Tuesday, 19 December

Fine, sunny and cold

At 10.30 a.m. I went to A.M. Gerasimov’s studio for my portrait sitting.

At 4.00 in the afternoon I visited the Canadian Minister Wilgress. He was still pessimistic about the overall situation. He said as follows: 1) Though De Gaulle refused to recognise the Polish Committee of National Liberation as the government, he agreed to dispatch a representative to Lubin, which was just like the United States on one hand recognizing the Vichy Government, and on the other hand dispatching a representative to its government in North Africa. There are more than seven million Polish in the United States, who are anti-Soviet and support the exile government in London. This is also true for the Polish in Canada. There were eight Polish newspapers in Canada with only one supporting the Polish Committee of National Liberation, and this one was a renamed Communist newspaper. 3) He still thought that Churchill’s Great British Empire policy was outdated, and was pessimistic that both British and Soviet sides were moving towards power politics. He said from Churchill’s background one could say he would move this way. When Churchill was young he was a battlefield reporter at the time of the Boer War in North Africa, and this was the time when the expansion of Great British Empire was at its heyday. His grandfather the Duke of Marlborough and others were officials who gained their fame from expansionist policy. Therefore it is difficult for Churchill to change his mindset.

The Greek Ambassador, Politis, just happened to be at Wilgress’ place. We asked him about the situation in Greece. According to him, the Greek Government was originally against Britain giving too many weapons to guerrillas as it understood clearly that the level of the Greek people was not the same as in Britain. If they were given too many weapons, they would implement unlimited power in those areas that Germany could not control. Now that they have been ordered to return weapons and suffer the same as the common people, they are opposed to such an act. This time Greece’s liberation was not achieved by anyone. It was completely because the German army retreated and the British army there was only tiny, therefore the British army could not make them obey. As a matter of fact, the so-called Communist Party has only around 20% in Elas, and the quarrels are not for any political reason or any “ism”. Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou was once against authoritarianism and was away in exile for several years. Also he has been imprisoned by Germany and worked in the interior for a long time. He was only released several months ago. Therefore we cannot accuse him of being an anti-reactionary element and collaborator.