The¹ newly appointed Polish Ambassador in London - M. Jerzy Michalowski - was a member of his country's delegation to the United Nations Organisation Conference in America when our request for admission thereto was declined.

He paid a courtesy visit here recently and told me that prior to the Meeting where our case was considered he had solicitously argued with Mr. Gromyko in support of our application. I asked the Ambassador if the Russian delegate gave him any reason for their attitude. He said it was most difficult to arrive at any understanding of the mind of the Russian Delegation or to find out the true inwardness of their position on anything. Mr. Gromyko was an extremely reserved character, and in conversation almost monosyllabic. The Ambassador gathered from him, however, that Russia felt that her prestige was adversely affected by a small country like ours declining to have diplomatic relations with her. Russia was now one of the greatest, if not the greatest, power in the world. They were a new factor in the history of our own time, having no part or lot in the Russia before World War No. 1, and he gathered that the Russians felt that our attitude was in the nature of an affront to their dignity.

Mr. Gromyko referred to our position during the war. When the Ambassador pointed out that Russia had agreed to Sweden's admission, Mr. Gromyko's rejoinder was that Sweden was in an extremely difficult situation because of the strategical importance of her geographical position. There had been considerable pressure put on her by Germany. There had been no such pressure on Ireland, and the Ambassador formed the impression that Mr. Gromyko thought that we had really been rather against the Allied Powers - a curious view for the representative of the country that had made a pact with Hitler.

On the Ambassador pointing out the inconsistency of the Russians in opposing our election after their Agreement at Potsdam, Mr. Gromyko said that if the matter rested with him he would probably have voted for our election, but he had, of course, to carry out his instructions from headquarters.

Mr. Gladwyn Jebb (Head of the Reconstruction Department of the British Foreign Office) who was Secretary to the United Nations Organisation at its inception, dined with me last night and said that he found the Russians extremely suspicious, and that Mr. Gromyko, rather raw and wholly inexperienced, was the most suspicious of them all.