Memos show U.S. helped cover up Soviet massacre

Col. Andrzej Kopacki, right, an assistant military attache with the Polish Embassy in Washington, attends an event on Capitol Hill to announce the release of information about the Katyn Forest massacre of Polish Army officers and others captured by the Soviets during their invasion of Poland during World War II, in Washington, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012. At left is W. J. Milan-Kamski of Easton, Md. / AP Photo

(AP) WARSAW, Poland - The American POWs sent secret coded messages to Washington with news of a Soviet atrocity: In 1943 they saw rows of corpses in an advanced state of decay in the Katyn forest, on the western edge of Russia, proof that the killers could not have been the Nazis who had only recently occupied the area.

The testimony about the infamous massacre of Polish officers might have lessened the tragic fate that befell Poland under the Soviets, some scholars believe. Instead, it mysteriously vanished into the heart of American power. The long-held suspicion is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't want to anger Josef Stalin, an ally whom the Americans were counting on to defeat Germany and Japan during World War II.

Documents released Monday and seen in advance by The Associated Press lend weight to the belief that suppression within the highest levels of the U.S. government helped cover up Soviet guilt in the killing of some 22,000 Polish officers and other prisoners in the Katyn forest and other locations in 1940.

The evidence is among about 1,000 pages of newly declassified documents that the United States National Archives released and is putting online. Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who helped lead a recent push for the release of the documents, called the effort's success Monday a "momentous occasion" in an attempt to "make history whole."

Historians who saw the material days before the official release describe it as important and shared some highlights with the AP. The most dramatic revelation so far is the evidence of the secret codes sent by the two American POWs - something historians were unaware of and which adds to evidence that the Roosevelt administration knew of the Soviet atrocity relatively early on.

The declassified documents also show the United States maintaining that it couldn't conclusively determine guilt until a Russian admission in 1990 - a statement that looks improbable given the huge body of evidence of Soviet guilt that had already emerged decades earlier. Historians say the new material helps to flesh out the story of what the U.S. knew and when.

In this May 1943 file photo, a group of American and British POWs being held by the Germans, including Lt. Col. John H. Van Vliet Jr. and Capt. Donald B. Stewart, look over a mass grave where murdered Polish officers are buried, near Smolensk, Russia.

/ AP Photo/File

The Soviet secret police killed the 22,000 Poles with shots to the back of the head. Their aim was to eliminate a military and intellectual elite that would have put up stiff resistance to Soviet control. The men were among Poland's most accomplished - officers and reserve officers who in their civilian lives worked as doctors, lawyers, teachers, or as other professionals. Their loss has proven an enduring wound to the Polish nation.

In the early years after the war, outrage by some American officials over the concealment inspired the creation of a special U.S. Congressional committee to investigate Katyn.

In a final report released in 1952, the committee declared there was no doubt of Soviet guilt, and called the massacre "one of the most barbarous international crimes in world history." It found that Roosevelt's administration suppressed public knowledge of the crime, but said it was out of military necessity. It also recommended the government bring charges against the Soviets at an international tribunal - something never acted upon.

Despite the committee's strong conclusions, the White House maintained its silence on Katyn for decades, showing an unwillingness to focus on an issue that would have added to political tensions with the Soviets during the Cold War.

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[BsPoppy]

The Soviet Union, Russia still Satans hand maiden.

[Rafterman11]

Covering up or not covering up the Soviet role in the Katyn forest massacre had nothing to do with the eventual fate of Poland. Poland was deep in the Soviet zone of influence and Stalin was determined to keep Poland under their control as a buffer against Germany in the future. Despite playing along to the contrary, the Polish "London" government was never going to be accepted as the legitimate Polish government and Stalin had charmed Roosevelt into thinking FDR had some influence with him. Churchill knew better, but by then had been relegated to the "junior" partner by Soviet and American power.

In the end, But both realized that it was impossible to save Poland due to Soviet power. Going to war with the Soviet Union after the defeat of Germany was out of the question and in the end, Poland had become a fait accompli. Ironically the main goal of the Second World War was the Anglo-French guarantee to Poland. It was the one thing that was never accomplished, Poland simply got a new master.

More disturbing was the Soviet Union standing by just outside the gates of Warsaw and not doing anything while the Polish uprising in 1944 had gotten underway, in the hopes that it would eliminate the last supporters of the Polish "London" government in Warsaw. Katyn is just a tragic footnote.

[ToolMangler1]

I agree Raft! 2 of my Uncles came home from the war in Europe in '45 and showed me pictures of what they had seen at Buchenwald, Treblinka and other things. We would talk for hours about different things they saw, but they rarely talked about the Death Camps they liberated and only showed me the pictures of the barracks full of 'skin & bones' people and the ovens with some bodies in them. I learned why I should not trust Communism or any other form of Government other than a fully "DEMOCRATIC" form of government to run America...

[fredm6900]

Simply unacceptable to a nation that pretends to be what the USA pretends to be. To accept atrocities like that choosing not to act upon is to be accomplice of a crime against humanity. There are no excuses for that.

[nancy_naive]

keyword: pretend

[enlightenu]

It was more important to win the war, and we couldn't do it without the Russians.

[HM8432]

I think we would all be shocked if we discovered everything that FDR really knew about!

[MrCuriosity]

Next to nothing new here. The US and England had unimpeacable evidence of the massacre by 1943 but didn't want to challenge the USSR, by then an ally. So they chose to ignore what they knew and sold the Poles down the river. Shameful!