embassy was receiving information from primary and secondary sources could have forced the Soviets to admit that there were more than the 450 men Golubev had reported to Deane on February 19. (36) Deane noted that over the next few days the Soviets continually revised their figures upward until they reached a total of three thousand POWs. (37)

Golubev turned down General Deane's request to send contact teams into Poland. He suggested instead that the U.S. send a team to Odessa, and possibly another to Murmansk. This was a violation, as Washington and London saw it, of the Yalta Agreement. Deane pointed out that this would require U.S. POWs to travel almost two-thousand miles east to be repatriated to the West. In addition to the great distance to travel, the men would not receive any supplies or medical care until they reached Odessa. (38) Despite Soviet refusal, General Deane told Colonel James Dudley Wilmeth to be ready to go to Poland as soon as possible. On February 13, Deane told Wilmeth that he "was going on [a] trip to Lublin to evacuate 600 POW in Poland." (39) On or about February 13, the Lublin Government of Poland conveyed a message received from Polish sources in Lublin. It said that there were "several thousand American POWs wandering around loosely over Poland not knowing where to go." The message was from two American officers, Colonels Charles Kouns and Jerry Sage. (40) If, as Deane said, he had no information on POWs in Poland until February 14, why did he order Colonel Wilmeth a day earlier to go to Lublin to evacuate six hundred POWs? (41)

In fact, General Deane and the U.S. Embassy were well informed on the movement and dispersal of POWs in Poland. Information was coming not only from the Polish government; Polish radio was broadcasting POW appeals, the State Department was receiving information from the Swiss on the movement of POWs in Poland and Germany, and finally, POWs themselves were telling the embassy that there were many others in Poland. (42)

Why did Deane and Harriman attempt to confuse the issue on when and how many POWs were found in Poland? Drury's letter would have come before the Yalta negotiations, and it may have been that Deane was hesitant to provoke the Soviets before that agreement was signed and in place. It is possible that the other letters and reports arrived while Deane was at Yalta, and he did not see them until shortly after he returned to Moscow. In any event, both Harriman and Deane in their respective memoirs tell just enough to excuse Washington's forcible repatriation of Soviet nationals but not enough to lead to the exposure of the non-repatriation of American POWs. It is probable that knowledge of the failure of the U.S. Government to press the Soviets on the numbers and locations of liberated POWs would have led to public outrage over Soviet actions. Public pressure would not have done anything to force the Soviet Government to repatriate Allied POWs but would have complicated the issue. In addition the Allies thought they needed Soviet help with the war in the Pacific. It is likely that the resolution of the POW issue was temporarily postponed until Japan was defeated. There was no way to force the Soviets to repatriate the POWs unless they desired to do so, in fact any public pressure would have proved detrimental to the POWs. Millions of Soviet citizens had disappeared into the Soviet GULAG, and twenty thousand U.S. POWs could disappear there without a trace. It should be borne in mind that the Soviets would have successfully covered up the slaughter of over fourteen thousand Polish officers in the Katyn massacre if it had not been for the German discovery of the grave site. It is probable that the U.S. Government thought that diplomacy might work to bring the POWs home. For whatever reason a cover-up began and has continued to the present time.

The Soviet failure to inform the U.S. or U.K. representatives about the discovery of Allied POWs in Poland was a clear violation of the Yalta Agreement. The U.S. and U.K. Governments had been most expeditious in informing the Soviets as to the discovery of Soviet personnel, for the Soviets had been most insistent on this even before the Yalta agreement. They had consistently accused both the U.S. and the U.K. Governments of failing to inform them when Soviet POWs were found. (43)

It was probably the Soviet refusal to inform the British or the U.S. Governments when they "liberated" their respective POWs that led to the realization that an agreement had to be concluded between the powers in order to force the Soviets to care for and repatriate POWs. This and the desire to move the thousands of Soviet POWs behind Allied lines were a major impetus towards the Yalta Agreement on the repatriation of prisoners of war. (44)

The United States Military Mission had taken pains to prepare for the recovery of American prisoners liberated by the Red Army. Twenty-five thousand tons of medical supplies, food, and clothing were collected at the airbase at Poltava. There were also greater amounts of supplies in warehouses at Archangel. Arrangements had been made for General Spaatz's Fifteenth Air Force to transport supplies and evacuate the prisoners as soon as possible. The Americans also expected to send contact teams to collection points behind Red Army lines. (45)

In early February 1945 the front line was about sixty miles from Berlin. American estimates were that there were thousands of American prisoners from German POW camps behind Soviet lines. Though the Soviets insisted that there were few if any American prisoners behind their lines, letters from U.S. prisoners were arriving through the good offices of the Lublin Government of Poland. The officials in the U.S. Embassy had been aware since the beginning of February that there were U.S. POWs in Soviet-occupied territory. General Deane applied to the Soviet Government for immediate permission to send a contact team into Poland for purpose of repatriating these Americans. Deane instructed Colonel Wilmeth to take a team composed of a medical officer, Colonel Kingsbury, and a Polish and Russian interpreter, T/5 Kisil, along with any supplies and equipment they would need to Lublin. The orders were verbal; written orders would be cut after the fact. Colonel Wilmeth was ready to leave the evening of February 14, but the Soviets had yet to give permission for the trip. On February 16, two Americans who had been in the Canadian Army showed up at the American Embassy. They reported that there were many American POWs "scattered in small groups throughout Poland." (46) As a result of their reports, Harriman wrote Molotov that he had first hand reports of American POWs in Poland, and he wanted to send Wilmeth and his repatriation team into Poland as soon as possible. Harriman did not threaten the Soviets with retaliation, but he did point out that "my government places the most urgent importance on the question of prompt and expeditious repatriation of liberated POWs. This evidenced by cables that I am receiving from my government making inquiry as to what action we are taking to repatriate." The Soviets could not ignore Harriman's request. (47) That afternoon Wilmeth received Soviet permission to go to Poltava. (48)

At Poltava, Wilmeth applied for permission from General Kovelov, the Soviet Commander of the base, to continue on to Lublin. Kovelov reported that he had no authority to allow Wilmeth and his team into Poland. Wilmeth and the American commander of the base, Colonel Thomas K. Hampton, requested that Kovelov check with Moscow, which he agreed to do. Wilmeth also notified Deane of Kovelov's refusal. It appeared that this was part of a deliberate Soviet tactic of subterfuge and deception to keep U.S. or U.K. representatives out of Poland.. (49) Wilmeth and Hampton discussed taking an American plane and continuing on into Poland without Soviet permission. Hampton reported that it could be done, but it would result in "certain punitive treatment at the base." Hampton told Wilmeth, however, that he was so fed up with the Soviet interference that he would ready the plane and fly Wilmeth out. At that point, Wilmeth, despite his impatience with Soviet obduracy, felt that it would be better to inform Deane of the difficulties encountered. He sent Deane a wire informing him that the local Soviets "seemed to know utterly nothing about the situation," but that he could get to Lublin without Soviet help. Wilmeth further noted that, considering Deane's "urgent orders to get to Lublin in all possible haste," unless he heard differently from Deane he would fly on the next day. (50)

Deane replied that it would be better to wait; as he was sure the delay would only be for a few more hours. While awaiting Soviet permission, Wilmeth and Hampton made plans for the expected arrival of the liberated POWs. Housing, food, clothing and medical care would be provided until Hampton's crews could fly the POWs to Teheran. Wilmeth also asked Hampton to make arrangements to send his planes into Poland to pick up the POWs and transport them to Poltava.. (51)

Hampton cooperated with Wilmeth and began to turn the air base into a POW processing center. Poltava was no longer being used by General Spaatz as a shuttle bombing base because of Soviet interference. The Air Force was now considering moving the base farther west, closer to the font lines.

Three U.S. ex-POWs arrived at Poltava and reported that there were thousands of Americans wandering around in Poland with the Soviets providing no help or transportation. They reported that many of the prisoners were still locked in German POW camps or "Soviet concentration camps, where they received practically no food, no news, no nothing." (52)

All of this information was conveyed to Deane, who reassured Wilmeth that clearance for the team to go into Poland would be forthcoming. Wilmeth had arrived on February 16; on February 23 another repatriation team, commanded by Major Paul Hall, reached Poltava. No permission had been received from Moscow to allow Wilmeth's team into Poland.

Hall was being sent to Odessa, for the Soviets had informed the U.S. Government that all POWs would be sent there for "water shipment back home." Though Washington would have preferred that U.S. POWs be flown to Teheran on American planes rather than shipped two thousand miles east to Odessa there was nothing that could be done about it. The Soviets refused permission for additional U.S. planes to fly into Poltava for possible POW removal; nor did they allow the other ten POW repatriation teams into the area. Those teams, which had come from London, remained in Teheran awaiting Soviet clearance.

On February 24, Wilmeth and Hall went to the train station to see if rail connections between Poltava and Lublin and between Poltava and Odessa were operating. There was daily train traffic from Poltava to Lublin. The only requirement for a ticket was a written request from the airbase. Wilmeth notified Deane that he could leave the next morning by rail from Lublin and be there within six days. It was an alternative possibility if permission for flying was not received.

Within a few hours Wilmeth received notification from General Kovelov that a Soviet plane was being sent to fly him and his group to Lublin. Wilmeth pointed out that was not necessary as there were plenty of American planes at Poltava capable of flying not only his party but their supplies into Lublin. Wilmeth noted that he and Hampton had already made preparations and that he wanted to keep the plane as a means of communication with Poltava. Kovelov told him that he could keep the Soviet plane in Lublin as long as he needed it. Wilmeth accepted the arrangement as too much time had already been wasted waiting to get to Lublin.

The plane arrived the next day, February 26. Wilmeth and his group loaded aboard it their medical supplies, equipment, and a jeep. Kovelov reluctantly approved including the jeep but insisted that Wilmeth take a Soviet chauffeur. Wilmeth knew the only reason that the Soviets had supplied a plane was in order to control the team's movements. That was also the reason Kovelov insisted that he use a Soviet driver. In addition to the driver, Kovelov insisted that the team take two other Soviets. All three, Captain Pustayutov, Lieutenant Karkovyets, and the driver, Sergeant Ilchenko, were NKVD personnel. Wilmeth had requested a mechanic from the airbase in case the jeep or any of the other equipment broke down. Kovelov refused this request. After waiting two weeks and fearing other delays, Wilmeth's team finally departed for Poland on February 27.

The plane flew to the Red Air Force Base at Zamosc between Lvov and Lublin, just as the weather turned colder and it began to sleet. There was no one to meet them, as the base had been abandoned when the Red Air Force moved farther west. The team spent the night near the base in the homes of Polish citizens. Wilmeth learned that the Poles not only considered the Soviets as bad as the Nazis, but they were also afraid of their "liberators." Wilmeth was aware that the "situation in Poland was unpleasant," but he could not jeopardize his mission by being party "to a talk about the unhappy condition of the Poles."

Wilmeth's group arrived in Lublin on February 28. There was no one to meet them, as their arrival was unexpected. Their Soviet escorts left them to report their arrival. While the Soviets were gone, Kisil found a Soviet truck driver who helped them unload the jeep. (The truck driver allowed them to use his truck to off-load the jeep onto his truck, which he then backed up to a pile of dirt, enabling Kisil to drive the jeep off the truck.) The Americans managed to unload the plane without any other help. The team then found the Soviets in their group and, at their insistence, all six reported to the Soviet Commandant.

The Commandant, Colonel Bogdanov, acted surprised when Wilmeth informed him of his mission. Bogdanov, evidently unaware of Wilmeth's mission, summoned four other Soviet officers: Major Sigula, chief of the Lublin collections point, Major Karneyev, assistant to the chief, Major Dimitrichev, the surgeon, and Lieutenant Pavlov, also Sigula's assistant. Major Sigula was General Revakin's representative from the main repatriation headquarters that had, that morning, moved to Praga, a suburb of Warsaw. According to Sigula, Revakin was unavailable, having just left for Moscow.

Wilmeth noted that, as repatriation headquarters was in Praga, he had come to the wrong place so he would go to there. He also wanted to make arrangements to bring in the other ten repatriation teams then in Teheran but which Wilmeth thought would soon be in Lublin. Sigula replied that it was impossible for Wilmeth to go to Praga without General Revakin's permission, as he had given permission only for Wilmeth to visit Lublin. When Wilmeth asked about the situation in Lublin, Major Karneyev reported that the Soviets expected to ship five hundred American POWs from Lublin to Odessa. Wilmeth pointed out that would be unnecessary, as the Americans had planes at Poltava that could land at Lublin and take the men out by air. The planes could also bring in more supplies for the POWs to make their trip more pleasant. Karneyev refused, saying he had authorization only to put the POWs on trains and ship them to Odessa. If the men were actually to leave within the next two or three days, then that would be quicker than trying to get permission. Wilmeth thought that the planes could simply fly to Odessa, pick up the POWs, and take them to Teheran.

Wilmeth then asked if they could send in several plane loads of supplies. Karneyev also refused this request, claiming he had no authorization. Wilmeth asked him how many American POWs were in Poland; Karneyev replied he did not know--only headquarters in Praga knew that. When asked how many POWs were in Lublin, Karneyev replied that there were ten officers and sixty-six enlisted personnel. Wilmeth was shocked when Karneyev refused his request to see them. Wilmeth pointed out that was why he had come to Poland. Sigula concurred with Karneyev and told Wilmeth that he would not be allowed to see the American POWs unless permission was received from Revakin.

Wilmeth asked Bogdanov, the senior Soviet officer present, for permission to see the Americans. Bogdanov refused; he told Wilmeth that he would have to get permission from Praga but that unfortunately the telephone lines to Praga were down. There was nothing more to discuss, and Wilmeth considering he would have to work with them, did not want to antagonize the Soviets any more than necessary. After the others left, Wilmeth asked for communication facilities to Moscow, and Bogdanov said that he would see that any message got through. (53)

In his message to Deane, Wilmeth reported that the team had arrived in Lublin but he had been denied access to American POWs present there. Bogdanov took the message and promised to transmit it.

After leaving Bogdanov's office, Wilmeth and the rest of his team went to the Mal-Europa Hotel where the Soviets had reserved rooms for them. The Americans and Soviets were placed in one of two rooms, with the Soviets occupying the front room and the Americans in the back room. For the Americans to leave their room they had to go through the Soviets' room, which of course allowed the Soviets to keep close watch on them as well as to determine if they had any visitors or if they tried leave without permission. Wilmeth refused the rooms, but the Soviets told him he would have to use them as no other had been paid for by the Soviets. Wilmeth ignored this and secured rooms, for which he paid. The Soviets then demanded that one of their own people move into the rooms with the Americans, which Wilmeth refused. He pointed out there was just enough room for the American team. The Soviets then demanded that the Americans clear it with them whenever they left the hotel. They also demanded that the jeep, although American, be left with the Soviet driver at all times.

