Immediately after the arrest of all the leaders, the Polish government in exile sent a protest note to Washington and London demanding their release. At first the Soviets declared that the whole case was a bluff by the "Fascist Polish government". When they finally admitted that the leaders had been arrested (on 5 May), the American envoy of Harry S. Truman, Harry Lloyd Hopkins, was told by Joseph Stalin that "there is no point in linking the case of the Trial of the Sixteen with the support for the Soviet-backed government of Poland because the sentences will not be high." Both British and American governments shared this view.