[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

Inside the Chaos: Paid Rioters, Fake News & The 2025 Shift Ft. Brandon Tatum

What the Media IsnÂ’t Telling You About IsraelÂ’s Strike on Iran (VIDEO)

'No Kings' Terror? Fake Cop Assassinates Minnesota Democrat Who Blocked Health Care for Illegals

Peter Thiel’s Insane Doomsday Escape Plan

Nigel Farage warns riots will sweep Britain due to decades-long failure to control immigration

School board trains staff that the term family is harmful, racist

Fort Wayne joins in on nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests, honoring veterans and giving back

More than a human can bear

Top Doctor Blows Whistle: Hospitals Boosted Covid Deaths by Euthanizing Patients

The U.S. will very likely fight a 3-front war against Russia, China and Iran, Palantir's Alex Karp says

Middle East War: Next Steps For Israel And Will Iran Blockade The Straits Of Hormuz

Ford forced to shutter factories amid worrying parts shortages: 'Hand-to-mouth right now'

7 Issues On The G7 Agenda: The Big Topics Albanese And Trump Could Discuss

Dark-Money Network Funneled Millions Into 'No Kings' Nationwide Color Revolution Operation

House Republicans Probe China-Based Billionaire Allegedly Bankrolling Anti-ICE Riots

Did Iranian ballistic missiles hit the Dimona nuclear reactor.

Rep. Green Letter to DoD IG Demands Answers On K2 Base Toxins

“Israel is DESTROYING itself by attacking IRAN and millions could die” Col. Douglas Macgregor

How Boeing 787 Whistleblower's Disaster Warning Was Ignored |

Israel Says Another Missile Barrage Launched From Iran Overnight, Casualties Rise

2025 Annotated Bilderberg Members List

Major Iranian Missile Impacts On Israel; IAEA Warns Radioactive Contamination Observed At Natanz

Israeli Strikes On Iran Ongoing Through Friday As Death Toll Surpasses 100

From Torah to trauma: A Satanic child abuse scandal blows up in Israel

MAGA Influencer Calls to Deploy Palantir on LA Streets

Egypt detains nearly 200 foreigners who flew in to join Gaza march

FLASHBACK - How Mayor Daley dealt with looters!

Scammers Use AI Bots to Impersonate Students, Stealing Millions in Financial Aid

Bilderberg 2025 begins. Global elites gather in Stockholm. AI, migration, and national security dominate

I Wish We All Could Leave California (Beach Boys Parody)


History
See other History Articles

Title: AP Exclusive: Memos show US hushed up Soviet crime
Source: Yahoo! News/AP
URL Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive- ... ed-soviet-crime-132109652.html
Published: Sep 10, 2012
Author: RANDY HERSCHAFT and VANESSA GERA
Post Date: 2012-09-13 16:38:14 by X-15
Keywords: None
Views: 139
Comments: 1

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — 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.

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.

The historical record carries other evidence Roosevelt knew in 1943 of Soviet guilt. One of the most important messages that landed on FDR's desk was an extensive and detailed report British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent him. Written by the British ambassador to the Polish government-in-exile in London, Owen O'Malley, it pointed to Soviet guilt at Katyn.

"There is now available a good deal of negative evidence," O'Malley wrote, "the cumulative effect of which is to throw serious doubt on Russian disclaimers of responsibility for the massacre."

It wasn't until the waning days of Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe that reformist leader Mikhail Gorbachev publicly admitted to Soviet guilt at Katyn, a key step in Polish-Russian reconciliation.

The silence by the U.S. government has been a source of deep frustration for many Polish-Americans. One is Franciszek Herzog, 81, a Connecticut man whose father and uncle died in the massacre. After Gorbachev's 1990 admission, he was hoping for more openness from the U.S. as well and made three attempts to obtain an apology from President George H.W. Bush.

"It will not resurrect the men," he wrote to Bush. "But will give moral satisfaction to the widows and orphans of the victims."

Click for Full Text!


Poster Comment:

Holocaust?? Or just an "incident" with no "reparations" to the survivors' families???

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: X-15 (#0)

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,

The Soviets massacred Polish Officers in the Katyn Forest and blamed it on the Germans. The Germans called in the Western media to expose the crime.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke

BTP Holdings  posted on  2012-09-13   16:46:00 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest


[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]