Wilmeth asked for an explanation for these requirements and was told that there were many Nazi sympathizers among the Polish people who might be unpleasant to the Americans if they left the hotel "unprotected" by the Soviets. These arrangements were, he was told, "solely for your protection." Wilmeth was not stupid. He knew that this was only an attempt to control his movements and contacts but he promised to keep the Soviets informed of his trips from the hotel.

At 10:30pm Wilmeth was summoned to the Soviet commandant's office, where he was informed that permission had come for him to visit the American POWs. All the Soviets who had been present that afternoon were again on hand. As all the Soviets insisted on going, it took three trips by the jeep to get everyone to where the POWs were housed.

The American POWs were quartered in a "ramshackle torn down building" located near Lublin University. The windows were broken out and there were no doors or heat except for one or two small coal stoves. The building held ninety-one Americans, (thirteen officers and seventy-eight enlisted men) as well as 129 British personnel (four officers and 125 enlisted men). All of the POWs slept on straw-covered wooden benches or on the floor. The officers had come from Schubin (Szubin) Poland, where several POW camps had been located, of which one of the most important was Oflag 64. These camps had been overrun by the Red Army around the end of January 1945.

Lieutenant Fred Mitchell, the ranking U.S. POW officer, reported there were Americans all over Poland in the same conditions. He and his group had traveled around Poland looking for help. They had gone to one POW camp near Warsaw but received no help, no food to speak of, and no medical attention. No one seemed to be doing anything for the former POWs, nor was any provision made for them. They had been traveling south, on their own toward the Black Sea. When they arrived in Lublin they had been detained by the Soviets and promised train passage to Odessa. In the meantime they had been quartered in one of the buildings at the Maidanek concentration camp. Around February 24, they had been moved into Lublin, shortly before the arrival of the American repatriation team. The Americans were relieved to see Wilmeth and his team as they had nearly given up hope. If a train had not been available in the next two or three days, they had planned to set out on their own.

Wilmeth compiled a roster of the men for Major Sigula to send to the U.S. Military Mission in Moscow so that the prisoners' names could be sent to the States. Further conversation with the POWs revealed a bleak picture of conditions they had encountered. Any help they, or any POWs, had received had been sporadic and unorganized. What little food they had received was of very poor quality, and they had had to scrounge for fuel to heat their quarters. They had had to dig their own latrines; the bathrooms in the building were stopped up and overflowing.

After he had left them, Wilmeth drafted a message to General Deane asking that supplies for two thousand men, as well as money, be sent immediately. He had brought $4,000 with him, and he requested an additional $10,000. The Soviets were supposed to furnish all the supplies needed, but Wilmeth knew he would have to provide them and dollars were the best purchasing medium.

The first day set the pattern for the mission's stay in Lublin. Wilmeth faced an almost impossible task in trying to fulfill his orders and repatriate American POWs. The Soviets offered no help whatsoever and in fact went out of their way to complicate matters. The Soviets, though promising to send his messages to Moscow, did not do so, and they harassed and threatened him.

The next morning Wilmeth requested another meeting with the Soviets to inquire if permission had come for him to go to Praga. Permission had not come, so Wilmeth said that he would stay in Lublin; but in the meantime he wanted to radio Poltava and have the supplies sent to Lublin. "Immediately Captain Pustayutov said that the plane's radio could not reach Poltava." Wilmeth knew this was false for the plane's crew had radioed to Poltava when they were landing at Lublin. When he pointed this out, Pustayutov said that was indeed true but the radio had broken in the meantime. Wilmeth felt that was also a lie.

In any event, Major Sigula pointed out that clearance to fly in supplies would have to be obtained from General Revakin, who was in Moscow. Sigula suggested Wilmeth return to Moscow and straighten everything out there. Wilmeth refused, pointing out that things were just as confused at repatriation headquarters in Moscow as in Poland. That afternoon Colonel Bogdanov also suggested that Wilmeth return to Moscow. The Soviets made this "suggestion" daily and at every meeting, each time becoming more and more insistent.

At the next meeting Wilmeth pointed out that the Yalta Agreement required that the Soviets furnish food, clothing, and housing for the POWs, which they had not done. The Soviets asked for a list of "deficiencies." Wilmeth had prepared such a list, which he handed over. The Soviets examined it and said they would send a truck to an army base near Warsaw for the supplies.

Believing that the supplies, if they arrived at all, would arrive too late to do much good, Wilmeth began trying to purchase supplies in Lublin. In accordance with his agreement to have one of the "escorts" with him at all times, he took one with him on this trip. The escort kept telling Wilmeth it was not necessary to purchase supplies and it would make the Red Army look bad if he obtained supplies anywhere but from them. Wilmeth replied that, embarrassing or not, "the men were here, and the Red Army supplies were not."

Wilmeth's big problem was money. The official exchange rate for the Polish zloty was one zloty to one ruble; the ruble was five to the dollar, which meant five zlotys to a dollar. For five zlotys it was possible to purchase one cigarette. Wilmeth, as a member of the U.S. Moscow Embassy, was required by law to trade only through Russian banks. Four thousand American dollars would not go very far at that exchange rate; many Poles, furthermore, refused to accept rubles or zlotys.

Wilmeth solved the problem by going to the Polish Red Cross. He was aware that the it had been dealing with the American Red Cross in Moscow and that two American Red Cross representatives, Elliott Shirk and Don Castleberry, were coming to Lublin. The two had arrived by train to deliver goods from the American Red Cross to the Polish Red Cross. Conferring with them, Wilmeth discovered they had received no better treatment from the Soviets than had he. The two Red Cross representatives said they would supply the POWs and give the rest to the Polish Red Cross. However, the supplies had not only not arrived--they were unable to say when or if they would arrive.

Wilmeth made an agreement that the Polish Red Cross would pay for all the items that he needed, and he would pay the American Red Cross in Moscow for them. This procedure would avoid giving the Soviets dollars in return for worthless zlotys or rubles. Wilmeth used his credit to buy toothbrushes, soap, underwear, brooms, shovels, blankets and anything else that could be found.

The Polish Red Cross arranged for a hot meal to be prepared daily for the American POWs in a restaurant and for private homes to provide bathrooms so that the POWs could bathe and shave. Several of the families in Lublin offered to take the POWs into their own homes. Wilmeth used this offer to place some of the men who were ill and needed nursing, with the understanding that the Poles knew the men's condition and were willing to provide the nursing required.

The afternoon of February 28, Colonel Wilmeth paid a visit to Polish Prime Minister Janusz Yanoush, to inform him of his work and to enlist his aid in contacting American POWs to tell them to come to Lublin. Wilmeth was also seeking an alternate form of communication with Moscow that bypassed the Soviets. Wilmeth thought Yanoush probably did have the ability to communicate independent of Soviet control because the original messages about POWs had come through the Polish Embassy in Moscow. Yanoush not only agreed to have Polish government agencies direct American POWs to Lublin; he also offered to send any messages to Moscow for him. Wilmeth asked him to send the message he had already tried to send through the Soviets that summed up the situation and requested supplies. Yanoush also provided Wilmeth with a Polish liaison who had spent some time in New Jersey.

By the end of that day, twenty more Americans had arrived in Lublin. Wilmeth spent the rest of the afternoon and evening listening to their stories. These were, except for individual details, the same as those told him by other POWs. All the POWs were pleased with the help that the Poles had given them, but all were unhappy with their treatment from the Soviets. The prisoners told of being thrown into POW camps with their former German captors, and of being beaten, robbed, and kicked by Red Army personnel. What little belongings they had managed to salvage while in the German POW camps were stolen by Soviets. They were especially upset when they discovered that the Red Army front-line battle cry had been "On to England." Everyone in and behind Red Army lines was talking about war between the U.S.S.R. on the one side and England and America on the other.

Colonel Wilmeth pointed out to the men that the Soviets were in no position to take on the other allies and that they had received better treatment than had liberated Russian POWs. This they knew from personal experience, for they had seen how the Red Army had mistreated and abused Russians whom they had liberated from German camps. He also assured them that their stories would be heard but that it would be in the best interests of the United States if they did not repeat the stories of their sorry treatment at the hands of the Soviets when they got home. Wilmeth had brought a wire recorder with him to Lublin, and he recorded their experiences on it.

These experiences were echoed in statements Wilmeth heard from Poles. He had at first dismissed the accounts as exaggerations based on the historical enmity that has existed between Russians and Poles for centuries; however, hearing these same stories from Americans, who were for the most part pro-Soviet, was an entirely different matter.

The following morning, March 1, Wilmeth met with Colonel Vlasov, who had arrived from repatriation headquarters in Praga. Vlasov informed Wilmeth the Soviets were establishing four collection points in Poland at Lublin, Rembertow, Lodz, and Cracow. The Soviets planned to provide food and clothing, and when 120 men were collected they would be sent to Odessa for transshipment to the West. Each shipment was to be accompanied by one American and one Soviet officer. Wilmeth pointed out the collection and transportation of POWs by train was too slow and made for unnecessary work not only for the Soviets but also for the Poles and repatriation teams. It would be more far efficient to take the men out in groups of twenty or so by plane. Vlasov objected, saying there were no airfields in the towns. Wilmeth had information from the American pilots at Poltava that there were adequate landing sites at all these areas because they had landed at all the places mentioned. He pointed out that American pilots could land in any large open meadow; but Vlasov insisted that such landings were impossible. The Soviets would not allow repatriation by plane. To do so would remove repatriation of U.S. and U.K. POWs from their control.

Wilmeth then asked Vlasov about the status of American POWs in Poland. Vlasov gave him figures of 2422 Americans awaiting transport on lend-lease vessels at Odessa, forty- five at Rembertow, 280 at Lodz, and ninety-four at Lublin, but said there were none at Cracow. Wilmeth knew this information was only partially correct, as his sources showed over two hundred men in Rembertow and a contingent of five hundred mixed American and British forces at Czestochowa. He did not, however dispute Vlasov's figures as he felt that Vlasov seemed to be more cooperative and sincere than the other Soviet officers with whom he had spoken.

Colonel Wilmeth told Vlasov the United States Government planned to bring in ten POW repatriation teams to be headquartered in Praga. A team, equipped with an airplane and a jeep, would be sent to each collection point as it opened. The Soviet government was to supply billets and food, with the United States Government providing everything else--medical supplies, clothing, etc. Vlasov suggested that Wilmeth go to Moscow to discuss this plan with General Revakin. This was the fourth time in two days that the Soviets had suggested that Wilmeth return to Moscow to discuss matters already agreed to by the Soviets. Colonel Wilmeth reminded Vlasov that the United States and the Soviet Union had signed the Yalta Agreement, which spelled out the handling of liberated POWs. The agreement gave Wilmeth the right to receive immediate information about released Americans and to have immediate access to them and the camps where they were located. He offered to lend his copy of the agreement to Vlasov to read, but Vlasov declined.

Wilmeth had no intention of returning to Moscow until he had fulfilled his orders to oversee the care and repatriation of American POWs. He told Vlasov if the Soviets wished him out of Poland, then the best way would be to assist him in carrying out his orders in the most efficient way possible. Wilmeth then inquired as to communications, as he had heard nothing from General Deane. Colonel Vlasov noted that they had very good communications with Moscow through radio, telephone, and telegraph. Wilmeth gave him several messages and asked him to inform Revakin that he wished to move his headquarters to Praga, institute two-way communications with Moscow, inspect all the collection points, and then visit Odessa.

This last request was owing to the fact Wilmeth had heard nothing from Hall, who had left Poltava shortly before him. It was possible Hall had had to leave Odessa because of the same kind of treatment Wilmeth was receiving from the Soviets. Colonel Vlasov suggested that Wilmeth return to Poltava and await an answer there from Deane. Wilmeth not only refused, he pointed out to Vlasov that the Soviet government was in "danger of violating its own agreement."

The next day, March 1, when Vlasov returned to Praga, Wilmeth gave him approximately twenty letters written by the POWs to their families in the United States, and he asked Vlasov to transmit them to the U.S. Embassy. That afternoon the Soviets took Wilmeth to the train station to inspect a train ready to leave for Odessa. It consisted of ten boxcars, nine of which were for the POWs and the other for the Soviet guard contingent and rations. The boxcars contained wooden shelving with a coal-burning stove. These inadequate transportation arrangements were actually better than the way Soviet troops traveled, and Wilmeth was pleased to note that the train not only actually existed but was ready to depart.

The Soviets had collected 102 American and 165 British POWs. They loaded these men, about thirty to a car, gave them five days' rations, and placed the train under the command of Lieutenant Pavlov. At 20:15 on March 1, the train left Lublin for Odessa. Wilmeth sent a message with the POWs to Hall in Odessa for transmission to Deane in Moscow.

Immediately after the train left, Wilmeth was summoned to the Soviet commandant's office. Colonel Bogdanov pointed out to him that all the POWs had left Lublin, and since no word had come concerning the move to Praga, the logical thing for Wilmeth to do was to return to Moscow. Wilmeth retorted he had no intention of leaving Poland until he could report to General Deane that to his personal knowledge every American in Poland had been evacuated, and that would only come about after a physical inspection of all collection points.

Bogdanov said he would report Wilmeth's attitude and "there will be a big scandal." Wilmeth agreed with him there would be a big scandal after he had reported the indifference and the inefficiency of the Soviets in carrying out the Yalta Agreement. The meeting, not having gone well, then came to a close.

The next day Wilmeth decided to sidestep Soviet channels and went to the Poles for help in locating Americans. He visited the local Polish radio station and made arrangements for information to be broadcast that an American repatriation team was in Lublin, and for all American and British POWs to come there. His next stop was to visit with the Mayor of Lublin, Henryk Baranowski. Mayor Baranowski offered all the help that the city could provide in the way of housing, showers, and anything else that might be needed. Wilmeth's final stop was with the Chief of Staff of the Polish Army [unidentified in Wilmeth's diaries and official report to General Deane].

Wilmeth had been warned that talking to him would be the same as talking to the Red Army. Nevertheless, Wilmeth asked him for help in locating American POWs throughout Poland. Here Wilmeth indulged in strategic propaganda and flattery. He pointed out that the Red Army was too busy defeating the Nazis to be concerned with collecting POWs, but that perhaps the Polish Army, now back in its own country, would be able to help a fellow ally. After all, the "great, invincible Red Army" and the heroic Polish Army were brothers in arms.

