RCH 18, 1945. Letters to The Ti Poland and Big Three all these matters Russia's and Britain's activities come down to the same point -the necessity that our allies have been Attacks Here Upon Yalta Action under of being forehanded against a A third attempt at world domination by Viewed as Unjustified a fresh Germany. In Germany over the generations they may have The writer of the following letter is changed the faces, or have taken on G chairman of J. P. Morgan & Co., Inc. fresh names, but their technique of CO In 1919 at Paris he was a representa- conquest has remained the same. In as tive of the Treasury on the 'American 1914 it was Belgium that was the first Commission to Negotiate Peace and 00 victim; in 1939 Poland; back in 1864 was present at discussions having to Denmark, in 1866 Austria, in 1870 do with the reconstitution of a Polish France. state. Just as in the case of Russia and Poland, many Americans have been T To THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES: Of all the momentous decisions made highly critical of Britain's attitude as c to Italy and Greece and have been de- i at the Crimean Conference, that con- manding the immediate functioning of A cerning Poland seems to have aroused democratic processes. Of course, Mr. S the most question. In fact, for weeks Churchill has more than once pro- before the conference there was bitter claimed the necessity of establishing t American criticism of Russia's atti- governments of the people. But from tude. It still continues from some quar- the outlook of our own untouched ters. If however, our American com- ment is to be informed and help- countryside we can have little concep- ful, we must understand certain of the tion of the devastation, distress and very important factors that the Big confusion of these liberated states, of Three may well have had in mind in the breakdown in the fabric, of society. this matter. The fact is that until available cargo Poland, lying at the crossroads be- space for food and other supplies ma- tween western and eastern Europe, terially increases, the hungry people has for centuries been a bone of con- will take limited interest in democratic tention. Thrice partitioned by its three legislative procedures. They ask for powerful neighbors, it had no separate bread, and all there is available is a national existence from 1795 until 1919. stone. Then at the Paris Peace Conference Trade Routes Important the Allies set up the new Polish state, American interests in the Mediter- taking care, in accord with both the ranean are certainly secondary to Brit- American and British ethnological ex- ish. Yet it is of serious consequence to perts, to leave indefinite any bound- us that the Mediterranean littoral aries east of the Curzon Line. should be controlled by states friendly Poles Moved East to our freedom of commerce through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal. We In 1918 Soviet Russia had, under un- want to see an Italy and a Greece that relenting German duress, signed the cannot be used by a warlike Germany humiliating peace of Brest-Litovsk, for its own purposes. We have only to thereby losing great slices of Russian recall the narrow margin by which the territory. Then she suffered grievous- Suez Canal and its approaches were ly from the support her late allies gave saved less than three years ago. Had to counter-revolutionary forces. Britain finally failed to throw back the The Poles, noting this weakness, Axis legions, their lifeline, the Suez were able by force of arms in 1920, Canal and the route to the east might although against the urgent counsel of have been gone. Our own operation the Allies, to move into the region east in North Africa would have been far of the Curzon Line, and in the Treaty more difficult, our entire attack upon of Riga in 1921 the Soviets finally con- Japan in the Pacific indefinitely post- ceded this territory. Poland's terrible and ever-present poned and the war might have been lost. misfortune as the border state has been If America had been plunged into that she could not maintain the posi- any such imminent peril as these two tion of neutrality that she sought as of our allies were, our attitude of seek- between Germany and Russia. Between ing safety first would have been World Wars I and II Polish leaders at- equally insistent. Thus Russia may tempted to avoid the dilemma and to have been far too peremptory in her walk a tightrope. Not a democracy, decision about the Polish boundary. Yet Poland's great landlords, who domi- if we thought the approaches to the nated the country, feared the east Panama Canal were threatened we rather than the west, The Polish Pact should take whatever prompt action of 1934 with Germany was far more we thought essential. We are, and not significant than a similar one with unnaturally, most intolerant of any- Russia, for the arrangement assured body butting into what we feel are our Hitler that on his all-important eastern affairs. front he would not have an unfriendly neighbor, and that his task of isolat- ing Russia from France and England would be accomplished.