victory, it is most unlikely, if the Polish officers had been 
      murdered by Germans and not Russians, that the Germans would 
      have bothered to cover up their victims' graves with young trees. 
      In the second place, one of these young trees under examination 
      by a competent botanist would reveal beyond any possibility of 
      doubt whether it had last been transplanted in May 1940 or some 
      time subsequent to July 1941. Perhaps this test of Russian veracity 
      will presently be made.
 
      
 
 
17. The political background against which the events described 
      in paragraph 15 are viewed by Poles is by contrast a matter of 
      undisputed history, including as it does all the long story of 
      partitions, rebellions and repressions, the Russo-Polish war 
      of 1919-20, the mutual suspicions which this left behind it, 
      the unannounced invasion of Poland by Russia in September 1939, 
      the subsequent occupation of half Poland by Russia and the carrying 
      into captivity of some million and a half of its inhabitants. 
      More recently comes the virtual annexation of the occupied eastern 
      parts of Poland, the refusal of the Russian Government to recognise 
      as Polish citizens the inhabitants of the occupied districts, 
      the suppression of relief organisations for Poles in Russia and 
      the persecution of Poles refusing to change their own for Russian 
      nationality.
 
      Poles learned that, in addition to all these misfortunes, round 
      about 10,000 men of the best breeding stock in Poland had (according 
      to Russian accounts) been either dispersed and "lost" 
      somewhere in the Soviet Union or else abandoned to the advancing 
      German armies, or had (according to German accounts) been found 
      to have been murdered by the Russians, many of them naturally 
      concluded (though I do not here give it as my own conclusion) 
      that the Soviet Government's intention had been to destroy the 
      very foundations upon which their own Poland could be rebuilt. 
      This sinister political intention imputed by Poles to Russia 
      poisoned the wound and enhanced the sufferings of a nation alrea %dy 
      outraged and dismayed by the conduct of the Soviet Government. 
      Some Poles, remembering Lenin's attitude to the holocausts of 
      1917 and subsequent years, and probing the dark recesses of Stalin's 
      mind when he took (if take he did) the dreadful decision, compare 
      disciple with master. Lenin would have broken apart, the heads 
      of ten thousand Polish officers with the insouciance of a monkey 
      cracking walnuts. Did corpses pitching into a common grave with 
      the precision of machines coming off a production-belt similarly 
      satisfy a nature habituated to manipulate blood and lives with 
      uncompassionate detachment? Some at any rate so interpret Stalin's 
      mind. "These men are no use to us," they imagine him 
      as saying; " in fact they are a nuisance and a danger. Here 
      is an elite of talent, here is valour and a hostile purpose. 
      These stallions must not live to sire a whole herd of hostile 
      Christian thoroughbreds. Many of the brood-mares have already 
      been sold to Siberian peasants and the camel-pullers of Kazakstan. 
      Their foals and yearlings can be broken to Communist harness. 
      Rid me of this stud farm altogether and send all this turbulent 
      bloodstock to the knackers."
 
      
 
 
18. The men who were taken to Katyn are dead, and their death 
      is a very serious loss to Poland. Nevertheless, unless the Russians 
      are cleared of the presumption of guilt, the moral repercussions 
      in Poland, in the other occupied countries and in England of 
      the massacre of Polish officers may well have more enduring results 
      than the massacre itself; and this aspect of things, therefore, 
      deserves attention. As I have as yet seen no reliable reports 
      on public feeling in Poland and German-occupied Europe, my comments 
      will relate only to our own reaction to the uncovering of the 
      graves.
 
      
 
 
19. This despatch is not primarily concerned with the reaction 
      of the British public, press or Parliament, who are not in such 
      a good position as His Majesty's Government to form an opinion 
      as to what actually happened. We ourselves, on the other hand, 
      who have access to all the available information, though we can 
      draw no final conclusions on vital matters of fact, have a considerable 
      body of circumstantial evidence at our disposal, and I think 
      most of us are more than half convinced that a large number of 
      Polish officers were indeed murdered by the Russian authorities, 
      and that it is indeed their bodies (as well, maybe, as other 
      bodies) which have now been unearthed. This being so, I am impelled 
      to examine the effect on myself of the facts and allegations, 
      and to adjust my mind to the shocking probabilities of the case. 
      Since the Polish Government is in London and since the affair 
      has been handled directly by yourself and the Prime Minister 
      with General Sikorski and Count Raczvnski, it may seem redundant 
      for me to comment on it, as I should naturally do were the Polish 
      Government and I both abroad; but though all important conversations 
      have been between Ministers and the leaders of the Polish Govermnent, 
      my contacts have doubtless been more numerous than yours during 
      the last few weeks