While Wilmeth was at Polish Army headquarters, Lieutenant Alex Okrymuk, reported for duty. Okrymuk was Wilmeth's Polish Army aide, assigned to accompany him by the Polish prime minister. Okrymuk's brother ran the Symco Tire and Service Company in Newark, N.J.

Wilmeth harbored no illusions about what the Soviets were willing to do. He knew that the local officers were unable to make any decisions without receiving permission from their superiors; they were merely carrying out their instructions. His main source of help, therefore, was to be the Polish Red Cross. They had managed to produce results while everyone else, although seemingly willing, did not. Everyone else had to get permission from the Soviets, and the Soviets always said no, no matter the request

The Polish Red Cross provided Wilmeth a list of private individuals willing to shelter the POWs in their homes, a list of restaurants where the men would be fed at reasonable rates, and provisions for getting trucks and gasoline from the black market. The Red Cross was as adept at operating in the there as in the legal market. It also operated a dispensary that agreed to treat the POWs. Dr. Kingsbury provided the medical supplies for this purpose. The Red Cross, Wilmeth reported, was careful to use these supplies only for the American and British POWs.

Wilmeth also took over the care of British POWs. The British had been readying a team to go to Lublin when Wilmeth was preparing to leave Moscow. He had talked to Major Costello, the British team commander, before he left Moscow, and they agreed that Wilmeth would care for both American and British POWs. When Wilmeth found any British POWs, therefore, he did the same for them that he did for the Americans. He kept and transmitted rosters on them, made the same arrangements for them, gave them an equal share of supplies, and fulfilled the duties of Major Costello, who was expected at any time from Moscow by train.

On March 3, Wilmeth felt he could take the time to do a little "sight-seeing," so he and his entourage went to Maidanek. It was a death camp: an "experimental center to determine the most efficient process" by which a human body can be reduced to its component parts in the shortest amount of time. The Soviets had used Maidanek to house liberated American POWs.

On March 4, Wilmeth visited the French POW camp. There he spoke with Major Fouchet, who had come from the French Embassy in Moscow. Wilmeth inspected the camp and found shoddy barracks, poor food, and even poorer facilities. The Soviets did not consider France a first-rank power, so they did next to nothing for French POWs.

On March 5, the two American Red Cross representatives told Wilmeth they were going to Praga. They offered to investigate POW camps there and in Rembertow and take along supplies for any POWs they might come across. Wilmeth suggested that they take Dr. Kingsbury, but Major Sigula refused permission, saying that approval for Kingsbury to travel beyond Lublin had to come from Moscow. This refusal was another violation of the Yalta Agreement.

A week had passed and Wilmeth had still heard nothing from Deane. Wilmeth had continued to send daily messages and reports to him, but he had no idea if they were getting through. He had also given the radio station some of the messages in the hope that someone in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow might be listening in. After a few days the manager of the station told him that in order to continue broadcasting the messages, Wilmeth would have to get permission from the Soviets, who as usual refused.

At the end of his first week in Lublin, Captain Pustayutov, the NKVD watchdog, told Wilmeth that the plane that had brought him to Lublin had to return to Poltava, and Wilmeth had to go with it. Wilmeth replied that there was no reason why the plane should return and that he had no intention of returning to Poltava. He pointed out that the plane had been loaned to him by General Kovelov with the promise that it would stay as long as he needed it. Since the Soviets had refused permission for an American plane, Wilmeth considered the Soviet aircraft his own and refused to authorize its departure. At this point Major Sigula arrived and said that General Deane wanted to see Wilmeth, and Wilmeth should leave immediately on the plane. While Wilmeth was glad to get a message from Deane he insisted on a direct confirmation of this oral message. Then Colonel Bogdanov called Wilmeth into his office and told him that he did not have permission to be in Lublin and must leave immediately. Wilmeth again pointed out that he had been ordered to Lublin to do a job, that it was not finished, and he was not leaving until it was or until General Deane changed his orders. He also pointed out that not only had constant Soviet interference made his job most difficult but he did not have access to communication with Moscow whereas they did. He could not even be certain that his reports and messages were being transmitted. Until he had direct communication with his superiors in Moscow, therefore, he was not leaving.

The Soviets assured him that his messages had been transmitted. Wilmeth pointed out that if that were true then and Deane wanted him to leave, a message would have come back through the same channels. He refused to take an oral order. That afternoon Captain Pustayutov again said the plane must return to Poltava. Wilmeth realized that he had no choice about the plane remaining and asked that it deliver a message requesting an American plane to take its place. Pustayutov reported later that day that he had taken the message to the field but unfortunately the plane had already departed. Wilmeth discovered that Pustayutov had taken the jeep to the field without permission. He also found out that the Soviet driver was in the habit of removing the distributor wire so that the vehicle could not be used unless he was present.

Colonel Wilmeth decided to take a tougher line. He went to the Soviets' rooms at the hotel and told them he would keep the jeep keys from now on and no more wires or other parts were to be removed from it. He would use the jeep whenever he needed without asking Soviet permission. Finally, he rescinded the agreement with Pustayutov to tell him whenever his party was leaving the hotel. He also told Pustayutov that the situation was intolerable, and when Deane and Ambassador Harriman were informed of it they would feel the same way. He and his group were not Pustayutov's prisoners.

Wilmeth reported that this meeting considerably improved Pustayutov's attitude toward him and the mission. The Americans and Soviets began to dine together and in general they got along better. Although relations improved, the Soviet officers did not assist Wilmeth's work.

After ten days and no communications with Moscow, Wilmeth decided to send a message by hand. He chose two American and two British POWs. The Americans were Lieutenants McKeon and Queeney and the British were Flight Officer Panniers and Sergeant Montgomery. Wilmeth also sent a POW medical officer, Captain Parker, to Rembertow, because reports had reached him of several hundred Americans sick at that camp, and he had not heard from the Red Cross about them.

To each of the POWs traveling to Moscow he gave identical letters containing a full report and description of conditions in Lublin and within Poland. The letters also requested money and supplies. The couriers departed for Moscow by train on March 5.

On Tuesday, March 6, the British POW repatriation team under Major Costello arrived. With him was Pilot Officer Floyd. Wilmeth gave them the records he had been keeping and briefed them on the situation. They immediately wanted to get in touch with Moscow. Wilmeth then informed them of his difficulties in trying to communicate with Moscow.

On March 7, another contingent of thirty-one American and twenty-three British POWs left Lublin. At this time an announcement appeared in the local paper reporting that commercial telegraph facilities had now been restored. Wilmeth went to the station and filled out a message. Some hours later it was returned with the notation that such communication facilities were only for inside Poland, and no connection existed with Moscow. Wilmeth knew this was untrue, so he went to the station to find out the real story. When he assured the Pole in charge that they were alone except for the interpreter, the man told him that all messages to Moscow had to be cleared with the Soviet censor, and that the latter had turned down his messages and had instructed the manager to accept no others from the Americans to Moscow. Wilmeth therefore sent a telegraph message to Shirk in Praga as Praga was in Poland.

Shirk replied that same day that a train had left Praga for Odessa the day before with seven hundred American and three hundred British POWs. Wilmeth had received no notification from the Soviets about the train, and when he asked Sigula about it, Sigula was just as surprised as Wilmeth at the news. Wilmeth then asked him to get in touch with Vlasov again, and Sigula promised to deliver the message to Vlasov in Praga.

The next day Sigula reported that the two American messengers that Wilmeth had dispatched to Moscow as well as the POW doctor he had sent to Rembertow were in the custody of Colonel Vlasov. They had been picked up by the Soviet Air Force when they had gone to an airfield in Warsaw and asked for transport. The Soviet Air Force had turned them over to Vlasov. Colonel Vlasov was indignant and informed Wilmeth that he had no right to give people orders to move around in Poland or Russia. Wilmeth replied that Vlasov should read the Yalta Agreement, which gave him that right, and he would continue to send messengers as often and whenever he liked.

On March 9 the British team unable, to accomplish anything in Lublin, decided to return to Moscow. [They did not actually get away until March 14.] They would report on conditions and try and bring back reinforcements. Wilmeth was determined to stay in the meantime, although Sigula told him that since the British had left, it was time for him to leave. Wilmeth again refused to leave; he was going to stay he said and he did not want to hear any more about it.

The next day, March 10, another group of POWs was sent from Lublin by train. This shipment consisted of ten U.S. and five British POWs, all of whom were "disinfected" and given a bath, before being sent bathed, to Odessa.

On March 11, Wilmeth received a message through the Polish Foreign Office in Warsaw from Deputy Chief of Staff Colonel Crockett. Crockett ordered Wilmeth to stay in Lublin at all cost; he informed Wilmeth that he was on his way and that very possibly General Deane would also come. This message had been turned into the Polish Embassy in Moscow. It had sent it to Warsaw, where it had been sent on to Wilmeth in Lublin. Wilmeth knew that if the Soviets learned how the message had been delivered, many people would get into trouble so he said nothing about it to Sigula.

That evening Sigula informed him that Colonel Vlasov would arrive in Lublin in a few days. Wilmeth was anxious to ask Vlasov about reports of large concentrations of American POWs at Lodz, Cracow, Czestochowa, and Wrzenia. Czestochowa and Wrzenia were not even collection points, yet there were five hundred POWs in one and six hundred in the other. At this time Wilmeth discovered that his Polish military aide was reporting his Polish contacts to Polish military authorities, who were in turn giving the names to the Soviets. Wilmeth knew that this would be used against his contacts, so he sent Okrymuk back to the Polish army, thanking them for his "invaluable" service.

On March 12, Colonel Vlasov arrived. He told Wilmeth that Lublin was no longer to be considered a collection point. As a result, and since Wilmeth had never had any right to be there, he must return at once to Moscow on directions from General Revakin. Wilmeth replied that he would leave Lublin as soon as he received written orders from Moscow, or he had a written statement from General Revakin that Lublin was not a collection point, or he received a permit to move the entire operation to Praga. He asked for a list of all POWs, both British and American, who had been moved from Poland to Odessa, as well as a report on what other Americans remained in Poland, where they were, and when they would be moved to Odessa. He also requested reliable communications with Moscow and clearance to go to Odessa. Vlasov replied that he had come to Lublin only to make sure that Wilmeth left Lublin and returned to Moscow.

Wilmeth pointed out that Vlasov's demands conflicted with his orders from General Deane, and he could not possibly leave until he had fulfilled his mission. If Vlasov would help him carry out his mission, however, then he would be able to leave much quicker. He noted that he had been in Lublin for almost two weeks and that he knew more about the POW situation than Vlasov did, at least from the information he had received from him. Once more Wilmeth asked for permission to fly the POWs out and to bring supplies into Poland.

In the meantime the other repatriation teams had reached Poltava from Teheran and were ready to come into Poland. Wilmeth asked why these teams were not allowed into Poland, especially as the Soviets seemed to be utterly incapable of doing anything for the POWs themselves. He pointed out that the Soviets had promised a truckload of supplies from the Red Army Depot for the POWs. Where was it? More than two weeks had passed since its promised arrival.

Wilmeth allowed his disgust to show and told Vlasov that it was a shame that people who "paraded themselves as our friends acted every way but friendly." Vlasov's reply was in accord with the then-current propaganda line. It showed that there was a direct connection between the repatriation of American POWs and that of Soviet nationals. Vlasov charged that Soviet POWs in American hands were receiving far worse treatment than Americans in Soviet hands. Any time the Soviets felt that they were not getting exactly what they wanted, they applied pressure on their American POWs. Vlasov's charge of American ill treatment of Soviet POWs was part of a long propaganda campaign in the Moscow press. Radio Moscow told the world again and again that the Americans and British were "interfering with the repatriation of Soviet prisoners of war from Germany" and that they were mistreating them.

Wilmeth noted that over two hundred Soviet officers were allowed to enter zones behind the American armies. (In fact Soviet demands became so onerous, and their complaining so continuous as well as slanderous and libelous, that finally General Eisenhower asked for the recall of their repatriation officer, General Ratov. This led to increased Soviet barrages of propaganda about American and British mistreatment of Soviet POWs.)

These Soviet officers in the West were doing the work that Wilmeth and his group were supposed to be doing in Poland. The Americans were, however, confined to Lublin, whereas the Soviets were allowed to go anywhere they wanted to behind American lines. Wilmeth said that he was sick of Soviet lies and their failure to cooperate, He ended, however, by inviting Colonel Vlasov to have dinner with him that evening.

Colonel Vlasov accepted the invitation without asking Colonel Bogdanov for permission, although the latter was his senior officer. Wilmeth knew then that Vlasov was NKVD, and that the entire repatriation team was under NKVD control. Wilmeth noted "that explained why NKVD functions took precedence over anything concerned with repatriation."

The next day Vlasov left, promising to deliver Wilmeth's message to General Revakin, which Wilmeth had put in writing so there would be no misunderstanding. Vlasov also warned him that there was going to be a "bolshoi," or big, scandal. Wilmeth thought there was already a bolshoi scandal, and he was not concerned that it could get any worse. Wilmeth would not see Vlasov again as the latter did not return to Lublin and Wilmeth never got to Praga.

Colonel Wilmeth noted that "the Soviet effort to keep American and British POWs from coming through Lublin had some effect, for from the time Vlasov left, until I left, two weeks later, very few POWs were able to get into the city." The Soviets had thrown up a cordon of both Soviet and Polish guards about Lublin. They directed Americans to go to one of the other collection points in what was a deliberate attempt to keep the POWs from Wilmeth.

Despite the Soviet attitude, Wilmeth had managed some successes. He established a system of communications inside Poland through Polish Red Cross channels, and POWs moving about the country, as well as those he sent out, brought word of the location of other POWs and their conditions. Even though Wilmeth was restricted in movement, his information was, in general, more complete than that available to Sigula.

When Colonel Sigula found out that there were American POWs living in private Polish homes in Lublin he was enraged. He said that he would have a railroad car prepared immediately to take the Americans to Odessa. These men were Wilmeth's communication agents, and he had no intention of losing them. He told Sigula that he took full responsibility for these men, expected no logistical support from the Soviets for them, and said that they could go just as soon as the other ten repatriation teams arrived in Poland. Sigula was furious, but there was not much he could do about it at the time. (54)

These men not only supplied Wilmeth and Dr. Kingsbury with information on POWs, but they also made a survey of economic conditions in Poland for the American Embassy in Moscow. There had been no American officials in Poland since 1941, so information about the country was scanty at best.

Wilmeth not only had problems with the Soviets with regard to POWs, but he also had to deal with Poles who considered him a representative of the U.S. Government. Many Poles approached him about helping them get out of the country. Some were Americans, some had families in America, and others had done vital services for the United States. For the most part, however, the Poles who sought help were simply people who had suffered under the Nazis and were now suffering under the Soviets. For these people the Nazi and Soviet regimes were undistinguishable.

The Soviets did not allow them to leave Poland. Travel was so restricted, Wilmeth discovered, that when he sent a train of POWs from Lublin it was stopped by the Soviets and inspected to make certain that it did not contain any "agents" of the Polish London government-in-exile. Wilmeth was aware that the Soviets would use any legal pretext to get rid of him or shut him down, and he was exceptionally scrupulous in screening all who claimed to be POWs. If a supposed POW could not prove his status he was held back until someone from the same camp could identify him. There were instances of Poles stealing American uniforms and posing as American POWs; but, although they spoke perfect English, there was something not quite right about them. Usually they broke down and admitted that they Poles who were trying to get out of the country.

Wilmeth has noted in retrospect that he is surprised that the Soviets apparently trusted him to screen the people who were to be repatriated. He observed that they did not recheck any of the groups he sent from Lublin, either enroute or at Odessa. They never questioned the identity of anyone he put on the train, made physical inspections of the trains, or took a count of the list to see if it matched with the numbers shipped. Wilmeth was surprised by this; he said it was totally unlike the Soviets, who were usually so difficult about such things.

What Wilmeth and the others were witnessing in Poland was the Sovietization of the country and the people. Information to this effect as well as Soviet attempts to subvert the economy and government of Poland were gathered and turned over by Wilmeth to the American Embassy on the team's return to Moscow.

Wilmeth reported that on one occasion when an American POW made it into Lublin looking for the repatriation team the commandant lied to him saying that there were no American officers in the city and that he would send him to Rembertow. Fortunately the man met another American on the street who took him to Wilmeth. The newly arrived POW told Wilmeth there were four Americans in a small church-operated hospital about twenty km from Lublin. Wilmeth instructed Kingsbury to pack his kit and take the jeep and go see them. As per his agreement about leaving the city, Wilmeth informed Pustayutov, who hastened to inform Sigula. Both men appeared in short order, and Sigula forbade either Wilmeth or Dr. Kingsbury to leave the city. Sigula said that he was responsible for the physical well-being of the doctor, and he could not guarantee it outside of the city limits. In fact Sigula indicated that the NKVD had been taxed to the limit to guarantee their safety in Lublin. Wilmeth said he would take responsibility for any injury to Kingsbury. Sigula said the doctor could not leave the city either alone or with a guard without permission from Moscow. Wilmeth has told the author of this study that it was a mistake, which he has often regretted; that he did not tell Sigula "to go to hell."

The reason he did not speak his mind at the time was because he thought that Deane or Colonel Crockett, the senior U.S. repatriation officer, would soon arrive in Lublin, and he did not want to make the situation worse. So instead of sending the doctor, Wilmeth arranged for the Red Cross to get a doctor to go out and see the men. They found only two men, both in relatively good condition; within a few days they came to Lublin.

In the meantime, Shirk and Castleberry arrived from Praga, both thoroughly disillusioned. The freight train transporting their supplies was now six weeks in transit from Moscow, and no one knew where it was. The Red Cross supplies never did arrive; they were removed from the train before it left the Soviet Union. The Soviets were spreading rumors that the Red Cross was there to undermine the Soviet and Polish governments, and that there would be no supplies passed out by the organization. Shirk therefore, decided to go Moscow, leaving Castleberry in Lublin. Wilmeth asked Shirk to carry messages to Deane and the British military mission, and Shirk agreed to do so.

On March 16, an American plane from Poltava arrived. Major Koepke, a medical officer, and Lieutenant Levings, the pilot, came to see Wilmeth. They were supposed to go to Cracow to investigate the condition of a crew and a plane that had been forced down after a bombing raid over Germany. They informed Wilmeth that General Kovelov, the Soviet Commander of the base, had been insisting that, since his mission was completed a plane be sent to bring Wilmeth back to Poltava. General Deane, however, knew that Wilmeth's mission was not yet finished, and he expected him to stay in Lublin until it was. However, Colonel Hampton, the U.S. commander of the base, told Kovelov that they would send a plane to Lublin for Wilmeth. This was the plane with Koepke and Levings. They delivered General Kovelov's demand. It would not be their fault if Wilmeth refused to go. That was the end of their responsibility.

Koepke and Levings also brought Wilmeth a supply of hard currency and a message from Colonel Crockett. Crockett was now in Poltava, but the Soviets refused him permission to come to Lublin. In the message Crockett told Wilmeth that Deane was coming to Lublin. Wilmeth was to stay there until Deane arrived, unless his mission was actually finished. It seemed that Generals Golikov and Golubev in Moscow, who oversaw the Soviet repatriation process, had been repeatedly telling General Deane that Wilmeth had completed his job and should return home.

Information had come to Wilmeth that there were some U.S. POWs in Lodz. He asked the Lieutenant Levings if he would mind flying on to Lodz and check it out. The Soviets protested that the plane could only return to Poltava. Probably the only reason it had been allowed to go to Lublin in the first place was because the Soviets had been told it was there to remove Wilmeth from Lublin. In any event, Levings informed Wilmeth that the Soviets were increasingly interfering with the operation of the Poltava base, refusing to service planes, interfering in the rescue of downed flyers, and in general making it difficult to operate. Because of this, and because he thought that Deane was coming to Lublin, Wilmeth believed it would be better not to make a difficult situation worse. He did, however, request that Levings fly over Lodz and see if they could spot an encampment from the air. They agreed to do so and departed.

The next day, March 17, more British and American POWs came into Lublin. They reported several locations throughout the country where POWs were being held. In the meantime, several of Wilmeth's agents reported that there were practically no POWs in Cracow, Lodz, or Rembertow. In fact the Soviets were making a concerted effort to keep POWs out of these places. Information about Soviet maltreatment of POWs had spread, and none were willing to enter a Soviet camp voluntarily. Most were attempting to make their way to Odessa; some were trying to reach Moscow or Poltava. They had heard there were Americans in those locations.

The following day, March 18, two Soviet officers from Poltava arrived by plane with a notice from General Kovelov that Wilmeth was to return with them to Poltava that day. They gave him two hours to get ready for there were only two hours of daylight left for takeoff from the field. Wilmeth told them that he had no intention of leaving; in any event, he could not possibly shut down his operation in less than a week. They could tell General Kovelov "thank you but no thanks." What Wilmeth did want was communications with Poltava. The two Soviet officers claimed they would be punished if they returned to Poltava without him. Wilmeth offered to let them stay with him

The two Soviets who had been so anxious to leave within two hours then met with Sigula and the commandant. They then called in Wilmeth and told him that he had to leave the next day, as his permit had expired on the 15th. This was the first time Wilmeth had learned that he had a permit. Earlier they had told him that he could not stay because he lacked a permit. The Soviet officers then spent the next three or four hours telling him why he had to go. He had caused a "bolshoi scandal," which evidently had "shocked" even Stalin himself. Wilmeth said he was not leaving.

The plain fact is that the Soviets wanted no British or Americans, or any other outside observers, to see what they were doing in Poland. Poland had been a major problem for the United States and Great Britain in their relations with the Soviet government. Beginning in 1939, when Stalin and Hitler had joined together to carve up the country, and continuing through the war, numerous episodes and incidents had battered at the alliance. The massacre of some 14,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in the Katyn Forest in Byelorussia in the spring of 1940, and the refusal of Stalin to allow any help to the Polish Home Army during the Warsaw uprising in late July 1944 had done much to hamper Allied relations. The Soviets saw Wilmeth's mission in Poland as a further provocation.

General A. E. Antonov, Chief of the Red Army General Staff, wrote to General Deane demanding that Wilmeth be recalled from Poland for "violating the order established by the Soviet Army in Poland" and for refusing to comply with orders given him "by competent Soviet authorities." General Deane used this as a basis for insisting that he go to Poland himself to look into the situation. Wilmeth's messages, carried by his runners, had reached Deane, and he was aware of the situation Wilmeth faced. But the Soviets refused Deane's request. Ambassador Harriman took it up with Molotov, telling him that President Roosevelt himself was personally interested in POW repatriation and wanted Deane to go to Lublin to look into the situation. Joseph Stalin personally refused Deane permission to go to Poland. This was another clear violation of the Yalta Agreement.

Wilmeth was unaware of all this. He knew only that it was getting more and more difficult for him to continue his work. On the afternoon of March 16, the day the American plane left Lublin, he was summoned to Colonel Bogdanov's office. Present were Wilmeth and Dr. Kingsbury, and Bogdanov, Sigula, Kharkovyets, Pustayutov, and Lieutenant Colonel Yablokov.

At the meeting Sigula and Bogdanov handed Wilmeth a written order from General Revakin to leave Lublin at once. Lublin was no longer a collection point for POWs, and as Wilmeth had no permission to visit any other place in Poland, and there were no POWs in Poland anyway, his job was to be considered completed, and he had to leave Lublin and return to Poltava

Wilmeth realized then that the situation must be very bad in Moscow. The pilot of the Poltava plane had told him that Crockett could not get permission to go to Poland and Major Hall had been recalled from Odessa and had already returned to Moscow. Wilmeth knew that Deane would not receive permission to visit Poland, and he knew that he would have to leave. He had known that the Soviets would eventually force him to withdraw, so he had made plans. He believed that agents he had established in Lublin and throughout the country could get as much accomplished even if he was not present in Lublin.

Given everything, Colonel Wilmeth now felt that he would have to withdraw. When he informed the Soviet officers of his decision, there was an audible sigh of relief from them. The atmosphere, which had been decidedly icy, now changed to good-humored camaraderie.

The next day Wilmeth went to the Polish Red Cross and turned over all of his medical supplies to be used for any POWs who might come into Red Cross hands. Red Cross officials also totaled up the amount of money they had loaned him and the price of supplies provided. The figure, in zlotys, came to $36,000.

Mr. Christians, head of the Polish Red Cross, told him that the medical supplies he had left would bring more than $36,000 on the black market, so as far as he was concerned they were even. Later on Wilmeth and Dr. Kingsbury figured the actual cost in the U.S. of the medical supplies was around $500.

Wilmeth completed plans with his Polish secretary, Ms Milieskaya, for an undercover organization to continue to locate and service American and British POWs in Poland. The Red Cross cooperated fully in this effort. Long after Wilmeth had left Poltava, the Polish Red Cross continued to locate, provide food and medical treatment, and help American and British POWs get out of Poland.

Ironically, now that Wilmeth had agreed to go, no plane came from Poltava for him. He had sent messages to both Bogdanov and Pustayutov requesting a plane to take him to Poltava. A week passed and still no plane arrived. By the end of the week, according to Wilmeth, Sigula was beside himself. He demanded to know from Wilmeth why no plane had come for him. Wilmeth had no idea, as he had had no communication with Poltava except through the Soviets. Sigula insisted that Wilmeth leave immediately, plane or not. He told Wilmeth he was arranging a train to take him to Poltava. Wilmeth agreed to go by train, and Sigula made arrangements for Wilmeth to leave the next night, March 27. In the meantime however, Wilmeth received information that there were Americans at the airfield. He and Kingsbury hurried out and found seventeen airmen. A Soviet plane had brought them in from near the front lines where their two bombers had been shot down. Three men were missing; one had been killed and buried at the front, and two others had been wounded and left in hospitals.

The rescue and care of downed Allied airmen was one of Poltava's primary functions, but the Soviets who had picked them up had heard there was an American in Lublin, and they brought them there instead of taking them on to Poltava.

Wilmeth brought the men back to Lublin; as he had already closed the POW camp he put them in the hotel. He then asked the Red Air Force to notify Poltava there were downed American airmen at Lublin and to send a plane for them. Wilmeth pointed out to Sigula there was no reason for him to take the train when a plane would be coming, and Sigula reluctantly agreed.

During the week of March 23, while Wilmeth was awaiting the arrival of the plane from Poltava, Sigula asked Wilmeth if he would like to visit seven American POWs who were sick and had just been brought to the hospital in Lublin.

Wilmeth was suspicious of the Soviets' attitude when he got to the hospital. He had been surprised that Sigula had volunteered the information about the POWs, and further surprised when Sigula had offered to take him to the hospital. When he got there, Wilmeth discovered that the Soviets were anxious to smooth over an embarrassing situation.

The POWs were all from Stalag 3C. When they left the camp they had been fired upon by a Soviet tank with both machine guns and cannon. Many had been killed, and these seven were the wounded who had survived. The Soviets tried to explain that it was all an accident, that the tank crew had mistaken the POWs for Hungarian combat troops. Wilmeth was suspicious, for Poland was not an operational area for Hungarian troops and the POWs had not been armed. He doubted that unarmed, starved, and ragged troops posed much of a threat to Soviet armor.

Wilmeth could do nothing more, however, than accept their effort at an apology. He was surprised at the attitude of the POWs who resignedly pointed out that "all kinds of errors happened in war, and although they couldn't quite see how one as dumb as this could have happened, nonetheless, it had." That was of little consolation to those who had been killed.

Soviet embarrassment over this incident was further proved by the fact that the Soviets sent two planes to Lublin by special order of Air Marshal Fedor A. Astakhov, Chief of the Soviet Civil Air Fleet. Both planes, piloted by Heroes of the Soviet Union, the highest award given by the Soviet Government and the only medal worn by Stalin, were sent from Moscow for the express purpose of carrying the wounded POWs to Odessa for shipment home. The crews of both planes were all decorated combat veterans. The wounded POWs were placed on board the planes the next day, along with gifts, food, and flowers, and flown to Odessa. Wilmeth realized that this would be turned into Soviet propaganda to advertise how much the Soviets did for American POWs as opposed to how little the United States did for Soviet POWs.

The Soviets did not mistreat all American POWs or air crews. Some received good treatment from Red Army personnel. If they were able to identify themselves to the front-line troops, who generally were the first Soviets with whom they came into contact, they were generally treated as comrades- fed, cared for and sent to the rear, occasionally with transport but generally on foot with passes. One group of Americans was presented with a "gift" of twenty-five German POWs. The Soviet officer in charge indicated that the Americans could do what they wanted with the Germans--hang them, shoot them, or "cut them up into small pieces." The Americans declined to kill the Germans, much to the disappointment of the Soviets. It was not until the American POWs got to the so-called collection points, where their treatment was supervised by Soviet repatriation officers who were actually NKVD, that their treatment changed drastically.

By March 25 the Soviet aircraft still had not arrived to transport Wilmeth and his team, and Sigula was becoming more and more impatient. Wilmeth pointed out that he was more than ready to go, but that he could not be held responsible for the failure of the plane to appear. Later that day he tried to send a telegram via Polish channels to Moscow. One of his contacts at the Polish telegraph office informed him the message had gotten as far as Warsaw, when they received instructions that no more messages could go from Warsaw to Moscow.

While Wilmeth was in Lublin, members of the Polish underground army began to visit him. Most of these individuals had initially regarded the Red Army as liberators from the Nazis. The failure of the Red Army to support the Warsaw uprising and the refusal of the Soviet Government to allow the British and Americans to airlift supplies to the Home Army on shuttle runs to Poltava had deeply disillusioned these people. They now saw the Soviets as conquerors, no better than the Nazis. They gave Wilmeth much information on POWs in Poland and also sought to give him information on the Polish political and military situation. Wilmeth was forced to shut them off; he had no way of knowing whether they were Soviet plants or legitimate patriots, and he might open himself to charges of fomenting political intrigue. That would have jeopardized his POW repatriation mission.

The questions these Poles were most interested in having Wilmeth answer were: Would the U.S.S.R change after the war ended, and would the U.S. and U.K. Governments force the U.S.S.R. to free Poland? Wilmeth was forced, despite his inclinations, to refuse to discuss Polish politics or allow himself to be drawn into criticism of the Soviets.

On March 26 Sigula told Wilmeth he had received word from Moscow that General Deane had directed him to leave Lublin by train. Wilmeth asked to see the message. Sigula said he did not have it; the message had been telephoned from Praga. Wilmeth pointed out that this was the fourth time such a message had been brought to him, purportedly from Deane. He told Sigula he was not in the habit of receiving messages, especially from his commanding officer, in such a manner, but if Sigula brought him a direct message from Deane he would obey it immediately.

On that same day, Wilmeth shipped out two railroad carloads of about sixty British POWs. This shipment removed the rest of the POWs from Lublin save Wilmeth's "volunteers," secreted about the city. They were to continue Wilmeth's repatriation duties after he left.

Again that evening Wilmeth was summoned to Bogdanov's office, where Sigula told him that Vlasov in Praga had said Wilmeth must leave by train the following morning or there would be a "bolshoi scandal." Sigula also told Wilmeth that if he "did not leave, he wished to warn [him] that Moscow might not allow me to return at all." Wilmeth did not catch the significance of the threat against him. He said that he would wait for the plane.

March 27 marked a month that Wilmeth had been in Lublin. On that day he received a telegram from Major Hall in Odessa, sent on March 23, saying he had been ordered out of Odessa, but the Soviets had granted him permission for one of the POW officers at Poltava to come to Odessa to take over his work. That afternoon a plane from Poltava arrived at Lublin. Wilmeth sent Dr. Kingsbury and Pustayutov to the field, while he went to the hotel to prepare for departure. He borrowed a truck from the Soviets and loaded everything in it, including the downed fliers who had been living at the hotel.

When they arrived at the field the Americans loaded the jeep and about thirty people in the plane, a tremendous overload. The pilots were accustomed to flying overloaded planes, but, the field at Lublin was soft, owing to melting snow, and the plane became mired down. The pilot informed Wilmeth that they would have to wait a day before they could take off. The next morning, when they left for the airfield, Sigula accompanied the Americans to make sure they left. To lighten the load Wilmeth sent half of the men to the Red Army field near Zamosc, where the plane would land and pick them up. The plane loaded up the remainder, and Sigula and Wilmeth indulged in lying, each claiming that he hoped to see the other again. After the plane departed Lublin, it landed at Zamosc, to collect the men there, and then flew on to Poltava. This ended the only repatriation team effort that the Soviets allowed into Poland or any other liberated area.

How many POWs were repatriated from Poland? General Deane reported a figure of three thousand in his memoirs. (55) On March 12 Vlasov arrived from Praga and gave Wilmeth a corrected list of U.S. POWs. It showed that 1774 POWs had been removed to Odessa, not eight hundred as in the February 28 report. (56) Only 2858 U.S. POWs, however, were repatriated through Odessa, (57) the last 248 went out after April 2. (58) Soviet figures show that 5115 U.S. POWs were sent to Odessa by March 12. (59) On March 29, Kirk reported that the British Foreign Office had stated "that a danger exists that many Americans and British PWS may have to be held at some other place than Odessa and their repatriation delayed until accommodation in the transit camp is made." (60) The figure for POWs sent, supposedly to Odessa, stands at an astonishing 5159. State Department figures confirm this number at 5200. (61)

As the U.S. Government has stated that only 2858 POWs were repatriated through Odessa, and most of those had arrived in Odessa before Wilmeth even got to Lublin, the question remains as to what happened to the rest of the POWs who were sent to Odessa. (62) Colonel Wilmeth notes that there were auxiliary camps outside the main camps in Odessa. He reports that Major Hall had said that he visited these camps to see about the Americans in them. As the main camps were emptied, POWs from the outlying camps were brought into the city. Both Chappell and Cecil report that, when they were in Odessa, U.S. Navy ships arrived at the port to off load supplies for the Soviets. When U.S. officials asked if U.S. POWs could be transported from Odessa on the Navy ships, the Soviet authorities refused. They allowed U.S. POWs to leave only on ships that transported Soviet POWs to Odessa. (63)

Much of the material relating to the various missions concerning POW repatriation is missing from the released documents. A list of all U.S. POWs repatriated through Odessa exists, as do Colonel Wilmeth's two official reports on the Lublin trip. (64) Major Hall's official report, however, is not in the Archives, although he did write one. (65) Nor is General Deane's official history of the Military Mission to Moscow in the Archives at this time. Colonel Wilmeth reports that he took a wire recorder with him to Lublin that he used to record the experiences of U.S. POWs. When Wilmeth met with Deane at Poltava he turned these wire recordings over to Deane, who took them to Washington. These recordings also are not in the Archives or among available military records. (66) Also missing is the list of POWs given by Vlasov to Wilmeth, as well as the list of POWs whom Wilmeth sent out of Poland to Odessa.

CHAPTER IV

After Colonel Wilmeth left Lublin for Poltava on March 28, there was no longer an official American repatriation team in Poland. (1) His reports to Deane and the experiences of both Crockett and Hall had convinced U.S. officials that repatriation would not be reciprocal. When news of Wilmeth's difficulties had reached Deane at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, both he and Harriman protested to Soviet repatriation officials. Both were told that Wilmeth's mission to Poland was unnecessary, as there were no more POWs there. The Soviets claimed that all had been removed to Odessa, where they were awaiting transshipment to U.S. and U.K. control. Earlier, on February 18, when Wilmeth had been in Poltava awaiting transport to Poland, Vyshinski had informed Harriman that General Kovelov had been instructed to transport Wilmeth and his party to Lublin in order to establish contact with American POWs. Vyshinski added, however, that Wilmeth and his group probably would not be able to fulfill this mission because the liberated POWs had all been "placed in railroad cars and already on the 19th and 20th of February are being sent to Odessa." Although Vyshinski authorized Wilmeth to continue on into Poland, his group was not actually allowed to depart for almost ten days. (2)

On February 26 Vyshinski informed Harriman that owing to "technical reasons the flight of this aircraft from Poltava was delayed for one or two days." Harriman had suggested that American planes be used to fly the POWs out. Vyshinski responded that the Soviet Government would "take all necessary and rapid measures to furnish liberated American POWs Soviet means of transport," which, if necessary, would include being flown on "Soviet aircraft to Odessa or to Poltava." Vyshinski went on to say that there was "no objection on our part to the travel of Gen. Deane to Poland; however, it should be borne in mind that all former U.S. POWs who have been found up to the present time in Poland, including those hospitalized, have already been evacuated [emphasis added]." (3) This was not true; when Colonel Wilmeth got to Poland he found Lieutenant Mitchell and his party, all of whom had been under Soviet control since January. They had not been evacuated and they knew of other groups who had not yet gone out. (4)

Soviet refusal to cooperate in the evacuation and repatriation of U.S. POWs led Ambassador Harriman to ask President Roosevelt personally to intervene. (5) On March 3 Roosevelt wrote Stalin that he had "reliable information regarding the difficulties which are being encountered in collecting, supplying and evacuating American prisoners of war and American aircraft crews who are stranded east of the Russian lines." He also wanted Stalin to authorize the admittance of the ten repatriation teams awaiting visas in London. Roosevelt made the request a personal appeal, pointing out that not only "humanitarian reasons but also...the intense interest of the American public" had a major bearing on the issue of immediate repatriation. He ended by saying that he thought the Allies should do "something quickly...on general matter of prisoners of war in Germany. The number of these POWs, Russian, British and U.S. is very large. In view of your disapproval of the plan we submitted what do you suggest in place of it?" (6)

Stalin replied in a surprisingly short time. On March 5 he wrote Roosevelt that "at the present time the organization on the affairs of foreign prisoners of war, specially formed by the Soviet Government, has an appropriate number of people, transport facilities and food stuffs, and each time when new groups of American POWs are found, measures are urgently taken to render help to these prisoners of war and for their evacuation to the gathering points for the subsequent repatriation." He added that there was "no necessity to carry on flights of American planes from Poltava to the territory of Poland on the matters of American POWs." If a necessity were to arise, Soviet military authorities would discuss it with the appropriate U.S. military authorities. He had "no proposals on the question of condition of Allied POWs who are in the hands of the Germans," but pledged to do everything if and when the Soviets found any POWs. The biggest "mistake" in Stalin's letter to the President was that "on the territory of Poland and in other places liberated by the Red Army, there are no groups of American POWs, as all of them, except for the single sick persons who are in the hospitals, have been sent to the gathering point in Odessa, where 1200 American prisoners of war have already arrived and the arrival of the rest is expected in the nearest future. [emphasis added]" (7)

Harriman was notified of Stalin's response to Roosevelt's message, and on March 8 he wrote the President to the effect that he thought Stalin was lying, although he was more diplomatic than that when he stated "this supports my belief that Stalin's statement to you is inaccurate." Harriman pointed out that his information, "received from our liberated POWs indicates that there have been four or five thousand officers and enlisted men freed. The Russians today claim that there are only 2,100 of whom 1,350 have arrived at Odessa and the balance being en route by train." Harriman also pointed out that he and Deane were faced with an almost impossible task in getting the Soviets to live up to the Yalta Agreement. (8) The one team they had managed to get the Soviets to agree to was that headed by Colonel Wilmeth, and they received communications from him "largely through the friendly intervention of the Polish Embassy here." Although Wilmeth had sent messages every day to the U.S. Embassy through the Soviets in Poland, the U.S. Embassy never received any of the Soviet-facilitated communications, just as Deane's communications to Wilmeth, sent through the Soviets, never reached their destination. (9)

On March 10 Harriman wrote Foreign Minister Molotov, pointing out that he had been trying for some time to get permission for Deane to go to Poland. Despite assurances from Vyshinski on February 26 that Deane could go, Vyshinski had also assured him that the trip was not necessary, as all American POWs "including those hospitalized had already been evacuated." (10) Aware that this was not true, Harriman approached V.G. Dekanozov Assistant People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Foreign Office, on March 7 to make the arrangements for Deane's trip. (11) The next day Dekanozov informed Harriman that as "all American expws had been evacuated, the reasons for Gen Deane's trip to Poland no longer existed." Harriman pointed out to Molotov that this was not true and asked him to authorize Deane's trip. The next day Harriman wrote Molotov to inform him that General Golubev had informed General Deane that Wilmeth's permit to remain in Poland had been canceled, and Wilmeth was to leave immediately. (12) Harriman pointed out that Wilmeth had reported that POWs were still being collected, that he had not finished his mission, and that the Soviets were being premature in pressuring him to leave. He requested that the Soviet Government issue orders permitting Wilmeth to stay in Poland until he had completed his mission. (13)

On March 12 Harriman informed President Roosevelt that he had finally received an answer from the Soviet Foreign Office regarding Deane's trip to Poland. The Soviets had refused to allow Deane to go to Poland "on the grounds that as there were no longer any American ex-prisoners of war in Poland the reasons for his trip fell away." The Soviets had also withdrawn permission for Wilmeth to remain in Poland, and "a plane scheduled to leave today from Poltava for Lublin with a load of supplies had been cancelled." Harriman concluded by saying that he and Deane were sure the Soviets were "attempting to stall us off by misinformation" to keep him from sending more contact officers into Poland. Failure to have repatriation teams in Poland might severely hamper the ability to help U.S. POWs, especially "because of the probability that there will be substantial numbers liberated by the Red Army in the future." Harriman asked, therefore, that Roosevelt send another personal message to Stalin requesting that he keep the Yalta Agreement regarding POWs. (14)

On March 14 Dekanozov wrote Harriman detailing answers to all of the questions that the U.S. Ambassador had raised in letters and meetings. In response to Harriman's proposal on the evacuation of Americans from Poland, Dekanozov told him that his plan for the creation of four centers was not compatible with the plans of "the Reparations [sic] Commission of the USSR since the latter does not intend to organize on Polish territory assembly points for American POWs and other American citizens liberated by the Red Army." Prisoner of war collection centers were to be at Volkovysk, Lvov, and Bronnits, all three of them east of the Curzon Line in Soviet-claimed territory. Internal administration of the camps was to be left in the hands of U.S. repatriation teams, but "general administration of the camp and its external protection, such will be fully in the hands of the Soviet Commandant of the camp." (15)

Harriman had also requested that the U.S. military be allowed to ferry its POWs out as well as fly in supplies to the POWs in U.S. planes. Dekanozov responded that "at the present time in the territory of Poland and in the areas immediately behind the front there are no more American ex-POWs or civilians. All...have been sent [to Odessa]...1194 have already been placed on American vessels at Odessa and about 1000 will be placed on transports which are leaving on March 15." As to supplies being flown in, they were to be shipped to Odessa, where the Soviets would "furnish transportation for these supplies to the appropriate assembly points by their railway means of transportation." Dekanozov did not bother to answer the obvious question of why the Soviets would promise to send supplies to the POWs if there were no POWs behind Soviet lines. It should also be noted that at no time when the Soviets undertook to transport supplies intended for the POWs did they ever arrive. Whether they were actually sent or were pilfered along the way is a moot point. Soviet-transported supplies meant for the POWs never reached their intended recipients. (16)

The last point Dekanozov addressed concerned Deane's trip to Poland. Dekanozov did not bother to lie and say that there were no more POWs in Poland and that Deane's trip would be fruitless. What he did say was that while the Soviet Government had no objection to the trip, "I must inform you that difficulties are being encountered with the Polish authorities at the present time in deciding this type of question. Moreover, objections on the part of the Soviet military authorities also exist." (17) Since it was the Polish Government that had provided most of the information about the POWs as well as assistance to Wilmeth in Lublin, and the Soviet military never made a move without checking with Moscow first, Dekanozov's final statement was so blatant and obvious a lie that Harriman could not let it pass.

The very afternoon that he received Dekanozov's letter Harriman sent two letters; one was to Molotov. It was already a foregone conclusion that Wilmeth would have to leave Poland, but the U.S. Embassy was hoping that the Soviets would permit Dr. Curtis B. Kingsbury to stay and care for sick and wounded POWs. Harriman hoped that the "Red Army authorities in this theatre, when they learn of the humanitarian character of Lt. Col. Kingsbury's mission, will be most willing to cooperate with and assist him." As to the Polish Government objecting to the presence of the Americans in Lublin, Harriman pointed out that "in view of the wholehearted cooperation and hospitality which the Provisional Polish Government and the Polish Red Cross have accorded to liberated American ex-prisoners of war, I feel satisfied that these authorities would be glad to cooperate with an American military medical officer, particularly if the Soviet Government were to point out to them the understandable reasons why it is desired to send him." Harriman also pointed out that there would be an "unfavorable reaction" in the United States when Americans learned how the Soviets were treating American POWs "after undergoing the hardships and privations of a Nazi prisoner of war camp." (18)

The second letter was to Stettinius, sent after Harriman's meeting with Molotov. To the Secretary of State Harriman reiterated the problems he and Deane had encountered in getting the Soviets to live up to the Yalta Agreement. He said that at his meeting, Molotov had also declared that "both the Red Army authorities and the Polish Provisional Government objected to the presence of our officers in Poland." Harriman asked Molotov what "valid objection the Red Army could possibly have, [pointing] out that we had no agreement with the Polish Provisional Government. In spite of my contention that this was a Soviet responsibility he kept reverting to the above fact." When Harriman asked Molotov whether the Red Army would remove its objections if the U.S. Government had an agreement with the Polish Provisional Government, "he did not answer this question directly" but left him with the "impression that he wished me to draw that deduction." Aside from the absurdity of the Red Army deciding diplomatic\political matters, Harriman knew that the Polish Provisional Government had no objections to Americans being in Poland. He wrote that he was "satisfied that the objection comes from Soviet Government and not the Provisional Polish Government." He noted that Deane had been in informal contact with the Polish Embassy in Moscow, and that it had been "extremely cooperative as have all Polish authorities including the Polish Red Cross to our prisoners in Poland." The only conclusion he could draw from the Soviet attitude was that they were "trying to use our liberated POWs as a club to induce us to give increased prestige to the Provisional Polish Government by dealing with it in this connection as the Soviets are doing in other cases." Harriman reluctantly recommended that, since he and Deane had been unable to get the Soviets to live up to the terms of the Yalta Agreement regarding prisoners of war, the U.S. Government should take steps to force the Soviets into compliance. This could, he concluded, be done only through "retaliatory measures which affect their interests." (19)

Among the measures Harriman suggested were those that would have affected Lend-Lease shipments, restricting not military supplies but items such as sugar that were not necessary to the Soviet war effort. He also suggested that General Eisenhower restrict the movement of Soviet repatriation officers in his headquarters area as the Soviets had done to Wilmeth, and that American POWs should be encouraged to give their stories to the newspapers about their treatment at the hands of the Soviets. This suggestion would have been a reversal of policy, for repatriated POWs had been threatened with court martial if they told anyone, including their families, about poor treatment by the Soviets. (20)

Stettinius sent Harriman's letter to Roosevelt with a cover memo in which he agreed with Harriman's conclusion that "it would appear that the Soviet authorities may be endeavoring to use our desire to assist our pws as a means of obliging us to deal with the Warsaw Government." Stettinius knew that the Soviets were raising this issue now because at the time of Harriman's telegram the United States and Great Britain were in the midst of negotiations concerning the establishment of a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity. Stalin wanted this government to be totally dominated by the Soviet Union. (21)

Stalin's policies of revenge and consolidation of power were extended to the occupied territories, and not just to German-occupied Soviet territory but also to Polish territory and the recently added Baltic states. As Victor Kravachenko reported the NKVD was preparing for the conquest of Europe using persuasion and terror. Agents were being trained for the work of "purging" areas liberated by the Red Army as well as non-Soviet controlled countries. The purging of individuals who had been under Nazi occupation was to ensure Soviet control. In addition the NKVD was to oversee the disposal of millions of Soviet citizens who had been beyond Soviet control for any length of time. This included POWs, displaced persons, forced laborers, and refugees. Soviet control was to be asserted through the use of terror. Hundreds of thousands of people would be executed, exiled, or sent to the GULAG as traitors under the charge of "collaboration." (22) This would also include the families of POWs as they were subject to the infamous Article 58, which declared all soldiers taken prisoner, as well as their families, traitors subject to imprisonment or execution. (23)

Whereas in the case of the Soviet Union these purges were to enable Stalin to reassert control over his people and to cleanse the country of possible dissidents, in the case of Poland it was simply to make sure that Poland would become an integral part of the Soviet Union. This was not a decision that evolved slowly as a result of continuously developing opportunities but apparently was part of an overall plan adopted much earlier than the decision would seem.

Stalin's plan for dominance and subjection of the Polish people began with the division of that country in the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 23, 1939.. It continued even after it appeared that the Soviets might lose the war. Stalin's intentions became apparent with the Katyn Forest Massacre of Polish Army Officers.

Those officers had fought the Germans in September, 1939. When they realized that the battle was lost and their government ordered them to surrender, many of them sought sanctuary in the Russian-occupied area of Poland. The Russians welcomed them, disarmed them, and then interned them in camps at Kozelsk, Starobelsh, and Ostashkov. There they remained until their letters stopped coming to their families in Poland. Inquiries to the Soviets were met with silence. The families of the men remained ignorant of their fate for more than two years. Finally in 1943 the German Government announced that it had discovered mass graves of several thousand Polish officers in areas outside of Smolensk. Documents on the bodies were dated no later than March 1940, when the Germans had not even been at war with the Soviet Union. An international commission investigated at the behest of the Germans and concluded that the Soviets had committed the crime. (24)

If Stalin had planned to extend his rule to Poland he would first have to destroy his potential opposition. (25) Polish officers would quite likely make up the core of any organized resistance to the Soviets. They could offer not only leadership but also training in military arts to the relatively untrained civilian irregulars. By eliminating the National Polish leadership, Stalin could more easily control the country. Other Poles who might offer substantial opposition to Soviet rule could be purged under the pretense that they had worked with the Germans and were therefore traitors.

In July-August 1944, when units of Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky's First Belorussian Front were encamped along the Vistula River outside of Warsaw the Soviets encouraged the Polish Home Army in Warsaw, commanded by General Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, to attack the retreating Germans. The Soviets then did nothing when the Germans went on the offensive and destroyed the Poles. Both Washington and London pleaded with Stalin to help the Poles but Stalin refused, saying that the Red Army had to rest. (26) London and Washington asked for permission to air drop supplies into Warsaw, but to do that they would have to use the airbase at Poltava; Stalin refused permission. (27) After the uprising had gone on for seven weeks Stalin finally allowed some drops of food and arms by U.S., U.K., and Soviet planes. It was however too little, too late. After "63 days of incessant struggle," Polish resistance ended on October 3, 1944. (28)

Stalin, as other Russian and Soviet rulers before him, coveted Poland for defensive reasons. Poland had always been the road to invade Russia from the West. Hitler had only followed history in 1941. Stalin was determined that Poland would never again be a threat to Soviet security. An independent Poland would always be a threat, so Stalin insisted on Communist domination of the post-war Polish government. After the Yalta Agreement he considered any British or American involvement in Polish affairs as insupportable and tantamount to interference in Soviet internal affairs. Stalin viewed U.S. and U.K. repatriation teams in Poland as a blind for London's and Washington's interference in Soviet plans for Poland.

Stettinius was faced with a dilemma. The United States had signed agreements with the Soviet Government on repatriation, but the Soviets had refused to honor them except when it was to their advantage to do so. The major problem was that U.S. POWs were hostages to diplomatic and political expediency. There was no way to force the Soviets to return them, and threatening retaliatory measures would be counter-productive. Stettinius knew that the U.S. could threaten, but the Soviets were holding all the aces. Frustrated, he wrote Harriman asking for suggestions as to what might be done, but he and others in the government also wanted to know if Harriman and Deane had considered the "possibility which has been raised here that retaliatory [sic] measures on the part of the U.S. Government might result in countermeasures detrimental to our liberated prisoners." (29)

Now it was apparent why the Soviets insisted on shipping the POWs over a thousand miles into Soviet territory and only allowing them to depart when the Soviets decided they could go. The POWs were pawns, and the Yalta Agreement, which had been signed in order to facilitate repatriation of Allied POWs, had become a legal instrument of detention. There was nothing the United States Government could do about it except accede to Soviet demands. The British had already come to that conclusion. (30)

Harriman responded on March 16 by suggesting that President Roosevelt make another personal appeal to Stalin. He did not think the Soviets would retaliate against the POWs if the U.S. Government took the retaliatory measures he had suggested in his cable (No. 738) of March 14. He believed that the Soviets would not deliberately mistreat the POWs, "especially since we hold ten of theirs to every one that they hold of ours." Harriman was evidently unaware that the Soviet Government was mistreating its own POWs when they were repatriated, and they probably would have been unconcerned if the U.S. had carried out any retaliatory measures against Soviet nationals. He closed by saying that he didn't think retaliatory measures should be implemented until after the President received Stalin's response. (31)

Roosevelt did try another personal appeal on March 17. This note was much less amiable than that of March 3. He alluded to the fact that the Soviet Government, indeed Stalin, had lied about POWs still in Poland and that there was no need for repatriation teams. He closed by saying

^{Frankly I cannot understand your reluctance to permit American officers and means to assist their own people in this matter. This Government has done everything to meet each of your requests. I now request you to meet mine in this particular matter. Please call Harriman to explain my desires in detail.} (32)

ROOSEVELT

Stalin responded to the President's letter on March 22. He refused to allow any repatriation teams into Poland because, despite

^{information which you have about a seemingly great number of sick and wounded Americans who are in Poland, and also those waiting for departure for Odessa or who did not get in touch with Soviet authorities, I must say that that information is not exact. In reality, on the territory of Poland by March 16 there were only 17 sick Americans, except a number of Americans who are on the way to Odessa....Soon they (17 persons) will be taken to Odessa by planes....If that request concerned me personally I would readily agree even to the prejudice of my interests. But in this case the matter concerns the interests of the Soviet armies at the front and Soviet commanders, who do not want to have extra officers with them, having no relation to military operations but at the same time requiring care for their accommodations, for the organization of meetings and all kinds of connections....Our commanders pay with their lives for the state of matters at the front and in the immediate rear and I do not consider it possible to limit their rights in any degree.}

Stalin closed his letter by accusing the United States of mistreating Soviet POWs by placing them in camps with German POWs, and of other "unfair treatment and unlawful inconveniences." (33)

At the same time that the United States was protesting the Soviet attitude with regard to repatriation of POWs and repatriation teams, the Soviets accused the U.S. Government of violating the Yalta Agreement. Moscow had demanded the return of all Soviet citizens, the definition of whom had been worked out at many conferences and finalized, or so the Soviet Government believed, at Yalta. (34) Yet the U.S. Government still refused to return Soviets captured in German uniform. Acting Secretary of State Grew informed Harriman on March 20 that the U.S. had decided not to turn over to the Soviets 114 Soviet POWs in the U.S. because they had claimed the protection of the Geneva Convention. It is unclear whether Grew was intimating that this weakened the U.S. position with regard to the charge that the Soviets were violating the Yalta Agreement, or that he was suggesting that the non-returnees could be used as a lever against the Soviets. He apparently left the matter to Harriman to decide. It was a certainty that the Soviets would bring the issue to Harriman's attention, and this would have placed him in the position of knowing less than the Soviets about the particulars of decisions made by his own government. (35)

In any event, the next day Grew suggested that Harriman inquire of the Soviet Government as to why it was refusing to notify Washington about the discovery or liberation of American POWs. As Grew pointed out, the Yalta Agreement "would appear to call for a change of Soviet policy toward requests for information concerning American citizens resident in Poland and other areas of eastern Europe." The State Department, therefore, was going to forward all inquiries concerning the welfare and whereabouts of POWs to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. It would be up to Harriman and Deane to obtain the information from the Soviets. (36)

In the meantime Grew informed the Soviet Ambassador in Washington that the U.S. Government had no intention of retaining Soviets captured in German uniform. It had, he said, "nothing to do with questions of their citizenship or nationality status but arises solely from their demand to be treated as German POWs." He compared the problem of Soviet POWs in German uniform to that of other nationals wearing the U.S. uniform. One of the major fears was that the Germans would treat Jewish Americans differently from other Americans. This was not an idle concern, for many Jewish American soldiers were not treated as POWs but placed in concentration camps. (37) Grew said that the U.S. Government would therefore retain the Soviet POWs until Germany was defeated, when "the Soviet Government may be assured that their disposition will be taken up again between the two Governments." (38) As the question of what constituted a Soviet citizen had already been decided, it was only a matter of when they would be repatriated. (39)

Washington decided that the best course of action was not to threaten the Soviets but to try to reason with them. One can only imagine Harriman's consternation when Political Officer Kirk informed him that on or before March 25, "AFHQ has informed Soviet delegate in Rome for repatriation of Soviet citizens that this headquarters had decided to authorize Soviet Government to attach a military representative with necessary assistants to Fifth Army Hqs for liaison duties in connection with repatriation of Soviet citizens." On the telegram Harriman wrote, "Gen. Deane, How about this?" (40) On March 27 Deane replied that Soviet representatives in U.S. theaters of operation should be kept out of combat zones and the areas immediately in the rear of them. (41) Kirk concurred, suggesting that the authorization "be held in abeyance until...further consideration." (42)

Evidently Deane's suggestion was accepted, for on April 1 Kirk informed the embassy in Moscow that General McNarney had written Colonel Riumin:

^{that since Soviet Government interpretation of area in which repatriation of contact personnel will be permitted in rear of Red Army formations precluded presence of U.S. Military personnel in Red Army or Red Army group headquarters it would be necessary for him to suspend the authority (granted on March 24) for Soviet Government representatives to be present in U.S. Fifth Army Area pending future clarification of this matter and the intent of Soviet Government.} (43)

Subsequent communications with the Soviets from both the U.S. and the British Governments show further attempts to reason with Moscow. Time and again they brought to the Soviet Union's attention that there were still Allied POWs in Poland, that repatriation teams and supplies were needed, and that shipping the POWs to Odessa was counter-productive to speedy repatriation. (44)

Such arguments fell on deaf ears, however. Moscow knew that Washington was most anxious to have its POWs home as soon as possible, and that the U.S. would not cut off Lend-Lease because the U.S. Government needed the Soviet Government's declaration of war on Japan after the defeat of Germany. Moscow knew there was little sympathy in the West for Soviet POWs and that no Government would offer them asylum. Europe was devastated economically and could not afford their presence.

The British Government was also attempting to reason with the Soviets. Lord Halifax, British ambassador to the United States, informed the Stettinius that his government had gotten essentially the same answers from Stalin that Roosevelt received. Halifax told him that Anthony Eden was of the opinion that they should not push the question of contact officers in Poland "west of the Curzon line," as contact officers were proceeding to the camps east of the Curzon line at Lwow and Volkovysk. London suggested waiting until these officers could report on the numbers of the camps before insisting on sending contact teams into Poland. Eden believed that the Soviets would not allow any teams into Poland regardless of the numbers of POWs. The reason was that Moscow suspected "that the contact officers would, under cover of dealings with POWs, proceed to contact Polish leaders, and, in fact convert themselves into the proposed Observation Mission." (45)

As the end of the war grew closer, the Germans proposed that all POWs stay where they were and the Allies agreed to this. (46) The British War Office notified SHAEF that the Soviets were advancing on camps containing sizable numbers of POWs whom they might repatriate through Odessa. The War Office suggested, therefore, that the Soviets be approached about issuing orders to Russian commanders that POWs be held for overland exchange. (47) On April 30 Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs A.Y. Vyshinski proposed to George Kennan, the U.S. Chargé d'Affaires, that, following the linkup between American and Red Army troops in Germany, they should "effect repatriation of our respective liberated POWs directly across our line of contact...instead of by sea." Kennan was suspicious of Soviet motives and pointed out to Stettinius that he thought it likely that the "Russians will do their best to interpret our acceptance in such a way as to oblige us to hand over at once all the Russians we find, regardless of their status." (48)

Russian and American troops met at the Elbe River on April 25. In the meantime, the Soviets had "liberated" many stalags. These POWs were even farther from Odessa than those in Poland. The liberated POWs were told, nevertheless, that they would not be repatriated across lines to the West but through Odessa. (49) This alarmed many, and they began leaving the POW camps and attempting to reach American or British lines. In many camps the Soviets threatened to shoot the POWs if they left. One camp, Stalag 3A at Luckenwalde, was typical of the treatment accorded the POWs. Although freed, they were forbidden to leave. The excuse was that it was not safe for them to wander about the countryside. The SS was still killing POWs or, as was more likely, they would be shot by the Russians who allegedly would "mistake" them for Germans. Flight Officer Norm Dodgson wrote Sydney Miller that

^{the Russians refused to let the British tykes leave, apparently were to be held as hostages, with the exchange rate of 3 Russian officers for each British, or the same for 6 Russian privates, 3 Russians for a Sgt or private for private, it took over 6 weeks to go through after you left, things got so sticky they started to shoot and a couple of our guys were clocked. Joe and I stood it for two weeks, so as we looked like digging salt in Siberia we went through the wire, made the Elbe and got across....The boys were madder than hell, every body turned in long lengthy reports to no avail, apparently P.O.W.s came under the diplomatic side of country control [sic], even today there is cause to believe the Russians are still holding some of our tykes. My own crew have never been traced and except for myself and the Bombardier the other 5 have simply vanished.} (50)

It was also at Luckenwalde on April 23 that a freed prisoner, D.C. Wimberly, witnessed an event that was, unfortunately, all too common: American and German prisoners of war being marched to the east under Red Army guards. As these men marched past Wimberly, they called out that they were not Germans but Americans; some threw small bits of paper with their families' names and addresses on them. On May 4, the Soviets rounded up all the POWs who had left camp and returned them to 3a under guard. The POWs were told that the Soviets would keep them because "Eisenhower and the Russian generals could not agree on how to swap or repatriate we prisoners of war."

Wimberly's group decided to escape from the stalag and get to American lines on their own. On May 7, they cut through the barbed wire and walked away. Wimberly and a friend named Gaeta narrowly escaped capture by the Soviets the next morning when a Russian with a machine gun took them prisoner and marched them to where about 150 German POWs and Americans were being held. They were marched away, and while passing through the narrow streets of Wittenberg, Wimberly and four of his friends managed to escape. He noted that when he and his friends left 3A there were around 29,000 POWs in Luckenwalde. (51)

Luckenwalde, located south of Berlin, had become a collection point for POWs whom the Germans had evacuated from the East. The Senior Allied Officer there had been a Norwegian, Major General Ruge. The Russians had sent General Ruge to Moscow from Luckenwalde instead of on to Odessa. Ruge informed the U.S. Embassy that there were still hundreds of British and U.S. POWs in Luckenwalde when he left the camp on May 8. Ruge identified the Senior British officer there as Wing Commander Collard. Ruge noted that Russian treatment of the POWs was no better than it had been under the Germans, and "treatment of British and American Pow was worse than [for] other nationals." Ruge asked that he not be identified as the source of this information, "because of possible retaliation on Norwegian nationals also in this camp." (52) Ruge's observations, in a report of May 13, were not the first information received on conditions in 3A. They merely confirmed an earlier report by Major P.S. MacCallum. MacCallum had questioned former British POW Subaltern Lieutenant Cole. Cole had said that when he was liberated on April 21 there were approximately "1400 R.A.F. Officers, a few Officers of other Services, 2,000 R.A.F. N.C.'S, 800 Army O/R, 500 American Officers, 4,000 Enlisted men, as well as 1200 Norwegians and other nationals." Cole had told MacCallum that on May 6, 1945

^{25 Ambulances and 25 Trucks arrived from 83 Div., and the Russians authorised the evacuation of the sick ex P O W in the ambulances, but refused to allow evacuation of any of the others in the trucks. Owing to conditions an unofficial evacuation started, and the ex P O W went through the wire in groups to the trucks which were waiting 3 miles away.}

^{The Russian authorities had refused to accept the credentials of the American Officers who came from 83 Div., and hearing of the unofficial evacuation going on, they sent armed guards, forbade the evacuation, threatened to open fire and stopped it. All the ex POW were thereupon taken back to the camp. On the night of 6/7 May, 90 trucks arrived from SCHONEBURG with a Representative from SHAEF, an Officer from the Trucking Coy. [sic], and two American Officers to assist the evacuation. The Russian refused permission again and gave orders the ex POW were not to go, whereupon the S.A.O. (Wing Comd. Collard) wrote a protest to the local Russian Authorities, stating that if co operation was not given he would have to get into touch with his Government. After reading this letter to the whole Camp, he was taken back to some H.Q., but when he returned he remained quite silent upon what had transpired, which was contrary to his usual custom of informing the Camp of everything he could. This had the effect....[The bottom of page 1 is missing] could do anything, they drove all out leaving him behind. What occurred at the Camp after Informant left was told him by an American Officer, Capt. MEIZENHELTER (of a cavalry unit, who had been taken prisoner at Luxembourg in Dec last), who had got away from the Camp with the two American Officers who had been forced to leave, having come with the trucks from SCHOENBURG. Capt. Meizenhelter was in combat uniform and the Russians did not realise he was an ex P O W when he left.}

^{It appears that the Russian Commission arrived at the Camp on Tuesday 8 May at 10.00 hrs., who despatched an armed guard to collect the remaining 45 trucks, picked up various escaping parties, brought them all back, put guards round the Camp at 50 yard intervals armed with tommy guns, and a cordon round the area 2 miles from the Camp. The Russians made an announcement that these evacuations would cease, that they would evacuate the Camp when and how they wished, and anyone leaving the Camp would be liable to up to six months civil internment.}

^{The two American Officers, who had come with the trucks with the Representative from SHAEF, were threatened with internment unless they left immediately, which they did. For any value that it may be, Informant states that two rumours in the camp are causing some anxiety, one that there is disagreement about the exchange of ex POW with the British Govt., and the other that the Russian Authorities wished to take these ex POW to ODESSA for propaganda purposes.} (53)

This and similar reports convinced Washington and London that another meeting was necessary to work out repatriation procedures. The Soviets had offered overland repatriation, but obviously a signed agreement would be necessary to guide it. The planned meeting was held at Halle beginning on May 16.

SHAEF proposed to the Soviet High Command that the meeting be held to arrange for the "earliest overland exchange of U.S. and U.K. POWs and Soviet nationals." It was also the intention of the SHAEF delegation at Halle to "obtain immediate Soviet concurrence to the initiation of air evacuation of some 40,000 U.S. and UK prisoners of war behind Soviet lines." (54)

The ostensible object of the Halle meeting was to finalize the "nuts and bolts" of the repatriation of POWs. It was not an easy meeting, as the transcript of the proceedings attests. In fact the meeting was a study in frustration for Eisenhower's acting G-1 chief of staff at SHAEF, Major General Raymond W. Barker, who was Chief American negotiator. The Soviets were headed by General K.D. Golubev, an NKVD general, whose "delegation included, forty officers of whom one was a Lt. General and six were Major Generals. There were also at least fifty enlisted men." The Soviets came to the meeting in "requisitioned German vehicles of all makes, an American-type armored car, fully equipped, and a radio truck, which latter was in operation during most of the time." To Barker's surprise the Russians were all "heavily armed with pistols, sub-machine guns and rifles."

The Halle Conference opened on May 16. At the first session Barker proposed the "immediate initiation of steps looking toward prompt release and return to Allied control of all British and American POWs then in Russian custody, using air and motor transport." Barker reported that this was "firmly resisted by General GOLUBEV," who cited all sorts of difficulties, such as a lack of serviceable air fields. Barker told him that he knew for a fact that this was not true, whereupon Golubev told him that "neither now, nor at any time in the future, would they permit Allied airplanes to be used for the movement into or out of their territory of POWs or dps." It was after this initial meeting that Barker and the SHAEF representatives "came to the firm conviction that British and American prisoners of war were, in effect, being held as hostages by the Russians, until deemed expedient by them to permit their release." This was borne out by subsequent events. (55)

It quickly became apparent that the Soviet delegation could not do any actual negotiating. They were tied to the plan they had brought with them, and from which they could not deviate in any detail. This plan contained many items objectionable to both the U.S. and U.K. Governments. Meetings of the drafting committee proved completely useless, for the Soviets could not compromise or negotiate anything that differed from the plan they had been given. The latter was in the form of a "quasi-legal document, and called an 'Agreement.'" Barker and the others were shocked to see that it was an attempt to "extract pledges of compliance to the last degree with the terms of this 'Agreement' and the YALTA Agreement." The SHAEF Mission informed Golubev that it had no intention of writing a new agreement: "since an agreement had already been signed between the three Governments on this subject, it was superfluous to enact any further ones."

Barker pointed out that the reason for the Halle meeting was not to write new agreements but to come up with a working plan "under which the YALTA Agreement could be made effective." General Golubev finally accepted this view, probably after extensive communication with his superiors via the radio car.

Barker noted that a number of the Soviet proposals were either unacceptable or would need. Two of the most troubling were the insistence of the Soviets that "a complicated and cumbersome method of last-minute documentation and nominal rolls was desired." The other was the fact that "the number of reception/delivery points proposed by the Russians was not sufficient, and did not conform to our road/railway net. It made no provision for points in Austrian territory." Some of the Soviet objections were just plain ridiculous. Barker pointed out that their wording of the paragraph on transportation precluded any movement of POWs by marching in Allied territory. "Previous study had shown that repatriation in reasonable time made a certain amount of marching mandatory." For some reason this particular paragraph was of great importance to the Soviets, and the meetings "came to a complete impasse" on the subject. The talks resumed, but the issue was not settled until the last session in the early morning hours of May 22. (56)

The meetings at Halle were not the only meetings held on the repatriation issue. These meetings were government level meetings and were concerned with deciding who would be repatriated. At Halle Golubev had attempted to get Barker to agree that the first paragraph would define who was to be repatriated. Barker replied that neither he nor General Eisenhower had the authority to decide who was to be repatriated and that there had "been a great deal of correspondence between the governments on the subject of who is subject to repatriation. This subject is still under discussion between the governments and I understand that a final agreement has not yet been consummated." (57) The discussion to which Barker was referring was the meeting at Leipzig. At this meeting the political definition of "Soviet citizens" was finalized. (58)

Although the plan was signed on May 22, it was deemed operational on May 20 when, according to Barker, 2200 U.S./British POWs were transferred from Stalag 3a at Luckenwalde. (59) Colonel Charles Jones, one of those repatriated that day, contradicts Barker's figure; he said that only two to four hundred had been repatriated, and that it almost did not come off. The Soviets drove the POWs to the Elbe River, where Americans were to take them to the American side. When the American troops got there the Soviets refused to hand over the POWs. Jones reported that they sat there for several hours, with the POWs becoming more and more afraid they would not be released. Finally the Soviets allowed them to go. The delay was because the American trucks that came to pick up the POWs had not brought Soviet POWs, and the Soviets expected a one-for-one prisoner exchange. The Soviets finally turned over the Americans, but it was the only time that they repatriated U.K. or U.S. POWs without a quid pro quo. (60) Even if Barker's figures are correct, and it is hard to see how someone could mistake twenty trucks containing between two hundred and four hundred POWs for twenty trucks containing 2200 POWs, it still does not account for the number of British and U.S. POWs reported to have been in 3a.

General Barker concluded his report with the following observation:

^{There is every indication that the Russians intend to make a big show of rapid repatriation of our men, although I am of the opinion that we may find a reluctance to return them all, for an appreciable time to come, since those men constitute a valuable bargaining point. It will be necessary for us, therefore, to arrange for constant liaison and visits of inspection to "uncover" our men.} (61)

Barker had good reason to be concerned. On May 19 General Eisenhower sent a message to AGWAR that the number of American "prisoners estimated in Russian control 25,000." (62) Most of these POWs were held under Marshal V.I. Tolbukhin's control in Austria, but there were sizable groups in other areas. The Soviets had transferred 2500 POWs from 3A to one close to where the Halle meeting was being held. Caffery considered these men to be visible reminders of hostages. (63) On May 20 a telegram from Eisenhower noted that there were 3700 Americans and 650 British at Stalag 2A. Also, "as a result of agreement with Russians now being negotiated some BR/U.S. ex-P/ws now opposite Twelfth Army Group might be directed towards your zone. Estimated grand total under Russian control is 20/25000 BR and 15/20000 US." (64) Clearly, everyone believed that overland exchanges of POWs would begin just as soon as the plans had been worked out for such a massive undertaking. Some even believed it might take until November to conclude the movement of so many prisoners between zones of occupation. (65)

In the meantime, the British were faced with the problem of what to do with Cossacks who had surrendered to them. Next to General Vlasov, Stalin wanted these people the most. Many of these should not have been subject, by any stretch of the imagination, to repatriation. They had left Russia before the Bolsheviks had consolidated their power. Also to be considered were their women, children, and old people who were with the Cossacks in Austria. The British knew that Stalin was especially anxious to have the Cossacks sent back to the Soviet Union for imprisonment or extermination, but legally and technically the British could not send them back. The Cossacks were not Soviets who had fought in German uniform but rather they had fought for the Germans as a division of the German Army. They were commanded by German officers, among them the well known General Helmuth von Pannwitz. (66)

The Cossacks were held in Austria by the 15 Army Group, 5 Corps. To overcome the illegality of their planned course of action, the British reclassified the Cossacks and their families from POWs and dps to "surrendered enemy personnel." (67) On May 17 CASERTA sent a telegram to the War Department requesting direction on clearing congestion in southern Austria. Among the categories of individuals they were concerned with were "50,000 Cossacks including 11,00 women, children and old men. These have been part of German Armed forces and fighting against Allies." (68)

General Alexander appealed to Eisenhower for help "as regards surrendered German Armed forces including Cossacks. I request urgently your agreement that these surrendered forces...be transferred to your area soonest at a point agreeable to you." (69) Alexander knew that the Cossacks were going to be forcibly repatriated as a result of secret negotiations between the British and Soviets on May 15, just before the U.S.-Soviet meeting at Halle. He wanted to avoid being made the scapegoat for a situation he found odious at best and in any event dishonorable.

The Cossacks were doomed; they could not claim the protection of the Geneva Convention for they were classified not as POWs but as Surrendered Enemy Personnel. They were stateless in the West; they were non-citizens, and they were pawns. They were to be exchanged for the U.S. and UK POWs in Austria. (70)

Alexander was shocked, however, to discover that the agreement was not reciprocal. On May 26 he notified Troopers that

^{Agreement with Russians at GRAZ only applies to handing over of Soviet citizens in British zone Austria. NO repeat NO reciprocal guarantee in respect of British P.Ws obtained apart from half hearted promise which so far has NOT been honoured. Evacuation to ODESSA still continuing from this area. Premature to plan on overland exchange on a local contact basis till Moscow issue directive to GRAZ commander.}

^{Considered essential Moscow be asked to announce their agreement to local overland exchange, as there are 15,597 U.S.A. account, 8,462 British account awaiting repatriation in this theatre.} (71)

On May 29, the British notified Washington that "there are still number of British and American pow in Soviet hands including 15,197 Americans and 8,462 British released by Marshal Tolbukhin." Despite their agreement, however, and the fixing of exchange points at Graz between the Eighth Army and the Soviets, Tolbukhin was only accepting Soviet citizens and supposedly evacuating U.S. and UK POWs through Odessa. "This is contrary to understanding with Eighth Army and to agreement with U.S.S.R. that future exchanges should be overland." They also noted that V Corps had agreed to hand over the Cossacks, and it was approved, but that "Marshal Tolbukhin should be pressed to exchange British and Americans mentioned." The British wanted the Soviet Government to inform Tolbukhin that the POWs were to be exchanged overland and not shipped to Odessa. There was some urgency to this, for "no further shipping is scheduled after end of May for evacuation from Odessa." (72)

On May 30 General Marshall informed General Deane that there were 15,597 American and 8,462 British POWs in Marshal Tolbukhin's control. Marshall understood that "Soviet Commander proposes to continue the evacuation of these POW's to Odessa rather than repatriate them overland as had been proposed by Soviet Government and accepted by United States and British." He ordered Deane to find out what he could about the situation. (73)

On May 31 Deane wrote to Lieutenant General Slavin that General Marshall had informed him that U.S. and U.K. POWs in Tolbukhin's control were being shipped to Odessa for repatriation. Deane pointed out that General K.D. Golubev had assured him that "no more American POWs would be repatriated through the port of Odessa and that all would be repatriated westward and overland." Deane noted that he had already taken steps to close down the repatriation team at Odessa, as the Soviets had themselves requested. Deane asked, what the attitude of the Soviet government was on this matter. He sent a similar message to General Golubev. (74) On May 12 Deane informed Marshall that General Golubev had told him that "there would be no more Americans sent to Odessa except a few individual stragglers, and henceforth all repatriation would be westward and overland." He also reported that Admiral Archer had received the information "that instructions would be issued to stop sending British officers, soldiers and citizens to Odessa....Henceforth those Allied prisoners of war liberated in the southern region would be dispatched to Graz to be handed over to the 8th Army." This was a direct linkage between Graz, Cossacks, and pow repatriation. (75)

On June 2 Deane notified Marshall that "concerning those liberated POWs in Marshal Tolbukhin's area, estimated in excess of 15,000 Golikov assured me that they would be evacuated westward in accordance with the Halle agreement." (76) With this document the Soviets admitted that they still held large numbers of American and British POWs in Austria.

The Allied POWs held in Austria were not repatriated. They did not go out through Odessa; as only 2,585 U.S. POWs were repatriated from there. (77) Colonel Wilmeth alone sent more than three thousand POWs from Poland, ostensibly to Odessa. (78) The Soviets claimed that more than two thousand had been sent by rail to and out of Odessa before Wilmeth even arrived in Poland.(79)

American POWs released from POW camps and returned to Allied control by the Russians as well as POWs freed by U.S. troops were first sent to rest camps. From these they were returned to the United States. The largest of these was Camp Lucky Strike in France. (80) U.S. POWs who had been held at Luft 1, Barth, Germany, and repatriated by the Soviets in return for General Vlasov and his officers, were sent to Lucky Strike where they arrived about May 18. Hugh Barton reported that the first night there the camp commander addressed them and apologized for the paucity of resources other than food. The camp was in the process of closing down, and as they had not expected the Barth contingent there was no clothing or boots for them. They had not expected the Barth contingent. Indeed, the colonel told them, "they didn't realize there was that many [of them] left alive." (81) Any POWs repatriated by the Soviets overland would have gone through the repatriation centers in France.

After the arrival of the ex-POWs from the Luft 1 airlift there were no large groups of POWs processed through the camps. (82) There was no overland exchange of the U.S. and U.K. POWs Marshal Tolbukhin held in Austria. (83)

American and British POWs retained by the Soviets disappeared, like so many others after World War II, into the hellish maw of the GULAG. (84) Hundreds of thousands of French, Germans, and Japanese POWs also never returned. (85) Not even the Swiss were immune. On May 11, members of the Swiss Red Cross, who had been operating in Berlin, were detained by the Red Army. Daily they were promised that it would be only a short time before they could leave. That short time stretched into weeks. On June 13 the Swiss were told that they had four hours to get ready to leave for Moscow to be repatriated. The Swiss were naturally dubious, for Moscow was hardly on the way to Geneva. The Soviet colonel who informed them of the move blandly pointed out that "from the Soviet capital by way of Odessa, Turkey, and Italy" it was very easy to "link up with Geneva." What the Swiss did not know was that they were being held hostage to force the Swiss Government to repatriate "9,000 Soviet citizens and prisoners of war...in Switzerland." The incredulous Swiss were told that these 9,000 Soviets who had sought asylum in Switzerland, were "not only prevented from returning to their country, but they were subjected to treatment by the Swiss authorities which fully matched the 'bestial methods of the underlings of Hitler.'" Because of this the Soviet Government had decided "to suspend the repatriation of all Swiss citizens 'liberated by the Red Army.'" (86)

The Swiss Red Cross workers were sent to Krasnogorsk, where they found sixteen other Swiss prisoners. On July 27 the group was moved to Camp 20B at Planernaya, about 25 km west of Moscow. While they were at Camp 20B "it was indicated to us that we would remain interned until Soviet citizens--who had taken refuge in Swiss territory--were repatriated to Russia." The Swiss Red Cross personnel were finally released on October 15. The Soviets who had thought they had found asylum in Switzerland were, "amidst violent scenes, sent back to the U.S.S.R. in trucks." (87)

French POWs were also held hostage to force the repatriation of Soviet citizens in French control. As late as October 1945, the French were still trying to arrange repatriation of their POWs. (88) Unfortunately, events that reflected the honor of the French military actually doomed the non-returned POWs. Although the French government allowed the NKVD to kidnap Soviet nationals off the streets in France and imprison them in a camp run and controlled by the NKVD, the French military in Austria refused to condone forcible repatriation of Soviet citizens. (89) Perhaps sickened and outraged by the scenes of forcible repatriation from the British and American zones, the French refused to participate. This refusal, although honorable, was unfortunate for French POWs under Soviet control. (90) French military honor may have doomed more than a hundred thousand Frenchmen to the GULAG. (91)

Reports of Americans in the GULAG trickled out for years. Germans released after 1956 reported seeing American POWs in some of the camps. (92) Frenchmen reported being in camps with American and British POWs. On August 17, 1946, Henri Meck, the Deputy of the Bas-Rhin of the National Constituent Assembly, reported to the Minister for ex-Prisoners of War that a constituent in his area, Joseph Bogenschutz, a recent repatriatee from the Soviet Union, had recently arrived home. Bogenschutz had reported that there were still many prisoners left in the camp including American, British and other western nationalities. (93) Another sighting was at Tambov. The informant, a Pole, had been in a POW and internee camp at Tambov, where there were Germans, French, Americans, British, Dutch, Belgians, and even a few Luxembourgers. He estimated that more than 20,000 POWs were there, and he had been told that 23,000 Italians, more than 2,500 French, and over 10,000 Romanian and Hungarian POWs had died there:

^{Prisoners in this camp included men of very high culture and learning and great experts in many fields of science. Informant observed that German engineers were employed on a special task--the drawing up of blue-prints for a four-engined aircraft, which would carry about 500 men and achieve a speed--it was alleged--1,000 kilometres per hour....Informant was also told that a group of technicians and engineers of all nationalities was busy working out plans for new types of tanks and other technical machines and installations.} (94)

Washington had already received this same information from another source. On December 10, 1945, General Joseph T. McNarney notified the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that information had been received on August 30 that the "Russians were holding prisoner approximately 45 American enlisted men and two officers, one captain and one lieutenant, at Rada near Tambov in the Stalingrad area. Prisoners were reported behind barbed wire stockade under guard." (95)

Reports of American prisoners in Soviet hands occasionally reached their families as well as the U.S. Government. On December 1, 1946, the Wisconsin State Journal published an article stating that Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Lee believed that their son was still held prisoner by the Russians, "along with a reported 20,000 to 25,000 other Americans." The Lees had received information that "their son and others had been moved from the hospital in Linz, Austria on April 13, 1945, to another site farther north in Austria and a friend connected with the Federal Bureau of Investigation later claimed that records in Munich bore this out." (96)

The Lees were not the only parents to receive information that their sons were still alive in Russian camps. Mrs. Ida Mae Stichnoth had been informed that her son, Sergeant Lawrence Reitz, had been killed during a raid over the Ploesti oil fields when his plane, the "Damfino," had been hit by enemy fire and crashed into an ammunition warehouse. The story was repeated in a book about the raid, (97) although no one on the raid actually observed the plane crash. (98)

After the war Mrs. Stichnoth received a letter from a man who claimed to have known her son when Reitz had been imprisoned at Stalag 3A toward the end of the war, and he wanted to know if Reitz had returned home. (99) Mrs. Stichnoth, an elderly woman who believed in her government and expected it to help her, then embarked on a decades-long quest. Documentation shows that government workers, including her senator, Richard M. Nixon, dismissed her as deranged. (100) No one addressed, much less answered, the question of how, if her son and his plane had been blown to pieces in the raid over Ploesti with no identifiable remains, someone had talked with him and obtained his name and address months later in a prison camp hundreds of miles away.

Why would the U.S. and U.K. governments participate in an attempt to cover up Stalin's refusal to repatriate U.S. and U.K. POWs? The original reason appears to have been a concern for the welfare of the POWs. Toward this end both Washington and London ordered their military establishments to participate in acts of forcible repatriation that were immoral, unethical, and probably illegal under international law. Both governments kept forcible repatriation a secret for many years. British documents concerning it are indeed still classified, but witnesses still live, and the U.S. has declassified many documents dealing with the events. (101)

But the question as to why the U.S. and U.K. participated has never been fully addressed. What leverage could Stalin have used that would have forced Washington and London to participate so completely in the cruel and bloody business of forcible repatriation, unless it was the knowledge that thousands of U.S. and U.K. POWs were Soviet hostages? (102) It was not the first time the Soviets had used POWs as diplomatic pawns. Lenin and the early Bolshevik/ Soviet Government had used the same tactic to force diplomatic concessions from the West. (103) Stalin knew that the U.S. placed a premium on its POWs. That had been demonstrated time and again.

In addition to a history of Soviet use of POWs as hostages, Moscow found POWs useful as leverage in the Polish situation. They also were used in an attempt to force the U.S. to continue Lend-Lease to the Soviets after the war ended. Many of the POWs had technical expertise, then in short supply in the Soviet Union. Also Moscow considered the POWs expendable. (104) As such they could be used in situations where their survival was not a consideration. American POWs liberated by the Red Army from Japanese-controlled areas could be used to force the U.S. to allow the Soviets joint occupation of Japan. Finally and most importantly, the Soviets used the POWs to blackmail Washington and London into continuing forcible repatriation as late as 1947. (105)

Occasionally rumors of a Soviet and U.S. agreement have surfaced. The agreement allegedly allowed Washington to ransom U.S. POWs over a period of years. (106) If any Americans were ransomed, few have ever contacted their families, joined the American Ex-Prisoners of War Organization, or applied for veterans benefits. (107) One can only assume that the majority of these prisoners never came home and likely never will.

Copyright by
Patricia Louise Wadley

1993

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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